Ready To Grow Your Business?
Tainted Vegetables
Financial Hardship
Soaring Food Prices
Regional Drought
Global Warming
These are just a few of the many reasons why the home vegetable garden is making a comeback in a big way. If you own a small nursery or garden shop, the PGTA can help you grow your business, all year long, while significantly minimizing seasonal sales fluctuations.
Sales of vegetable seeds and plants are up by 40 percent over last year, an unheard of one year growth rate for any segment of the $40 billion annual lawn and garden market. Why? Because the rise in energy prices is not only affecting fuel prices, but virtually every consumer product including food. Obviously, one of the easiest ways to provide a hedge against rising food prices is to grow your own.
Of course, other factors are driving this growth, including contaminated vegetables, concern for the environment, and supplementing the family income.
The Progressive Gardening Trade Association has been on the forefront of these issues for over a decade, providing information on progressive home gardening techniques that include organics, hydroponics, drip irrigation, container and other eco-friendly, water-wise plant growth and food production solutions.
Why the PGTA?
One of the most prevalent impediments to the successful application of progressive gardening technologies is the lack of accurate and reliable information available to the consumer.
Low paid employees at big box stores and discount centers generally don't have the expertise nor experience necessary to successfully guide the customer.
The PGTA provides the help you need to successfully help your customers grow healthy food, aromatic herbs, and fantastic flowers, right in their homes or yards, with methods that are safe, responsible and eco-friendly.
For more information on how the PGTA can benefit your business and community, see our membership information page.
Education
The Progressive Gardening Trade Association works with many organizations to further the use of progressive gardening techniques in classrooms of all grade levels. For the past several years, we have worked in conjunction with the National Gardening Association, The Grow Store in Colorado and numerous product manufacturers to provide indoor hydroponic gardening grant packages to elementary, middle and high schools.
These packages provide eligible schools with the equipment and expertise that encourage students to explore how plants grow in hydroponics, without soil, which provides real world experience for subjects including biology, mathematics, science, and many others. We hope that you will encourage your customers to make their childrens schools aware of this exciting program and offer them the opportunity to participate.
We are excited to announce that we will be revamping the entire Hooked On Hydroponics Grant Program for future years. Please stay tuned for more details!
We are also excited to announce the formation of the Professional Hydroponics Education Council (PHEC), which will bring standardized curriculum and certification programs to those interested in higher education programs emerging as a result of the emerging Hydroponics and Environmentally Controlled Agriculture (HECA) industries. Again, check back for further details.
2010 Annual Media Awards Program
The PGTA is pleased to announce the winners of the 2010 Annual Media Awards Program. The purpose of the program is to recognize member efforts to create superior advertising, writing, websites and other projects and materials aimed at promoting the image and encouraging the use of earth-friendly, water-wise and organic gardening principles.
Click here for the 2010 PGTA Media Awards winners as well the winning entries from 2008 and 2009!
2010 Annual Meeting News
The 2010 PGTA Annual Meeting and Eco-Product Showcase was held on April 10th and 11th, 2010, with pre- and post-convention activities on the 9th and 12th respectively, at the Hyatt Regency in beautiful San Antonio, Texas!
Awesome presentations were given by our featured speakers including Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle, Inc. and Bevan Suits, founder of the Sustainable Design Group, a multidisciplined team covering design, engineering, communication, science and construction, with a focus on aquaponics. Bevan Suits is an industrial designer, writer and video producer with nearly 25 years of exploration of sustainable concepts.
PGTA Hydroponic Food Garden Tour
The Progressive Gardening Trade Association, in cooperation with member sponsors including American Hydroponics, Botanicare, General Hydroponics, Grodan, Hydrofarm, National Garden Wholesale, Nature's Control, Nickel City Wholesale Garden Supply, Progress Earth, Spray-N-Grow, Sunleaves, and The Grow Store, produced an outstanding Hydroponic Food Garden Tour for members of the Garden Writers Association as part of the GWA 2009 Annual Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Held on Sunday, September 27th, 2009, volunteers from member companies converged on PGTA Board Member Peyam Barghassa's (Grodan) suburban home just south of Raleigh where the tour was held. Over 40 garden writers from publications including Organic Gardening, Southern Living, Garden Design magazines, plus organizations including the U.S. National Arboretum, Burpee & Co. and many others were treated to a naturally prepared lunch followed by a multi-part hydroponic food tour that included stops in the kitchen garden, hobby greenhouse, outdoor hydroponics, soilless raised beds and more.
See more pictures of this exciting event on our Facebook page.
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