Building a Sustainable Future: Michelle Roberts’ Innovative Approach to Agriculture

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women In Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women In Motion, we have Michelle Roberts with Roberts Ranch and Garden. Welcome.

Michelle Roberts: Thank you. I’m going to enjoy this.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Roberts Ranch and Garden. How are you serving folks?

Michelle Roberts: Well, about 15 years ago – well, when was 2008 when everything crashed? – we were in the midst of hard times. And I have seven acres here and I thought, “Well, okay. I am a master gardener. We can do this.” Because I had a lot of children and they were teenagers and they needed a job, but we’re rural and I wasn’t going to be a chauffeur, so I said we are going to create a CSA farm, and that is Community Supported Agriculture, and it was just barely beginning at that time.

Michelle Roberts: And so, in order to do that, I needed to start my own starts. So, I designed and built a little hoop house, which is just steel and plastic structure that is a Quonset style. You see them all over the nurseries and the garden centers. And so, I built this little 20 by 24 hoop house, and we started thousands of starts in that hoop house, and we planted them out in our garden and I cultivated as much as I could. We sold shares in the produce and it got us through those hard times.

Michelle Roberts: We supported three different farmers markets every week with all the extra produce that we had. And we were also working with the NRCS in sustainable ranching because we had some cattle. And they were over visiting one day and looking at our grasses and stuff, and they saw my little hoop house and said, “Oh. The NRCS is giving grants for those next year.” And I said, “Oh, great. Next year. I just built it.” And so, we worked with them now and then throughout that year.

Michelle Roberts: And I happened to say to them, “Hey, if anyone wants us to build their hoop house, we can do that,” and I sort of sent some literature out that way to them. And lo and behold, they gave us a call and some of the people who they were granting all of this money to, to build hoop houses in their backyards, or if they were commercial, whatever they were, they had to apply, they reached out to us and we began building hoop houses for the grantees of this program and others.

Michelle Roberts: And so, that kind of started taking off. And I actually went and got grants myself. I have 280 footers. And so, it really helped with my CSA farm and everything that we were doing to have those, because it extends the season, the growing season and does a lot of other things too. So, that is how we kind of got started.

Michelle Roberts: And in 2015, I had a son graduate as a mechanical engineer, and I just felt like it’s time for me to step out, maybe he would like to do this. And so, he did want to and we did a DBA and we named it Roberts Ranch Hoophouses. And that has just taken off. And I still work with him in that business, and it’s just been amazing. And now I have created a little 8 by 10 because I feel like food sustainability is just so important. And I want people to be able to grow in their backyards, on their porch, on the rooftop, wherever they can so that we can be in charge of what goes into the food we eat.

Lee Kantor: Now, I am not a gardener. I don’t know anything about gardening. And can you explain a couple of things to me so I kind of can better understand everything? You’re talking about a hoop house, how is that different than, like, a greenhouse?

Michelle Roberts: That is a very good question. Greenhouses are typically in concrete and partially walled, especially the lower parts, and it’s more like a house. It’s a framed-like building. And most of them have glass panes or polycarbonate sheeting. And ours is just a steel galvanized steel hoop, and some of them are just half circles, and then they’re covered with plastic, and the end walls can be plastic or they can be solid, but most of them are plastic. And if you’ve ever been to a big nursery, you’ll probably see lots of hoop houses.

Michelle Roberts: The other thing that we built and designed just a few years ago was a Gothic style, which out here where we are in Utah, allows for the shedding of snow so it doesn’t build on the top and cave the hoop house in. So, we recommend the Gothic style and it is very excellent for this area and it’s a very pleasing, appealing shape. It really is attractive.

Lee Kantor: And then, you mentioned starts, what is that? Like kind of when you just plant seeds or the beginning, you know?

Michelle Roberts: Yes. Yes, yes. We plant thousands. We use just thousands. We have soil blocks that we make ourselves just a way of doing things so that it was more natural and just massive scale. You know, we could just plant up a lot and take care of it. And then, we transplant them into our big hoop houses from that little one.

Lee Kantor: So, each hoop house has kind of a specialty?

Michelle Roberts: Not really. I do practice crop rotation within the hoop houses, because monoculture isn’t the best thing for your soils, and we really depend on our soils to feed our plants. So, I’m always rotating whatever’s going on in there and everything is going on in there all the time. But we grow year round, so it’s always in production. I have two. The south high tunnel, I do shut down in the winter time. But the north one goes all year round, and we eat from that year round.

Lee Kantor: So, now, who is the typical buyer of one of these hoop houses? Are they individuals that just say I want to eat healthy for my family? Or is it more organizations that have more kind of commercial farms?

Michelle Roberts: It used to be when we very first started, it was just all these people who had applied to the NRCS for a grant, and that is how we got started. We didn’t advertise for years. In fact, last year was the first year we ever advertised at all. And it exploded our business. It was three times the income that we had had in any previous year. And so, word of mouth is how this has happened.

Michelle Roberts: But there are all kinds of communities out there now who are looking for sustainability, and they almost all require their people to have one of these, either in a community setting or everyone has to have one in their backyards. So, yeah, we have gone to supplying communities with these, private individuals.

Michelle Roberts: We have a man who we just interviewed just last week and he started on just this little square plot. It was his grandpa’s land or his parents land, I don’t remember, but we built a little one for him. And we just went out there and it’s been, like, four or five years, he supplies all the fresh veggies to the chefs in the Park City area, Park City, Heber area, to the fine restaurants. It was beautiful. It was so amazing. He has done such a good job. He has three of our structures now.

Michelle Roberts: So, you know, it’s all kinds. And, now, I’m getting people who want just a little structure in their backyard. And so, it’s across the board, all kinds of people who want to have the ability to protect what they’re growing and to grow on their own and to learn how to grow. So, yeah, it’s changed.

Lee Kantor: And then, do you ship them all the stuff with kind of the manual of how to build it or do you have to go there and set it up for them?

Michelle Roberts: We do both. I didn’t want to continue to do both. At first, we were only the builders. We just built and built and built. But then I decided, “You know what? We can make kits. We can make kits out of these. We’ll write some instructions and we’ll ship them off or they can come pick them up,” and so then we did that for years. And we are still building for people. So, what is good about us building is we are always staying abreast of our own structures, and the changes we make, and how it’s working out for others we give these kits to, because we have actually made some modifications. We are always trying to upgrade and use the best products we can find.

Lee Kantor: Now, I think you mentioned there were some metal at one point or is it wood. What is it constructed from?

Michelle Roberts: So, you can have a hoop house kit, either Gothic or Quonset style, that is completely steel and plastic. Or you can build out of wood. Wood is less expensive and it doesn’t last as long. We encourage people to paint their wood first so that it does last longer. Inside of the hoop house, it’s its own environment and it can be very moist in there. Anyway, that’s what they’re made out of. And there are specific materials that you use for these hoop houses and we provide the same kind of material that’s on the commercially built hoop houses that you see. It’s very sturdy, very strong.

Michelle Roberts: That’s what makes us a little bit different than just a greenhouse. The greenhouse out of polycarbonate, that plastic that you see in different stores and you can buy and put together, the problem with them is that polycarbonate, it shrinks and expands according to the season. And we get really cold here, and so you have all your walls contracting and you have all this air coming in that’s very, very cold, so you really can’t effectively grow year round in one of those because it’s not sealed completely.

Michelle Roberts: Our hoop house is sealed completely with a channel and wiggle wire locking system and just roll ups that are locked down in the wintertime and vents that close. And we do actually teach people how to grow year round, when to plant, what the planting dates are, how to double cover, and you can do it without any heat or lights. But, of course, if you want heat and lights, you can always put those in there and get some tomatoes go year round too.

Lee Kantor: Now, how is it anchored into the ground? Do you have to build kind of foundation or does it go right into the dirt?

Michelle Roberts: We drive four foot posts 30 inches into the ground with a post driver. And then, we put the arcs into those posts and they’re all screwed in with a good sturdy self-drilling, self-tapping screws. And we built a kind of a skeleton that way. And I live in a windy area, and so after all of that is done and you’ve got your plastic on and everything is done, we will take earth anchors and we will wrap them around the post and the base frame, which can be made out of wood or steel, and we drive those earth anchors into the ground.

Michelle Roberts: And on my 80 footer, I drive every single post. I put an earth anchor on it because we almost lost it one year. You know, it just almost went airborne. But we had trees fall, 60 foot trees fall, and shingles off the roofs, and my neighbor lost his barn, you know, it was bad.

Lee Kantor: And then, what about ventilation? You mentioned it’s kind of airtight, so there’s a way to let air in though?

Michelle Roberts: Right. Our hoop houses are designed with roll up bars, and we have a ventilation, a manual ventilation. We just roll it up and it’s geared. So, a whole 90 foot curtain – we call it – that goes down the side will roll right up to, like, three feet high, and so you get both sides rolled up and then it is critical that you have vents on the top ends, as high as you can to the top. And it’s amazing how the airflow happens in there, it comes in the sides, it rises up, and goes out the ends. And that airflow is what is so great in the hot summer months. We don’t shade our high tunnels, but I do double water. I water at 10:00 and 3:00. And with that airflow going on and with the double watering, we grow one-and-a-half times faster in the hoop house than we do the same thing outside.

Lee Kantor: And then, you mentioned this protects from the elements, but also from pests?

Michelle Roberts: Oh, yeah. Yeah. The grasshoppers, you can screen where that roll up bar is. And it all rolls up, you can put screening. I’ve seen chicken wire. I’ve seen the stuff they put on the highways. You can do that so that it keeps, like, things out that shouldn’t be in there. Like, I don’t like it when certain kinds of moths come in there or grasshoppers, and so we can keep all of those things out by screening it down low.

Michelle Roberts: And the deer, I’m in the Rockies and a lot of the residents here, even in the valleys, have deer munching on everything in their yards. So, if they put their stuff under cover, their vegetables under cover is what I call it, they will be able to enjoy it year round with the deer because the deer don’t really like the plastic.

Lee Kantor: Right. So, now, is this kind of the main part of your business? Have you pivoted to this as being kind of the main driver of revenue nowadays?

Michelle Roberts: Yes. Yes. It really is the main driver. We still raise and sell cattle. We have milk cows. We sell eggs. We still have a farm going on and we have a vegetable co-op and demonstration gardens for this hoop house business. Yeah, it really did take off last year, and it’s been exciting, and we’re trying very hard to kind of scale it now.

Lee Kantor: So, now it’s not nationwide yet, but it hits quite a few states, right?

Michelle Roberts: Yeah. We’re available to all the states. But in the West, we are the only hoop house manufacturing building company for hundreds of miles around us. We are the only ones that are NRCS approved. You have to be an approved company in order for that grant to go through. You have to use an approved hoop house kit company. And the only other ones that people around us can access are ones clear back east or in China, and the shipping is horrendous. So, it’s really advantageous to those around us to come and visit us and see what we have here because the product is really great.

Lee Kantor: It sounds like you’re kind of accidental hoop house servicers, right? Like, you didn’t set out to do this, but you jumped on the opportunity, so congratulations.

Michelle Roberts: Oh, yeah. Yeah, you’re exactly right. I did not set out to do this, but my passion is gardening and growing, and growing healthy, nutrient dense foods. And so, I also want to add that value to these newer kits with a little manual on how to best grow in one of these things.

Lee Kantor: Right. Because you’re a teacher at heart, right? You want more people to get into gardening and really eat healthier food that they are controlling the sources.

Michelle Roberts: Right. Yeah, we have a lot of conferences here. I’ve taught the high schoolers who come with their little field trips and lots of different organizations have come through here.

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for you to join WBEC-West and become part of that community?

Michelle Roberts: Well, that’s quite an interesting story. I wanted to get this little kit that I had created on the shelves in, you know, Tractor Supply, Lowe’s, Home Depot, so the people can see it and buy it and it’s not too expensive and have that little guide. And I tried to market to them and I got an email back, quite quickly actually, that said you need to use our supplier diversity channel. And I just thought that I wouldn’t do that. I was going to be fine just doing it this other way.

Michelle Roberts: Well, no. I realized after about three months that I had to do that. So, I went back to Home Depot, actually, and said, “What do you mean?” And so then, they clued me in to a third party certification of women-owned business. I happen to be a minority as well. I’m a Pacific Islander. And so, I thought, “Well, okay, I’m going to do this.” It took me six months to put all the paperwork in and I did that. In December of last year is when I finally got everything done and was certified. And then, I thought, “Okay. Now, what do I do? I guess I I’m going to go to this national conference and figure out what I’m supposed to do now,” and so I did.

Michelle Roberts: I loved it. I loved it. I thought, “Oh, my gosh. The training and the education here is MBA plus.” You know, these are the people who really know how to do business and they know the steps. I’m a master gardener and I could teach anybody how to be successful. But I’m not a master of business, and so they were going to help me and I was so thrilled with that. And on the third day, I was part of a whole room full of people where I was actually at the tables with the buyers from Lowe’s, from Home Depot. I was like, “I didn’t know they were going to be there,” so it was the greatest thing.

Michelle Roberts: And now I’m talking and we’re getting our kit in a box and it’s just great. I still have a ways to go. You know, I have to make my pitch and I have to have the product exactly right. And I’m working on that so it’s easy to build and it’s user friendly and all that stuff.

Lee Kantor: Well, congratulations on all the momentum. It must be so exciting to have this pivot happen. It’s almost like it’s re-energized you a bit after that tough economic time.

Michelle Roberts: Yeah. Yeah, it has. It’s just thrilling. It’s thrilling to do. And when people come to pick up their kits and I walk them through the gardens and the hoop houses, they love it, I love it. We talk gardening and it’s my passion.

Lee Kantor: And I saw that on the website that these hoop houses aren’t just for gardening. You have them for pickleball?

Michelle Roberts: Oh. My son is a pickleball player and he and his friends got together and decided to build one of those things in the backyard of one of his friends and it went well. And so, yeah, we’re doing those too. It’s a going thing.

Lee Kantor: Look, once you open your mind to things, who knows what’s going to happen, right?

Michelle Roberts: Right.

Lee Kantor: Well, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to get ahold of you and see some of this stuff?

Michelle Roberts: Yeah. Our website is rrhoophouses.com. That is our website and our phone number is on there. All the information about NCS grants is on there. And lots of pictures and stories.

Lee Kantor: Well, Michelle, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Michelle Roberts: Well, thank you. And thank you for this opportunity.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.