Today we’d like to introduce you to John Sizemore, Preston Howell and Claire Howell.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
John Sizemore: I grew up on a farm in Northeastern Oklahoma. Farming and raising livestock has been in my family for generations, but I’m a first generation urban farmer. I’m really a displaced country boy in Dallas, but it’s given me the opportunity to help close the gap between the soil and the city.
Preston Howell: Balcony Box is the brainchild of Quincy and John, who had been working together at Bonton Farm’s South Dallas extension. They both believe in the power of agriculture to change communities, and regularly heard people visiting and volunteering at the farm say things like ‘I wish I could grow food like this!’ or ‘Could you teach me to do this?’. This led to the Balcony Box idea: a means of training and empowering communities to grow their own food. They had an idea and an alpha customer, but weren’t sure how to make it happen. That’s where Claire and I came into the picture.
We’ve been growing on our Balcony since getting married in January 2017. What started as a single hanging planter so we could have a couple herbs gradually grew into a hanging planter, 7 Balcony Boxes that are varying sizes, countless additional pots, and a custom drip watering system. Today we are growing Tomatoes, Peppers, Cucumber, Eggplant, Herbs, and Flowers on our balcony and external apartment stairwell. Since we joined the team, the story has been about learning how to sell and how to operate a business. We have sold the majority of our boxes at in-person events like the farmers market and Juneteenth FTW celebration, and we are starting to ramp up our online sales platform via social media advertising.
Claire: I have always been very interested in anything environment-related. I started with a rock collection pretty much from when I could walk which has evolved to a much larger rock collection to this day and wider interest in the environment as an adult. My passion for gardening really blossomed out of a focus on sustainability and stewardship of our resources which I firmly believe is a duty that each of us has to our community because whether or not we do that determines if the present-day people who are marginalized, as well as future generations, will have a safe place to live.
I realized that if I could grow some of my own food, I could limit some of my participation in some of the flaws in our food system including harmful farming practices (such as monocultures, widespread use of pesticides, GMO’s), human rights violations as a result of poor regulation, pollution from food transportation, etc. I knew that I would also be contributing to greening-up Dallas and providing nourishment for local insects and other wildlife, as well as giving me a reason to move and be outside more which has benefited my mental health significantly.
What started as box on our railing with 3 herbs morphed into our present ‘balcony farm’ where we grow a wide range of herbs, vegetables, and native wildflowers. Having fallen in love with balcony gardening, it was a very natural transition to jump on board with our team at Balcony Box with the mission of spreading this passion across the city. There are six of us on the Balcony Box team – Jessy, Quincy, John, Soluto, Preston, and me – and it has been so fun to work together with our different strengths and bring this vision to life.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
John: Rougher than some but smoother than most. Identity has probably been my biggest struggle. I never feel like I fit anywhere. I didn’t really fit in the little rural community I grew up in, I sometimes don’t feel like I fit in Dallas, and there are a 100 places in between where I haven’t fit. I’ve learned that I’m not alone in feeling that. In a city like Dallas, there are misfits everywhere you look, so we can all kind of not fit together.
Preston: As with most startup stories, I think ours is one with lots of ups and downs. Our biggest two challenges have been related to learning to sell something like this and determining how we structure the business optimally amongst the 6 partners.
Learning to sell: one of the reasons we started Balcony Box is that we want people to realize how easy gardening can be, and we are able to make it even easier via providing everything they need to get started. But the ease of access to gardening prevents a barrier in our sales process – people aren’t immediately inclined to spend the money on something they know they could figure out themselves. We’ve found that we are a perfect fit for urban dwellers who have been thinking about starting a garden but don’t quite know where to start. We can walk alongside these people, teaching them the ways of gardening, and hopefully setting them up to grow and expand their garden like Claire and I have.
Business structure: we are a group of 6 diverse people that bring different talents, availability, and desires to the business. We’ve checked in regularly to ensure that the business is heading in a direction that everyone is happy with, but there are still some challenging things to sort through. How do we balance the desire to begin making money from the business quickly with the reality that we all have other commitments preventing us from having this as a full-time job? How do we keep all 6 founders involved in key decisions while still feeling that we have the autonomy to make calls on things for the good of the business?
Claire: There have definitely been challenges! Practically, gardening in North Texas isn’t easy, especially when you start trying to do it in containers, because it is so hot and dry. We have lost our fair share of plants while we experiment which is always disappointing. However, that has been part of the fun of it – trying to find creative ways to grow that make the process a little easier! I feel like working with plants has been teaching me how to be a better entrepreneur – things are not predictable, just like living plants. You have to be flexible and willing to try different things from a variety of angles and realize that there may not always be repeatability in what works. That is counter to my personality, so I have been grateful to work with plants and such a great team to remind me of these things. So much can be learned from trials if we are willing to reframe them.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Balcony Box?
John: Balcony Box is all about sowing self sufficiency. Self sufficiency doesn’t have to mean living off the grid and surviving off the land. It’s really surprising how self sufficient a person can feel when they just plant a basil plant, water it, and harvest a few leaves to throw in some pasta. It’s really amazing how that feels the first time. We provide coaching, content, and physical materials to help people start growing their own food so that they can share in the feeling of self sufficiency that was cultivated in me on the farm where I grew up. We are different from other businesses like us because our goal is for people to get to a point where they don’t need us anymore. It’s our hope that our members will become urban farmers for life, and masters at it.
Preston: Our goal is to set our members up to one day transition from growing in Balcony Boxes to growing in the ground. All the principles we teach our members are created with that mindset – we want to create gardeners for life. We believe in the power of growing food to change people’s lives and their surrounding community. We’ve each experienced this – there is something calming and refreshing about spending time with your hands in the dirt, and great power in the self sufficiency to know that you can produce some of your own food (even if it’s just a small amount)!
We are initially doing this via herbs grown in Balcony Boxes, but have dreams to do this via larger personal gardens, community gardens, and produce sharing programs. We highly value diversity, and you’ll see that reflected in every aspect of our organization. Our team is intentionally diverse, we partner with businesses in North and South Dallas, and we pursue opportunities to sell our boxes across all people groups in the DFW metroplex.
Claire: Balcony Box is our way of teaching DFW people how to grow their own food in small spaces in urban settings using planter boxes, and the hope is that our members catch the gardening bug and that their time with Balcony Box is a launching pad for a lifetime of growing their own food and broader self-sufficiency. We try to do everything we can at Balcony Box to set people up well for growing at a larger scale and even in the ground one day.
Because Balcony Box was born out of a passion to adjust the food system and ‘right some wrongs’ that we see, we are very committed to ethical sourcing of our products. We source sustainably and choose from local and minority-owned businesses whenever possible – even if that means paying a little more. We are a diverse team ourselves, and we want to support others in this space, too. It has been really fun and fulfilling to get to create a company that builds up the community – both the people and the environment.
What matters most to you?
John: Authenticity. We are all in process. At Balcony Box we don’t pretend to know all there is to know. We are simply further down the road than some when it comes to urban food production and we want to help those people get started down the same road we are on because it’s really an amazing road.
Preston: Most important are the relationships we are building via Balcony Box. Relationships with customers: it has been such a joy to work events with Balcony Box and meet people who we now get to call our customers. We cherish these customers who have trusted us on their gardening journey! Relationships with like-minded organizations across Dallas: through Balcony Box we have been able to connect with for profit and nonprofit organizations that are trying to make our city a more environment-conscious city. It gets me so excited to see how many people in DFW are passionate about sustainability, diversity, and growing food! Relationships with business partners: I started this business with friends and don’t want to sacrifice the friendships for the success of the business.
Claire: I am really passionate about having healthy relationships with others and the environment. We have an opportunity with each action to perpetuate good or harm in this arena. Even where we shop has great implications for these relationships with our community. I am so grateful to be part of a company that seeks to perpetuate good, starting from our raw products to our engagement with our customers to where we do business and beyond.
Pricing:
- Box + Membership $150 up front, $25 every 3 months
- Cedar Box $125
- Reclaimed Wood Box $75
Contact Info:
- Email: info@balcony-box.com
- Website: www.balcony-box.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/balconybox/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BalconyBoxDallas
