Vego Garden Sustainability

Where It All Began

Here at Vego Garden, sustainability is at the core of everything we do. We want to be as transparent as possible with our customers about the ways we are working towards our sustainability goals. With your help we’ve accomplished a lot for our earth so far, but our work continues as we make improvements to our practices and design new products. As we grow, we want to remain forthright about the impact our products have, our practices, and the ways we are working to be more sustainable as a company. Your customer feedback has been instrumental in helping us find ways to improve, and together, we can grow a greener future.

How It’s Going

The average mature fir tree used to make the lumber so common in Vego garden beds takes roughly 60 years to grow to that size, and produces only about 750 board feet of lumber. By choosing to build your garden beds with recyclable, long lasting metal instead of using wood that must be replaced frequently, you are helping preserve the 20,000 species of trees that are expected to become extinct in the next 25 years due to deforestation. We continue to improve and refine the metal that we use to further extend its life 20 years and beyond.

Hügelkultur is a gardening method of German origin, and one we recommend to fill your raised garden beds. Not only does it create an ideal ecosystem within the bed for your plants (and earth’s microorganisms) to thrive, but it also serves to convert yard waste that would otherwise end up in a landfill into functional, nutritious compost for your garden. It doesn’t hurt that it saves a pretty penny, too. You can find more hügelkultur resources here!

Vego Garden Sustainability nutritious worm castings

Of America’s nearly 300 millions tons of yearly waste, only about 32% is composted or recycled, according to the EPA. So, how can we help increase the amount of waste converted by making composting easier? The answer, it turns out, is worms. Vermicomposting, or using worms to break down food waste into compost, converts food waste much faster than traditional methods, in only 2 - 3 months. By designing the worm composter to fit seamlessly into our garden beds, food waste is easily disposed of, and nutritious worm castings are ready to spread right into your garden.

Improvements We Are Cultivating

We are profoundly lucky to have customers who care as much as we do about sustainability, and who provide us with so much inspiration and ways to improve. We want to keep you up to date on the projects underway here at Vego Garden to further lessen our footprint on the planet.In pursuit of our own sustainability goals as well as your own feedback, we are currently testing ways to eliminate the protective plastic film from our panels, without jeopardizing quality. Currently the film functions to protect the panels from damage during manufacturing and shipping. During 2021 we worked hard to innovate and test solutions, and hope to release updated packaging without plastic film in 2022.Meanwhile, as the plastic film gets worked out, our product packaging is getting an earth-friendly update, too. In 2022 we will begin phasing out our old packaging, and make the switch to eco-conscious brown boxes. The use of less dyes, inks, and paints will help reduce the overall footprint of our products.

Finally, we continue to seek opportunities to optimize the sustainability of our manufacturing locations. Currently we are working to gradually shift our manufacturing closer to us, here in Houston, Texas, so that we can have direct access to our products during manufacturing, further reduce the overall carbon footprint of our products, and decrease the possibility of stocking issues due to international shipping delays. Because we are committed to the goal of decreasing our carbon footprint, this shift also necessitates a steady supply of American steel that passes our strict QC standards.

Much like gardening, sustainability can sometimes be incredibly complex, and involves a lot of moving parts. But rest assured that we are committed to doing it right. Be sure to check in from time to time, as we will continue to keep our gardeners updated on our progress here on this page. In the meantime, let’s grow a greener future together.

- Vego Garden