Forget green thumbs. I’m guessing my genes are green, and know my jean knees are.
Our favorite family pictures were mostly taken in gardens, like grampa pointing up to a blossoming tree he grafted with three different types of apples, my dad picking blackberries and grinning as he wielded giant loppers in a battle against brush, and mom’s glamor poses on our annual trips to visit rose exhibition gardens. We raised so many vegetables at our farm in upstate New York, that there were enough to sell a roadside stand.
I earned a degree in Agricultural Economics and Communications at Cornell University, but a summer spent as a volunteer in the mountains near Morelia, Mexico, doing things like planting vegetable gardens, putting in water pipes and building a schoolhouse was education more to my liking.
After 30 years living in Kentucky, raising 3 daughters and studying my second favorite subject, piano, at UK, I wormed my way into the newspaper business as a Master Gardener volunteer. 350 articles later, I am happy to be starting this blog to tie garden experience and communication together with a digital twist.
Marshall McLuhan, whose prophetic Understanding Media introduced ideas about how media technology influences our experience and changes our lives, wrote “the medium is the message” and about the emergence of a “global village.” His ideas are as thought-provoking now as they were when he wrote them in 1964.
Technology has allowed us a new plot to cultivate. So, welcome to this Kentucky Web-village garden patch. The importance of feeling the self-sufficiency in knowing how to grow your own vegetables, taking steps to use resources wisely and create sustainable living spaces is something we all have on our minds. Let’s talk.
