Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. Over a hundred contributed in the last decade on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Laura Lederman who worked for brokerage firm William Blair for 22 years uncovering new technology software companies and analyzing public ones. She has since retired to Jacksonville, Florida and spends her time growing food, teaching yoga and holding meditation classes:
My Early History In Horticulture
I started gardening as a small child following my father as he worked his way through the gardens that surrounded our home. My first job was weeding, learning to differentiate between desired plants and those that needed pulling out. From there I progressed to planting seeds: digging a little hole, dropping in a seed and covering it with soil. By age seven, I was filling out the rose test panelist forms for Jackson & Perkins. Much of my free time as a child was spent as an indentured servant in the gardens. I didn't mind, it was a way to curry favor with a cold and distant father. My attempt to bring us close didn't work, but I gained a life-long passion.
My father was an outdoor gardener and I wanted living things inside and out. Age five found me transplanting oak trees and bringing them indoors (not a terribly successful venture). My brother-in-law noticed my burgeoning interest and took me to my first greenhouse, changing my life forever by showing me a world of exotic plants that grew beyond Highland Park, Illinois.
My plant studies allowed me to attend college and graduate school. With my honestly acquired skills, I got a job at the Jewel T. Foods as “the plant lady” and the only female produce worker.
Gardening methods of the Sixties and Seventies
My father was an old-fashioned gardener using every chemical one could name and many that were unpronounceable. In his mind, the more chemicals the better. He used insecticides like Diazinon that are no longer sold in the United States. They are shipped to third world countries where higher yields trump human health.
Every time he sprayed, I ran inside whilst holding my breath. Year after year, season after season, he sprayed without any protective gear, covering himself with insecticides, pesticides and fungicides, inside and out. He died at age sixty of pancreatic cancer, I blame the chemicals for his early departure.
Not only did he use every “cide” known to man, he also rototilled the soil, churning up foot after foot of earth and in the process changing the microbiome and killing soil aerators. Every living environment has a microbiome — a natural population of bacteria. Healthy soil should have a host of bacteria that we in turn eat and absorb. Aerators, insects and animals that churn up the soil, are also important leading to looser soils where plants have an easier time growing.
Gardening In Downtown Chicago
When I moved back to downtown Chicago as an adult, I turned our condominium into a greenhouse. Plants grew along every window, butted-up against the walls and hung from the ceilings. First time visitors would ask: “who waters the plants?”
I loved our condo, but outdoor space was limited to the tiny garden in front and a cement-covered common space out back. A few years in we found out our unit owned much of the roof — a page of our condo document had been missing. We quickly built a five hundred square foot roof-top garden and grew everything climate and space would allow: lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, arugula, peppers, beans apples, peaches, cherries, strawberries and raspberries. We had grapes for a time, but once the fruit ripened, every bird in the neighborhood came, ate and stayed to socialize and poop.
All summer long we held dinner parties in the sky and served garden to table. Our Salads were picked fresh and served wrapped in chives and crowned with edible flowers.
Retirement
My life in Wall Street was fast-paced and stressful. I ran on adrenaline for decades. Laura 2.0 is a much healthier woman, partly because we grow most of our food. We relocated to Florida where one can garden twelve months out of the year — if you are not overly sensitive to heat.
Unlike my father, I am the most organic of gardeners. I try to use plants to amend the soil, growing legumes to add nitrogen and other plants like comfrey to accumulate potassium and calcium. I grow red amaranth to take care of bugs, something I discovered purely by accident. My first year in Florida, I planted the grain and noticed the leaves were eaten to the spine. Curiously, none of the other plants touched. Amaranth is the preferred food of all Florida’s bugs.
Also differently from my father, I do not till the soil below some two to four inches, leaving the microbiome strong and healthy. We in turn eat the plants leading to strong human microbiomes.
How technology helps me
In the olden days, my father perused seed catalogs and traveled to local nurseries to get what he needed. Occasionally, another hobbyist would share seeds. Today, I use my keyboard to source plants and trees from all over the world from Chinese water chestnuts to Korean Ginseng. I type in what I am looking for, scroll down and click. My garden contains plants from all over the world.
All I grow are open pollinated (OP) heirlooms. Heirlooms are old-time varieties that have been passed down for generations, or at least fifty years. Open pollination refers to vegetables that either self pollinate or the process is done naturally through insects and the wind. Using OP varieties allows we to save seeds. Each season I let the plants bolt, or go to seed and collect them once dried out by the sun. You can find me walking around Jacksonville handing out homemade free packets.
Online I found like-minded seed savers and organizations. My favorite is Seed Savers Exchange, it traces many of its seeds back one hundred years or more to where in the world and who grew them. Oddly enough, Etsy known more for handmade and vintage items, has unusual plants I cannot find anywhere else.
Finding how to grow things in the internet age is easy. While my father literally had gardening encyclopedias to refer to, I can use Google to pretty much find out how to grow anything. The University of Florida is a great online resource. It outlines what and when to grow by state region.
An old technology made new is hydroponics, growing in water instead of soil. This is particularly helpful in Florida where it gets so hot. Hydroponic towers, like the ones I use take 1/9 the amount of water when compared to soil gardening.
Graduated to Herbal Medicine
My most recent venture is herbal medicine. One of our greenhouses holds 100 different herbs from Astragalus to Za'atar and everything in-between. While I still use text books, I heavily augment my learning with herbal forums, blogs and the like.
Herbal medicine is gaining traction in the United States. I have stumbled upon (just though Google searches) universities that have cataloged herbs and their medicinal value. One of my favorites is at Penn State.
Two of my preferred sites to buy medicinal plants are The Growers Exchange and Strictly Medicinal.
With the Covid-19 virus causing worldwide havoc, my studies of herbal medicine couldn't be more timely. Currently our refrigerator is stocked homemade with anti-viral and stress reduction teas. If we were to get the virus, eucalyptus, menthol, mint, elderberries ...and the list literally goes on and on, would help us heal more quickly.
Feel free to follow my adventures in gardening, hydroponics, meditation and yoga on my Facebook page Mat Seed and Spoon.
Wow. You are nothing short of amazing. Now, the question is: Do you sleep? Thanks for sharing your many talents with us. It is inspirational. Ellen
Posted by: Ellen Carnahan | March 27, 2020 at 04:18 PM