Gardening, and living out-of-doors, come naturally to me thanks to my family. I myself moved so often as an adult that only now, after twenty years in Tennessee, have I been rooted long enough to see a flourishing garden emerge. It is named after a famous Comanche warrior, Quanah Parker, and we called our Parker, […]
During the fall and winter of 2012 and 2013, Ryan W. put together a proposal to build an urban farm, which later became North Brooklyn Farms. He presented it at a Greenpoint Waterfront Association for Parks and Planning meeting, where two neighbors told him about the empty 61 Franklin St. lot, owned by the NYC […]
I am Dolores Isom Olds. I was born in 1929 and grew up in Hurricane, Utah. My parents were Eugenia Walker McAllister and Thomas Irving Isom. My Dad was a farmer and mainly grew fruit trees. He and his three brothers each had an orchard. Uncle Leslie and Uncle Bernard grew apples and pears. Uncle […]
My mother was born in rural West Virginia in 1917 and was a young girl when the Great Depression hit. In order to feed their family of eight children, her family grew an abundance of fruits and vegetables. My mother married at the beginning of World War II learning to live with rationing. So gardening […]
The Garden Path ~ Green, Growing, and Blooming Project emerged as a tangible remembered connection and, consequently, a pathway to engagement following my mother’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, thereby, enlarging her narrowing view of her world. She had been an inveterate gardener and had lived in tune with the seasons. The everyday visual signs of nature—sunshine, […]
I come from many gardens. My parents used to have a long strip of red clay in the Hickory Flats, and I remember picking peas from it in the summer, covered in sweat and bees. In fall, we would shuck an acre of corn and the cows would wait on the fence line, ready to […]
I’ve always lived what I’ve considered an environmentally conscious life-style; living in a dense, urban neighborhood, biking or taking transit to work, shopping local, eating a primarily plant-based diet, recycling, composting and much, much more. I’ve kept a vegetable garden for years and recently started raising backyard chickens, (which has been fun for me and […]
When I was pregnant with my first child, I began to plant. I think that I wanted to see whether anything would really grow. Honestly, I didn’t expect much to happen. But in the Spring, just before my daughter made her appearance, magically my tulips, anemones, and daffodils appeared. I was hooked. My mom casually […]
This year was the first full growing season at this house with my garden of Missouri native wildflowers and plants. I couldn’t have been happier and I’d venture to say that the butterflies, bees, and birds enjoyed it as well. Sure, I like the occasional mums on my porch next to the pumpkins in the […]
The Garden Path: Green, Growing, and Blooming Project Journal Assisted Living Facility #1, Sevierville, TN The Garden Path ~ Green, Growing, and Blooming Project emerged as a tangible remembered connection and, consequently, a pathway to engagement,following my mother’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, a connection enlarging her narrowing view of her world. She had been an inveterate […]
Our family began gardening in 2008 and in 2016 we took it to Facebook to help other amateur gardeners. It is our passion, growing heirloom tomatoes, herbs, squash, and other vegetables. Blackberries and blueberries grow alongside the house and our front bed is a melange of perennial flowers, which gets added to each year.
A tale of lawn conversion: It was 2002 when we moved to Orono. As I surveyed a mowed acre of our lakeside front yard in 2011, my eyes rested on an old sewer mound. How could we improve that space and help the environment at the same time? Recently, I had read about restoring lawns […]
Greenhouse 17 (GH17) is a forty-acre domestic violence emergency shelter and farm that has become a healing oasis to thousands of women and families since 2004. Greenhouse 17 is a Grow Appalachia success story for its innovative therapeutic farm stipend program for survivors. The farm, a multi-acre community garden with six high tunnels, was started […]
Jeanne Beatrice Braud was born in Thibodaux, which was a small French speaking settlement in southern Louisiana, in 1887. There are records showing the family in Thibodaux, Lafourche parish by 1840. Growing up in Thibodaux at that time the family only spoke French. After marrying and starting a family, Beatrice and her husband, Jacque Toups, […]
We have been partners in our community garden in Longmeadow, Massachusetts for 15 years. Our love of gardening stems from our childhood. Our heritage is one of farmers—Linda’s grandparents had a farm in Monson, Massachusetts and Karen’s great aunt had a farm in Enfield, Connecticut. As children, we both spent family time with our parents […]