Episode 44: Megan Cain | Creative Vegetable Gardener Website | Madison, WI

44. Megan Cain | Creative Vegetable Gardener Website | Madison, WI

If you haven’t checked out Megan’ Cain’s Creative Vegetable Gardener website I know after this interview you are going to do it ASAP! This has to be one of the best gardening website’s I have ever visited. Not only is it full of valuable gardening information that is sure to lead you to success in your garden but it is presented in a simple and elegant way. Her pages are organized efficiently, the posts have engaging titles like “What Not To Grow In Your Garden” and “Increase Your Garden Success”, that intrigue you so much you just have to click open. I certainly couldn’t resist “Save Yourself from $5 Red Peppers in January” one of my favorite veggies and always so expensive in the store, plus they always feel like they have that wax coating.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m Megan and I live and garden in Madison, WI, pretty far northern climate pretty cold. I own a vegetable garden education business called the Creative Vegetable Gardener  which helps people get the most out of their garden. So I teach classes and speak around my area in Madison, WI

I have online classes and a blog post once a week, and have a few ebooks, and actually just turned one of my online books into a print book.

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

Since I’m a garden educator, and I spend a lot of time gardening and I know a lot about gardening, I think a lot of people assume I grew up in a farm, but I actually grew up in a row home in Philadelphia, I didn’t know anyone that had a garden, I never even thought about gardening or how vegetables grew. I didn’t have a lot of experience growing up. I do have a very faint memory when I was very young, my mom experimented with having a backyard garden. She was successful at growing mint and she would send me out to the back yard to get mint for the ice tea. I think it had a bigger impact on me then I realized and sort of manifested it on me as I grew up. Megan’s About Page is a must read.

What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you?

I don’t know how to garden any other way, cause that’s the way I learned how to garden, so sometimes I joke with people I wouldn’t even know how to tell people how to garden non-organically.

Paying attention to soil health because that supports all of my plants. Then when I am having an issue in my garden, I start researching it, try to figure out what is the pest, how does it live, or function in the garden, what are the steps I could take to try to get rid of it out of my garden. Looking into any kinds of problems in my garden instead of looking for a quick solution in chemicals, and there are some thing I have stopped trying to grow in my garden because it’s such a struggle to try to grow them organically, I have given myself permission to give up.

I consider myself a strategic gardener, and I love to spend time in my garden but I don’t want to waste time in my garden. So I definitely want a garden that produces as much food as possible, and I also want a beautiful garden because my garden is in my front yard, so I see it all the time and out my window. I demand a lot from my garden. I’ve seen a lot of people’s gardens.The majority of people are not getting the most out of their gardens. A lot of people could be more strategic and produce more food.

Who or what inspired you to start using organic techniques?

Well, I talked a little bit about my earliest gardening memory, but in my 20’s I was still living in the big cities, I don’t know where it came from, but I started to think about gardening and I wanted to learn how to grow food. So I applied for an organic gardening internship and moved to a small intentional community in Missouri, and I was an intern there for a season.

Joyce Pinson from Friends Drift Inn Farm shares real life stories about heirloom gardening, cooking, food preservation, successful farmer's market sales and farm-to-table community agriculture. See Full Show Notes at www.organicgardenerpodcast.com

The post 45. Joyce Pinson | Friends Drift Inn | Appalachia, Kentucky appeared first on Organic Gardener Podcast.

Linda Shanahan, Proprietor of Barefoot Gardens a small scale community-centered farm based upon biodynamic and organic farming methods. Linda’s work as a Registered Nurse combined with her training in traditional herbal practice and herb production also led to the start of Barefoot Botanicals which specializes in medicinal and culinary herb production as well as farm based herbal education.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I’ll start with how I got into herbs, I moved to Oregon after college in 1995 after I got a job, and as much as I loved Oregon, I felt a little disconnected from where I was from. I was looking for a way to connect from the place, it was so different ecologically,  just a completely different environment to be in from Pennsylvania. I wanted to learn more about the plants that were around me to connect  and I found an herbalist in Eugene, OR.  Howie Brounstein and started learning  about native plants  in the Pacific Northwest.  Colette Gardiner and Heather Thompson, and ultimately moved back to PA to be near my family and got married to my husband who I met in OR.

And we started a farm again because we felt kind of disconnected, felt that we'd lost so much of what we learned and loved about OR so we tried to recreate that here, that is living in a way which is a little more environmentally sound with high quality food and all the things you want to do to live a more sustainable lifestyle. We found in order to do that we kinda needed to create that community around us ourselves so that's how we started the farm and ultimately I introduced herbs a little bit more and more into the farm. I got my nursing degree to learn more about the human body, and be more herbal focused but with and understanding of western medicine. I also studied with David Winston who's’ an herbalist in New Jersey, so I kept studying and learning, and as I was learning figuring how to be a farmer, which is a little bit crazy. So neither one of us had apprenticed with anyone, so we kind of apprenticed with ourselves.

That brings us up to date, aside from my little forays into teaching the community a little bit more about herbs and how to use them, we bring them out to the farm now where I teach them about what I have learned.

I went to college in PA at Temple University and got a position with Americorps program which is like a domestic Peace Corps, but it's only a one year commitment. So I moved to Oregon for that position. Then I explored different things and different ways of living, and I actually didn't stay in the field that I studied, I was a social worker and did that for several years, but I wanted to be more clinically focused, so that's where I decided to go into nursing.

My husband's from Michigan.

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

I guess my first experience would be hanging out with my dad in the garden. My dad grew up farming, They had a 5 acre farmette, with a cow, and a couple of pigs, and they grew corn, and they grew vegetables. My dad always in our little suburban plot, I grew up outside of Philadelphia and he would grow tomatoes and lettuce, and I would just eat, I would go back there and harvest, my first memory of the garden I remember bringing my parents breakfast in bed, I must have been 4 and it was a plate of cherry tomatoes.

What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you?

I think it’s easier in some ways to be more earth friendly as a gardener then as a farmer, particularly the way we do farming in this country, it’s not regenerative it takes away from the site, even organically, with gardening you’re not turning the soil over. It’s a regenerative practice.

Ultimately we’ll be able to achieve that on our farm. Things like cover crops and move towards some organic no-till practices so we're not turning the soil over and over again. It's a regenerative practice so you're just adding to the soil.

Carol Blake is a local activist and environmentalist here to talk to us about the Millions Against Monsanto March. It’s an event that was first held in 2013, worldwide that is being held in over 330 cities this weekend on Saturday May 23, 2015. To protest Monsanto taking over our food supply with Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMOs.

And GMO’s are basically an unnatural, produced substance that is being injected into our food supply and they are very secretive about the whole thing, not very many people know about it. A lot of people think it’s the same thing as hybridization of foods, where you breed a plant or animal for a certain characteristic but no this is taking two different species and joining them together, and the problem is that there is not any labeling of them or any testing.

We are going to have 4 speakers at our event on Sat 11-2 in Riverside Park here in Eureka, music, information, raffle, speakers, organic popcorn. Carol is going to be one of the speakers and is going to read a little part of her speech:

What I would like to talk to you today about a book called Altered Genes, Twisted Truth that has just been published. This is a book that scientist Jane Goodall says this one of the most important books in the last 50 years. It tells the story of how the chemical industry and Monsanto specifically is creating “frankenfoods” which is what they are calling them now. And how our food supply is being controlled by subverted science, corrupted government and how they have systematically deceived the public.

The author Steven Drucker, is a public interest attorney who has been working on obtaining truth disclosures about GMO’s from the chemical industry and our government for over 20 years. His investigations have compiled extensive evidence of an enormous and ongoing fraud. It reveals that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has let these controversial unnatural organisms into the marketplace while deliberately breaking the law, and representing the facts in favor of the chemical companies

The same companies, mainly Monsanto, just assured the FDA of their safety enough the FDA never conducted any studies of their own, even though their own scientists recommended that happen. So without any testing or verification of safety, the FDA opened up two giant cans of unknown worms.

1. How will these organisms that they have made food out of effect the people and the livestock that eat them?

and

2. How will these foreign substances that were create unnaturally affect our planet’s ecosystems and the rest of our food supplies?

Why do the FDA and EPA break their own rules, 20 years ago and just unleashed these organisms on the public? This book Altered Genes, Twisted Truth answer these questions with overwhelming documentation.

What happened it came down to the US wants world dominance of the agriculture industry. That was the stated goal during the Reagan administration during the 1980s. And to do that they couldn’t have any pesky regulators slowing them down, so a green flag was given to the governing agencies to do what needed to be done to speed things up. And because they never required any long term testing for the last 20+ years, our citizens have become guinea pigs for an experiment that they didn’t agree to and they knew little or nothing about.

So that’s pretty scary to me, but fortunately the genie is slowly emerging from the bottle and as more and more facts are being discovered about the cover up the public is starting to demand answers. The problem is the answers are very slow in coming because the chemical industry is so powerful the whole subject is practically forbidden to be addressed by most mainstream media outlets.

Scientists who are gutsy enough to speak out against chemicals or urging to have testing done, are either discredited or actually fired from their jobs.

Tell us a little about yourself.

My husband and I live in Boise ID, in a main urban part of town, on a standard lot. There's just the two of us, we have three kids who are grown and live in the area, 1 cat and 3 chickens. For the last ten years we have developed an urban homestead with fruit trees, perennial vegetable gardens, summer gardens because the climate in Boise, ID is very cold in the winter and hot and dry in the summer. We try to become more self-sufficient, do organic gardening and work with the weather. At sort of ground level, about 100-200 feet. High desert climate surrounded by hills that go up to about 4-5000 feet and then you get out into the high mountains of southern Idaho. Sort of a high desert, mountainous climate.

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

I thought about that a lot, the one person who really hooked me on gardening was my grandfather. I grew up in a little city called Pomona in California, he was what I called a master gardener without the certificates. He lived in a standard lot, he had an avacado tree, a peach tree and cumquats, and grapes and strawberries and had just an immaculate back yard and front yard and he just loved to garden, had been in WWI or WWII, and it was very theraputeic, my grandmotehr was a baker and canner, preserved foods, and knitted and crocheted, I just loved spending weekends with my grandparents.

What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you?

Look at it as trying to work as closely with nature as possible given different variables. I think it depends on how or where you're living and what particular challenges you face where you are.

Who or what inspired you to start using organic techniques?

I’m in my late 50’s so I was a kid in the late 60-70’s and there was kind of a back-to-earth movement with the hippy culture. I think in the '70s I started really looking at why are we using a lot of herbicides and pesticides and what's going into our ground water, and as I became older and a home owner I was looking at what can I do to sort of work with nature more, to use less water and mulch, use less herbicides and pesticides and use other alternatives, use different kinds of products or natural ingredients that would reduce pests and weeds, and any kind of noxious things that were growing.

How did you learn how to garden organically?

I subscribe to Mother Earth News way way back when they first started publishing, read a lot of Rodale press over the years, that promoted organic gardening, and from going to nurseries and greenhouses and talking to other people and now with the internet, then it’s a matter of filtering of through all that information. I did become a master gardener through the University of ID, Boise ID. They did start offering permaculture classes.

Tell us about something that grew well this year.

Cool weather crops are doing great, have a couple of kinds of kale and some collard greens. Tomatoes and peppers planted, perennial vines - blackberries, raspberries, and marionberries.  Last year we had a great harvest of tomatoes and peppers, peppers were down a little bit, everyone in the valley said that last year. Had a great fruit harvest, nectarines, no apples last year, but our new baby pear tree even gave us some pears.

Peppers I usually get small starts, I planted them in June and they were well watered and taken care of and the plants got really big, but there were no peppers, just kind of odd. There's lots of small starts up this year. Bought a small greenhouse this year. I have some nice big 4' green beans, and some basil and cilantro and a few other herbs coming up.

Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new?

Well we’re planting our first peach tree this year.

Planted some new heritage tomaotes an Anna Russina and an Arkansas Traveler, a Japanese Black Trifle or a Russian Black Truffle that I'm exc...

Jason, Liz and Isabelle run Genesis Clock Farm a little startup farm that focuses on sustainable living, education and urban farming with aquaponics!

Aquaponics is a recirculating water system wherein the water you put into your fish tank flows through to your vegetable beds over and over.  You end up using 98% less water, grow crops considerably faster, no space issues, no petroleum based pesticides (except maybe beneficial insects or water), no weeding, no bending over, no forgetting to water and that’s just a touch of what you can do.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m an imigrant, grew up in Hawaii. My parents moved us to Washington State in HS, basically graduated from the University of Washington, and then moved to California.

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

I was really lucky to grow up in Hawaii when it was still pristine, walking to school, you would walk by like 5 star fruit trees, mango trees, sugar cane just growing in the wild and we just got used to identify them and it was fun to eat . There were certain flowers you could suck the nectar out of . . .

I think we live in a very exciting time. We realize that we are running out of resources.

California's drought has caused such a big ripple effect. California and Florida are the two states that provide vegetables and fruit and nuts. It's a trillion dollar industry out of California, if we don't do well, the US GDP goes down, economically it would be a nightmare. With the drought it is turning into a political nightmare.

It can be a good thing and a bad thing. The good things is they have to get smarter about how we use our limited resources. We can't go on the assumption that it's endless anymore. It's a rude awakening but we needed it.

If the earth is covered in 94-97% salt water, and then only .036% is drinkable, that's not very much. Now with California in a drought and part of Florida in a drought.

Florida just joined the state of Missouri saying there is no such thing as climate change. If you have com

You don't mess with people's money, their children and you don't mess with people's food. Food is really really important.

That's what turned me on to aquaponics.

I was spending a tremendous amount of time in my garden on the weekends, after work, and everybody in California does this. We all grow our tomatoes and we're all pretty proud of how big our tomatoes and cucumbers and eggplants are. But we're not very ag friendly We love Miracle Grow. We love Roundup. We love our front yards. We love our lawns. We don't have that luxury anymore. There are alternatives and they look beautiful.

We have grass, but we don't water it, but it's deep rooted and we don't clip it short. When we clip it we leave the lawn clippings where they drop and they become mulch and keep it moist. You don't have to give up everything. It saves you or your gardener a lot of time.

In my aquaponic units at a faster rate, using less water, using all natural things that happen in nature. We do the same things that farmers do in soil, but we do it differently. In the sense that farmers, when they farm in soil, the plant actually has to work a lot harder for it's roots to go in an find food and nutrients. In aquaponics and hydroponics we deliver that food system up so the energy of that plant is more up above the root, then the root itself. That's the gist of hydroponics and aquaponics.

Now in aquaponics we add aquaculture, we add fish. Fish provide the ammonia which provides the nitrates, which provides the nitrites to feed as fertilizer to the plants and it's served up to them depending on what type of system you have.

And using hydroponic technology which is fantastic technology. Hydroponics is just as fast, but we're not having to add chemicals. And hydroponics can become expensive because you have to buy chemicals.

Tell us a little about yourself.

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

You know it probably started wtih the dirt, I remember being just a little kid and in the back yard and making mud pies and playing in the sand pile. My whole family was in construction so the big treat was getting to go to work and riding in the loaders and backhoes. It was all about the dirt, I just loved it. Something about the dirt, I just loved it.

My grandfather’s last name  was Gardner and my dad’s middle name was gardener, and Hines means Ivy, it's Irish. I just probably didn't have a choice it's gonna be about the earth and about growing.

My mom didn’t have any plants, she had sad irises and we had really tall grass, but the neighbor lady had snapdragons, she had a box full of snapdragons out front.

As for actually gardening it was after I grew up. I had to kind of learn on my own. We didn’t have that much. My mom wasn't outside active in the garden. My dad was pretty busy. My first really garden garden experience was probably going to my grandfather’s and picking giant cabbage leaves and lacing them together and making them into skirts. He lived in Washington and then came out here for his last years and would sit outside and oversee my garden and give me tips.

What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you?

All natural - no man-made chemicals. I use fish meal, and green sand, some of those things. As much straight compost as possible. Minerals from the earth, or you can use green sand, bonemeal, bloodmeal all the different combinations. My preference is compost. Non - man-made.

Who or what inspired you to start using organic techniques?

Findhorn books. Like The Magic of Findhorn. This garden over in Scotland, just kind of growing in the rocks and working with nature, working with the elementals, and just the magic from it. Just the amazing gardens when your in cooperation and copartnership with nature instead of just your own agenda.

How did you learn how to garden organically?

Findhorn books

The Perelandra Books

Anastatia talks about working with the elements and working with nature.

Some of the old gardeners here, I have a friend here who works with the moon phases and you can see the difference when you're working in cooperation with nature instead of telling it just your way of the highway, you work together.

Can you tell us about the moon element like how that works? Is that kind of like the Old Farmer's Almanac when you plant with the new moon?

Yes, there's something to be said for all of that. We’re all part of the cosmos and so much of everything is composed of water which is affected by the tides so it just makes sense that we're gonna feel the differences and the plants feel it too. A lot of the time you plant things say your root crops might be in one phase of the moon and then your leaf crops might be in another phase.

Tell us about something that grew well last summer.

Our big deal here is garlic. My partner really big into garlic, he's has had the blue ribbon here at the county fair the last 3 years in a row, and last year it was actually best vegetable too. So that was probably most noteworthy. And it's an old heirloom variety that’s from the valley here.

Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new?

I have some little honeyberries that I started. I love starting things from seed. The do really well in a cold area we’re zone 3-5 depending where you are here. They’re the first berry of the season, they come on early even before the strawberries do.

Tell us a little about yourself.

My husband and I are natives of Wisconsin, both grew up in central and northern Wisconsin, in 2002 we decided we needed a change and we decided to move to Montana, we lived in Superior and then up in Eureka, and now we’re in Butte, we've been in Montana 13 years.

Last year I retired from public school teaching after a 30 year career in music education.

Now I say "I'm retooled" cause I don't like the word retired, so I’m retooled in Butte, I teach music in a  private school and  I do some freelance work and obviously I do some gardening too.

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

My gardening experience was with my grandfather, I recall about age kindergarten. He was an organic gardener before it was cool to be an organic gardener.

I remember one of my first jobs was to lay lime down, because the soil in Wisconsin is very acidic, so you needed lime to neutralize. I graduated to planting beans and corn and he showed me how to measure how to mark between the corns, using my hand to space the seeds and the rows and he a special shovel handle with the marking between the distance between rows. And he had like an acre of garden in this town, he gave most of it away when it produced. And I remember in the fall, when we'd harvest, we’d always have a big bon fire and roast hot dogs and marshmallows. Those are good memories for me.

What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you?

Well it probably means more to me know then it did even 10 years ago, I’ve had some health issues, I’m a cancer survivor and I’m more of aware of the type of food I eat now,

My husband and I notice that our garden produce tastes so much better then the items we find in the market. I like knowing where my vegetables come from, and even when we're not growing vegetables here, we go to farmer’s market’s in the area and talk to the people that grow there, so we have a knowledge of where the food comes from. I also think gardening is king of a duty to being accountable to nature. We're given so much, the earth gives us so much back, for us to give back to it by this cooperative production we do with gardening, it makes us aware that having just enough is enough to have abundance for us. We don't have to have a mass marketed food supply, if we can grow what we need and have some to give away that's enough for us.

Who or what inspired you to start using organic techniques?

I’m guessing it was (my grandfather), that’s really all we ever knew. We don’t use pesticides on our garden

I try to use products like compost and manure. One of my friends turned us onto epsom salts for tomatoes and cucumbers. When you transplant tomatoes often times there is a wilt that happens with a transplant, and so the epsom salts provide extra magnesium which helps the cellular level of the plants to do do better in transplanting. They suggest one or two tablespoons per gallon of water, or just sprinkle around the base of the plants. I just tried it with some tomatoes I transplanted and there's been no wilt.

How did you learn how to garden organically?

Well of course, I had good roots with my grandfather, over the years I had friends in Eureka, area where organic gardening is really the preferred method, and so I exchanged knowledge with them, so primarily word of mouth with friends

Tell us about something that grew well last year.

This is interesting because we bought our home in January when there was snow on the ground, didn’t really know what was out there. The wife was a master gardener, and she had some wonderful treasures in store for us this spring. A rhubarb plot, and had started some raspberries, had some herbs. Primarily a perennial flower grower, my grandfather always said, "you can't eat flowers" so he was a vegetable gardener. I’m primarily a vegetable gardener. I know a little bit about flowers but not as much as abo...

Jim Finley runs the Seeds of Hope Community Garden in Eureka, MT which has close to 50 beds for community members to use who otherwise wouldn't be able to garden. The garden also grows food for the local food pantry and senior center donating an average of 700 lbs of vegetables a year!

Tell us a little about yourself.

I'm the current Manager of Seeds of Hope Community Garden Eureka, MT

Born and raised in Kalispell, retired from the USDA geological survey, when I retired found a good deal on property up here in Eureka. I saw an advertisement for master gardener classes, it was a 3 year program, 8 weeks, once a week. As part of the community service part, I stasrted the community garden.

Original intent was for people who couldn’t garden where they live because of the micro-climate living around eureka, or maybe they rent, or for assorted reasons they couldn’t have a graden at their home, provided an opportunity for people to garden. Also part of the cahrter was to donate to the food pantry and the senior center.

We've been averaging about 700 lbs of produce a year! Last year was a little bit low because I had a couple of crops that didn't perform well on me, so we only did 598 lbs  that we donated.

This year, we had a normal turnover rate, have about 25 people who have beds. There are 39 individual garden beds for rent. Then there are 10 additional beds. Rental beds are 4x8' some are doubles that are 4x16' that count as two beds. Then along the fence line 2 1/2   foot wide beds that are 8' long along edge and that’s where we grow most of the vegetables for the food pantry and senior center.

Always have an open house in the middle of April,  that's when we sign everybody up, most people keep the same bed as the previous year. Some people have multiple beds, one lady has 6 beds.

How much does it cost for a bed?

$20 for first bed, and $10 for each additional bed. And there's more! We also provide drip irrigation system, water from the glen lake irrigation systems, and then the community fairgrounds. The Community Garden is located on the fairgrounds property, next to the horse barn and riding arena. Hwy 93 will get you over towards the baseball field. THere's an old paved road it only goes back about a 10th of a mile, by Kidsville. This year we're expanding the size of our beds to, add an additional 8 double-beds so we have  16 more bed rentals, and more growing area for the Food Pantry and Senior Center.

They are deep beds with the dirt already in them, right?

And have several beds to accommodate elderly or disabled people who have back problems, started with 3 beds that are 2 feet deep. Now we've added 4 more of those, so we have quite a few of those type of beds.

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

Grew up with a garden, my dad had a garden probably since the time I was born, so as soon as I was old enough to pull weeds.

Do you have brothers and sisters, do they garden too? 

My older brother does, and I don't have a sister, and my younger brother doesn't.

My older brother likes to do more decorative gardening, like wildflowers and plants.

Certain plants are definitley ph sensitive, like you can't transplant huckleberries down into the valley very easily because they prefer an acidic soil and most of our soil is pretty alkaline.

Does the elevation make a difference?

I do think the elevation might make a difference.

I was just in Glacier National Park and there are tons of flowers there blooming that I don't think grow here because of the elevation difference and type of flowers.

Some of them if you bring them down and plant them in the same type of environment, like shady sides or cooler areas, they'll grow and bloom but they'll bloom earlier and probably not as long. Mountain ones are more inclined to bloom right after the snow goes off.

Judy Hoysak is the brand manager of Perky Pet Birdfeeders, one of the oldest and largest bird feeding companies in the world. Judy’s here to help listeners learn how to bring more birds into their garden and make it bird-friendly habitat.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I work with PerkyPets which is one of the world's oldest and largest bird feeding companies. We have a huge selection of bird feeders, everything from hummingbird feeders and nectar feeders to seed feeders. We supply most retailers that you go to, most feeders that you see in the stores are one of our Perky Pet birdfeeders. I came into the business because I had a passion for the products and the outdoors and I had a real passion for birds, I’m an avid birder, it brought all of my interests together.

I love my job, i love to talk about birds, and I love to encourage and to get other people out there to get excited to feed birds.

Have you been to Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania?

Yes, we are actually really close to Hawk Mountain and we have actually done some sponsorships events over there. It's a fantastic group, one of my very favorite places in the world. I went up there during the migration last fall, just really amazing i think they saw like 10,000 hawks that flew over that day, one of the biggest days of the season.

Evidently it was a very sacred Native American mountain, because of this really unique geography where as the hawks were flying through they are funneled through this area, its an absolutely beautiful place.

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

I grew up originally I'm from North Carolina, grew up in the suburbs, and was very ambivalent about the outdoors, everyone had a yard and a garden. I  was living in Brooklyn, I went to NY after I graduated my undergrad, I was just starved for nature, and I was obsessed with nature. My apartment started to resemble a jungle. I went and studied product design in NY and I was completely obsessed with this idea of my starvation with nature, I focused my masters theses on products that allowed people to interact with nature, so I created this kooky furniture line that allowed you to grow vegetables in your coffee table and and room deviders with beams? I was doing weird hydroponic experiments inside, just really fun experiments really wishing I had some outdoor space that I could get out there and garden anywhere I could possibly try to grow some vegetables I was trying.

Now i live in rural Pennsylvania I have a yard and a garden. I’m actually digging in the dirt and growing some vegetables. It was something that was really missing from my life and essential to my character.

I went to Pratt Institute! The Brooklyn Botanical Garden is also very inspirational.

What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you?

I am lucky to live in rural PA, we have Amish farms, and very, very many local farms in this area, I am very very fortunate, and just about everything I eat is from Lancaster County. I try to really get outside that mass produced food system, I prefer the freshness and taste of things that were grown locally, when you grow them yourself, you get so much more, you can eat a bean that was grown just a 10 seconds ago! Tastes so much better then even something picked yesterday! And this area too, it’s not necessarily a lot of the farms are certified organic, but they say they don't spray or they are using minimum pesticides and keeping things as natural as possible because that's the old way they have always done it, as long as your doing things in a pesticide free way, I'm happy to participate in that.

What can I do to attract more birds to my garden?

One of the great things about having a little garden is being able to enjoy the wildlife and birds and bees and butterflies that come out there. A lot of times you can put a lot of different plants and things there that will naturally attract them,...