A reason to visit

For the past several years, we’ve covered edibles in a number of ways. We picked about a dozen experts’ brains about the popularity of berries and emerging trends. Chef Jonathan Bardzik dished out some excellent tips for hosting cooking classes at garden centers to teach consumers how to use the vegetables and fruits they buy and plant. Hoen’s Garden Center & Landscaping in Holland, Ohio, in addition to offering more than 100 herb varieties, some rare and unusual, makes cooking with fresh produce at home simple for customers by creating packages of mixed herbs and veggies, such as its Mexican salsa garden.

This month, Editor-in-Chief Karen Varga shares the story of Greenbrier Nurseries, a grower-retailer based in Virginia and West Virginia that has had incredible success with new revenue streams to sell edibles, especially its community-supported agriculture (CSA) program. Greenbrier developed a 22-week CSA two years ago that spans a portion of the slowest season — from Nov. 1 through late February — that attracted a whopping 400 people in 2015 and brought in $200,000 of revenue.

Greenbrier Owner Jim Monroe says that there are opportunities for garden centers to capitalize on empty retail and growing spaces during slower times and run similar programs, utilizing space that often remains vacant.

Monroe shares details about how he’s made the program successful and gives suggestions (and cautionary tales) for grower-retailers who want to establish a CSA in their own communities on page 12. Another bustling offering at the business has been its Thursday and Saturday farmers market for people who want to select and literally pick their own produce instead of getting pre-selected food through the CSA. Sometimes it’s not enough to simply offer fresh, locally-grown edibles, which Greenbrier does. The grower-retailer takes it one step further, offering education, an experience, opportunities for the community to gather and most importantly, giving customers a reason to walk through the door when they aren’t in their gardens.

Michelle Simakis

msimakis@gie.net