Posts Tagged ‘container gardening’


Nothing but a Barrel

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

A few years ago, when we set out to get involved in making Rain Barrels and selling other Home and Garden products at Metro-Detroit Green Fairs, we never thought it would turn out so incredibly well. The community involvement with green fairs, charities, school and churches has helped shape our business, continuing over a hundred years of Rubin family involvement in the drum and barrel industry. Now, at Maxi, as the summer comes to a close, so does a chapter of our lives. The Green season is over, there no more events until next Spring/Summer. We all set our sights on the numerous things we have neglected due to the hustle and bustle of the season. We won’t be hibernating this winter, but a part of us will. The Green part.

I thoroughly enjoyed all of the events we were involved in (a list is provided at the end of this post). However, certain moments, or days, stand out when looking back from the corner of the autumn and winter seasons. I want to share my favorite “highlights” from this summer with all of you.

Two tents down! Currently, both of our tents need repair. One, we have no idea what happened to, and the other a storm almost swept away! At the St. Clair Shores Green Fair in the Park it was a beautiful day until warnings of a oncoming storm started to spread across the fair (since the Dream Cruise was happening on Woodward Ave. simultaneously, we just checked their twitter feed) Even though the vendors and patrons were advised to leave a little early in hopes of missing the brunt of the storm, we were among the last out of there, and our tent nearly didn’t make it out at all. I went to grab the truck for our final load of Rain Barrels, and when I arrived to our location I find my father (Richard) holding onto a tent that was in shambles. He looked like he was holding onto it for dear life, in high winds and heavy rain. This was a very intense end to a great event.

HOT, HOT, HOT! All of you remember that heat wave in June? Well we can’t forget it. We had three events planned almost simultaneously for that weekend of heat. Friday I spent in Armada while the rest of the Maxi staff was at the Ferndale Live Green Fair. I guess this is one time I lucked out, since at the Lavender Festival in Armada we had a location in the shade and the fair was on grass, not pavement. The staff at the Live Green Fair said it was sweltering hot as the intense sun reflected up from the ground. Also, the way the booths were set up didn’t allow a lot of airflow. On Sunday, I made my way to Ferndale, my father and I did the best we could, but I was definitely suffering during tear down, and was afraid I was going to pass out. My Dad had to stick me in the car with the AC on to get me to stop acting loopy. I am pretty sure I was a second away from heat stroke.

We enjoyed all of the events this year, these two weekends were exceptionally interesting, check out the list below for all of our events this year, and watch out for even more next year! Hope to see you next summer at some of our Green Events!

I tried to remember them all and hopefully, got them all of them here. Click on each to learn more. This list doesn’t include all of the Rain Barrel workshops we have done, just a few of them.

If you know of an event in Metro-Detroit (really anywhere in Michigan) that you would like us to bring our sustainable living setup including Rain Barrels, Composting, and Container Gardening, please let us know. Drop me an email at joshua@maxicontianer.com with the details.

Enjoy this slideshow of photos from our “Green Fairs” Collection of photoset’s on Flickr!

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The life of a container Gardener

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

Living in an apartment and condo does NOT mean you can’t garden. And people, I’m not talking about one or two hanging plants. I am talking about really gardening… fruits, veggies, flowers, and herbs. Right now I have tomatoes, potatoes, onions, corn, jalapeno and cayenne peppers, plus a herb garden and a few flowers for accent, all on my patio. You must be wondering just how I fit all that on my small 5′ x 10′ patio? Well let’s just say, very creatively. By utilizing hanging hooks on stands that fit four pails each, and two half pallets (I sawed one in half basically), I can make a varying array of configurations that are both beautiful and at the same time add a sense of privacy to our patio.

Another benefit of my container garden is the family activity it creates. My fifteen month old daughter grabs my hand and begs to be a part of the gardening experience. I supply her with her own little watering can and a plastic spade shovel to dig in the dirt with me. This is a family garden. It has become a central part of our family life. Whether it is the wife and I relaxing after the baby has gone to sleep, or working together to harvest some basil to make pesto for dinner, it is enjoyable and bring us even closer together. If you live in a apartment or condo and think that gardening is just too much to handle, reconsider. Give it try. We have previously used food grade 5-gallon pails perfect for starting your very own garden. Please email me at joshua@maxicontainer.com for a free consultation. We can design your pails to fit the types of plants you want to grow. We have three styles right now for our 5-gallon pails, they are:

  1. Traditional planter
  2. Hanging tomato planter
  3. Pepper / strawberry planter (Can hold up to 6 plants)
    *can easily be made into a self-watering planter

We also have experimented with our 30-gallon plastic barrels, turning one into a strawberry planter. We cut a plastic juice drum in half, attached wheels and handles to make a movable planter perfect for all types of plants. Like I was saying before, the possibilities with container gardening are endless. You only will be limited by your own creativity. So, what are your waiting for? Try it now. Give us a call today and get the low-down on what you’ll need to get started. And please, if you don’t get your container from us just make sure the containers are food-grade. Ask what the previous contents where. If it was something questionable, DO NOT USE IT. If it had food in it before, then its fine. It’s better to ask then to just say “ohhh it’s fine because it was free.” You will be growing and eating food from that container. Plastic absorbs some of its previous contents; there is no way around that, it is in the material’s nature. So any reconditioned or used plastic barrel, is not always safe for growing plants. Hope this information helps get you started container gardening. Here is some photos from our Flickr photoset “Container Gardening”.

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Green Fair Re-cap… Live Green, Lavender Festival and Green Breeze…

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

Kermit the Frog!

This summer has been a busy one for us here at Maxi Container, Inc. Our Rain Barrels, which started as a tiny side-project for us, have turned into an entire Home & Garden product line. This line now includes Rain Barrels, Compost Tumblers, Compost Tea Kits and our newest product…(drum roll please) container gardening! We are currently testing out various container gardening designs for our pails and barrels. Expect to see them soon on our website. You may have already seen some of our container gardening items at one of the many Green Events we have been at this year.  If you haven’t already please check out our Flickr “Container Gardening” photo set here.

At Maxi, our passion does not end with our workday. We have a love for being involved in our community. To that end, we work with schools, churches and other non-profits such as the Sierra Club Great Lakes Program to help spread the word about water conservation, composting and reuse.

From rain barrels to rain gardens, from composting basics to compost tea, we are involved in every step of our products design and manufacture. (Technically speaking, its re-manufacture, since our Home & Garden products are made from used food grade containers). Nothing goes unnoticed and if anyone has a question or complaint (no matter how small), we make sure to take care of it. That’s what you get when you choose MAXI.

Now, with that all being said, as one of my favorite frogs once said, “It ain’t easy being GREEN.” Our Home & Garden line has turned into a full-time job. Our Twitter is full of eco-friendly tweeters and gardeners. Sometimes we participate in green fairs and community events two to three weekends in a row. When you add in the time it takes to get ready for these events, you can see how hard we are working to promote our core concepts of sustainability, reuse and conservation. Why do we do it? Just take a look at this past month of July…

We arranged to be involved in three different events one weekend and had another event the next weekend. Within nine days, we had four events. If you asked me last year at this time if we would be at that many events, I would of simply answered “not possible”. Now my attitude is different and the sky is the limit.

The first event was the Ferndale Live Green Fair. While in its second year, it is still in its infancy. Last year the Live Green Fair was part of the Funky Ferndale Art Fair and it had only eight or so vendors. However, it was a great success. This year it became a standalone with over 80 GREEN vendors. The event was beautiful, with fun for all ages. The only downside was the heat. This past July turned out to be one of the hottest on record for metro Detroit, and the Live Green Fair happened to be smack dab in the middle of one of our biggest heat waves. I applaud any of the people who made it out to the Ferndale Live Green Fair. We thank you for braving the high temperatures! This green fair is by far the truest green event (the creators are extremely green guys!) and it has a lot of potential. Let’s just hope that next year there is better weather!

Our second event was the Lavender Festival in Armada, MI, hosted at Blake’s Cider Mill. Though not a “Green” fair per say, the event had many green vendors, organics for your garden, artwork made from reused materials and of course, lots and lots of lavender! There was also an education tent that had a workshop every hour. I taught a workshop on Friday that was very successful and had a great time interacting with interested gardeners. We had a great time here and hope to come back again! Thank you to Jennifer Vasich, who created the event and who asked us to be a part of it for the first time.

Our third event of the weekend was part of Farmington’s Founders Festival. We had a very successful workshop with the Salem United Church of Christ in Downtown Farmington. Read the full article here.

The next weekend, we took part in Birmingham’s Green Breeze on the streets of Old Woodward. Richard Rubin (my father) and I set out to see what all of the local Birmingham residents were up to. The turnout for this event hasn’t been as great as we would like, but the people we meet at it seem to be committed to the same values as we are at Maxi.  I had some great conversations, met some really exciting and cool new people, and sold a few rain barrels. We also saw many familiar faces. Overall, it was a good weekend and a relaxing final show for our busy two weeks.

Why have I gone into such great detail to illustrate what we did this summer? Some of you may ask why do these Industrial Packaging guys give up their hard-earned weekends? We do it because here at Maxi we believe in our community and in empowering people through education about reuse and sustainability. Stop and think about it. If more businesses operated like Maxi, wouldn’t the world be a better place? The bottom-line is not always about making a dollar. Sometimes it’s just simply about making an impact.

Hope to see you at one of our upcoming green events… check our Facebook or Follow us on Twitter for up to date news on where we will be!


Local Motion Green – Earth Day Fair

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011

Bottles and Cans Painting

On Saturday April 30, 2011 Richard and Joshua Rubin represented Maxi at the Grosse Pointe Farms Earth Day “Green” Fair. The fair was hosted by Local Motion Green, a grass-roots organization involved in helping raise public awareness by putting on community-based events. Their mission is to illuminate the links between environmental toxins and negative health consequences, in an effort to influence personal and industrial behavior, as well as promoting improved health and quality of life. Melissa Sargeant, (Education Coordinator) of Local Motion contacted Maxi asking if we would like to be involved, and we are sure glad she did. This is one event we definitely did not want to miss!

The fair took place under one big tent in the Richardson Elementary parking lot. From 10am – 4pm, the lot was buzzing with activity, full of interested people wishing to reduce their carbon footprint by going green. Of course we had our Rain Barrels, Compost Tumblers, and new for this season, our Container Gardening display. Maxi also donated four fiber drums to be decorated by children and repurposed as recycling bins at the Grosse Pointe Academy. (Maxi believes in teaching green practices at an early age, see our article about Michigan Green Schools and our OPrep article about recycling in the classroom.)

Maxi had a great time meeting people and explaining our mission and about our products. We would like to formally say thank you to Local Motion Green for contacting us and look forward to working together in the future.

To view all the photos from the event check out the slideshow below.

For more information about Local Motion Green give them a call at 313-881-2263 or send them an email.

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jalapenos and banana peppers h…

Saturday, April 23rd, 2011

jalapenos and banana peppers hanging planter #containergardening in our pails http://yfrog.com/h82q6tej


Just finished our first upside…

Sunday, April 17th, 2011

Just finished our first upside down tomatoe planter http://yfrog.com/h04t0cblj #containergardening


Limited Space? Still Want to Garden? Try Container Gardening!

Monday, February 21st, 2011

This video shows an example of what you can do with our 5 gallon pails. Limited on space or have poor soil quality, container gardening is your answer. There are many ways to customize you garden while saving space using containers. Give us a call toll free 1-800-727-MAXI (6294) and talk to one of our customer service representatives today to help find the container that is right for your gardening needs.


Have you ever thought of conta…

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

Have you ever thought of container gardening? check it out: http://t.co/lA3fAdT Maxi sells a variety of containers suitable for this!