Homegrown businesses help backyard gardeners

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Adam de Havenos didn't know much about gardening when he moved to Utah from New York City, but it seemed a shame to let the small plot in the backyard of his Sugar House dwelling become weed infested.

The 31-year-old neurology resident didn't have much time to spare, so this summer he hired a company to plant and care for his 5-by-10-foot garden. These days when de Havenos gets home from his job at the University of Utah Hospital, he finds a basket of harvested vegetables on his doorstep.

"It's amazing how much is coming from that little plot," he said. "It feeds me and a lot of other residents here."

Jessica Durham, a partner with D&L Urban Farms, did all the gardening and harvesting. She even made up a batch of pesto for de Havenos, using basil she picked from his garden. The price for all her work is $30 to $35 an hour.

The rising popularity of urban and community gardens has given birth to a variety of niche businesses such as D&L, from firms that specialize in making fine furniture but also build chicken coops on the side to beekeeping enterprises such as Annette and Aaron Hansen's Hansen Hives, one of five such operations in Salt Lake County that manage backyard hives or provide consulting services to hobbyists who want to start their own colonies.

"We've seen a big resurgence in people wanting to grow their own food," said Claire Uno, executive director of Wasatch Community Gardens. "The economy has something to do with it, but there's more of an awareness of the environmental movement. It used to be a fringe thing but now people want to lessen their carbon footprint."

The cost-saving aspects drew Laura Arneson. She couldn't afford D&L's full-service package, so she opted for help with two 3-by-12-foot raised beds in the backyard of her Avenues home. Cost for eight hours of consulting, materials, soil and seeds was $400 -- about what she normally paid for vegetables from a farmer's cooperative.

For her part, Kira Dominguez-Hultgren wanted to be more self-sufficient. But she wasn't sure how to turn the grassy backyard at her home in Sugar House into an urban garden. She learned that she would have to invest a lot of time, but rather than immediately ripping up her lawn, she used grass clippings -- instead of chemicals -- to enrich her soil. She also decided to keep an old Hawthorne tree after learning that the berries make fine jelly, along with helping feed the birds.

"Instead of seeing things as strictly aesthetic, we started to think in terms of turning our yard into a food source for us and other living things," she said. "Perhaps it's cheaper to buy produce or prepackaged foods shipped from far away into Wal-Mart, but we thought more about the health of our family and teaching our children to take care of what they have."

The family now grows some fruits, all of its vegetables and herbs, and most of the feed eaten by five chickens that "free roam in our perennial food forest garden," said Dominguez-Hultgren. "All thanks to Jacob Hansen's guidance."

The cost of three consultations with Hansen of Wasatch Woodsgrown, from drawing plans to follow-up services, totaled $50.

Entrepreneurs who offer their services often shun traditional chemical fertilizers and pesticides, focus instead on natural gardening methods that preserve the environment, provide habitat for birds and beneficial insects, and that yield food for homeowners.

Hansen offers courses on the principles of permaculture, a recycling gardening method that mimics natural ecologies. He also focuses on shaping landscapes to take advantage of rainwater harvesting.

"Rainwater harvesting isn't using a cistern, it's about using the topography to the best advantage," he said. "It starts with healthy soil, which doesn't need as much water. And, the water you use doesn't drain away."

Some traditional businesses have been expanded their offering to cater to urban gardens.

When Chris Gleason, who makes fine furniture at Gleason Wookworking Studio, began raising chickens five years ago, he found himself giving advice to friends on building coops. Now he builds and sells them to urban "farmers" seeking a cheap source of eggs. His materials are scraps from his Salt Lake studio. Prices range from $250 to $300.

"It's a funny little offshoot of my business, but I see it expanding," said Gleason, who won the DesignArts Utah 2004 award for furniture design and is featured in two Popular Woodworking books. "Everything for the coops is 100 percent recycled, stuff that doesn't go to the landfill, plus what's more local than raising your own food. This isn't just a product, it's something I believe in."

Artist Andrea Heidinger, whose works include a giant desert tortoise sculpture at Wasatch Elementary School in the Avenues, also builds garden fences, bean trellises and tomato cages.

Big companies also are reaching out to backyard gardeners.

Behunin Landscaping, a Taylorsville company that strung the first holiday lights at Temple Square and more recently at EnergySolutions Arena, has established a nonprofit educational arm. Owners Benjamin Behunin and his sons have regularly attended the Tuesday farmer's market at Pioneer Craft House in South Salt Lake to answer gardening questions.

"I remember when just about everybody had a garden," said Behunin. "Nowadays, people need help in getting started."

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