User:Gardenmaster
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Hi! I come from a farming tradition in the northeast corner of Kansas. My generation is the first in my family that no longer makes a living by tilling the soil, but I still have that passion for, and sense of kinship with, the soil. My affinity for the soil began from began as a child and all of my fondest memories of childhood all occur in the garden.
After many years of struggling to be a "city" person without a garden in my life, emotionally and spiritually bankrupt and desperate to find a new way of relating to life, I finally came to respect the true healing power of gardening. On a fortuitous rainy day in February in the mid-eighties, I came across a community garden and spent several hours walking through the garden in the rain identifying plants I knew from my youth. I realized how much in tune I was with that garden and how much gardening played in my internal makeup and growth. So I became a member of that community garden. Throughout my twelve year stint in the garden, I served on their Board of Directors in various capacities and was an active member of the garden's Educational Committee.
The focus of my work is teaching and writing about gardens, plants and our connection to them. I devote a considerable amount of energy to the promulgation of my belief that many ills of our society can be reversed by a closer connection to the soil through the way we eat food and the medicinal qualities of plants. Currently, my primary project is a nonprofit foundation, [The Learning Garden (http://www.thelearninggarden.org/)], dedicated to a higher awareness of gardening and its integration to the daily life of the community as a whole. The intention that the production of safe, wholesome and inexpensive food is within the reach of everyone, and that gardens most certainly do provide us with food and health, physically, mentally and spiritually, continues to be the focus of all my current work. It was most satisfying to work on a project to build a sustainable food producing garden for an orphanage in San Dueñas, Guatemala that could provide the entire orphanage with a complete, wholesome diet every day of the year and will teach every child in the orphanage how to produce their own clean, wholesome and nutritious food for their lifetime.
I am an active member in the American Community Gardening Association, Seed Savers Exchange and other local and national organizations and have written for The Gardeners Companion, an award winning publication for the gardeners of Southern California and Fine Gardening as well as other gardening newsletters and publications. An award winning Toastmaster, I have been an energetic and enthusiastic lecturer to community groups as well as the gardening community. My sage observations on gardening have appeared in a full-length feature film and on television and radio shows that feature gardening. I am still an avid organic gardener and proponent of small farm-to-consumer direct relationships.