Yogurt and cheese make Chuck Alex’s life fulfilling.
The founder of Veggie Growers, now called the Urban Store, makes the products himself. He said the store moves people toward self-reliance.
“Gardening, composting, catching rainwater, making yogurt and cheese, all make my life much more rich,” Alex said.
The Urban Store will have its grand opening Saturday and Sunday and features small presentations on urban chicken keeping, guerrilla gardening and LED lighting, to name a few.
For about five years, the store was known as Veggie Growers, until December when renovations began.
Alex added a business partner, Kathy Isaacson, and they decided to expand the store in square feet and products.
“Veggie Growers was as much a store as it was a workshop,” Alex said. “It was dirty and dusty, and in some ways, that was fine for a garden shop. But the vision for Urban Store is that it would not only have more products and services, but that it would be a beautiful and inviting space.”
During renovation, the shop knocked down the wall for the neighboring unit and took advantage of more space by adding a couch, coffee tables and book shelf.
Alex also carries yogurt-and-cheese-making kits that students could easily use.
“You can make yogurt at home, or even in a dorm room,” Alex said. “You can do it for a relatively little bit of money, and small amount of space.”
Alex’s gardening experience reaches beyond Nob Hill. The New Mexico Alliance for Children is using Alex’s four-season garden box as the model for children in the state’s Boys and Girls Club.
Julia Price, the alliance’s director of education, said Alex made gardening easier and more interesting for children. She said the alliance has 12 garden sites throughout New Mexico.
“I think children are much more likely to be willing to taste something they’ve grown themselves,” Price said. “And it helps them to understand the whole plant-food connection and to have better associations with natural foods.”
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Alex’s expanding store will bring other facets of gardening to children who already enjoy it, Price said.
“I would love to get the full gardening experience where there is a rainwater catchment system setup and a composting area,” she said. “We really would love to have children learning all of that so that they understand it’s more than just putting the plants in the ground.”
Alex said the store is a space where people can buy items, such as rain barrels, but also attend workshops and get information through talking to staffers.
“The philosophy is that we’re not trying to get everybody to be 100 percent self-sustainable, off-the-grid,” he said. “We want to help anybody and everybody who’s interested in taking one small step towards sustainable.”
