Thanks for visiting my website! I'm a gardener based out of Oakland, specializing in ecological edible and native gardens. I've been gardening and farming for over 15 years now.
I first put my hands in the soil as a young child, tending to my yard in Minnesota, and grew my first vegetable on a farm in Alaska in 2006. Since then, I've dedicated my time to caring for green spaces, a skill I enjoy sharing with my clients and find to be both a source of personal wellbeing and a way to support diversity and connectedness in my community.
I am a certified permaculture designer, and feel honored to have received foundational mentorship from award-winning landscape architect Robert Edson Swain and beloved permaculturalist Toby Hemenway.
Why perennial edibles and Natives?
Learn to grow your own food. Decrease your carbon footprint. Support ecological diversity by providing habitat for local flora and fauna. But the reasons I am passionate about growing food and native plants run much deeper than these, even.
Environmentalist and cultural historian Thomas Berry once wrote that our common future relies upon "humanity's capacity for intimacy in our human-earth relations." It's no secret that humans are suffering from a lack of intimacy, with each other and with the natural world. One way that I have found to make space for the gradual reclamation of this intimacy is through creating and spending time in gardens that exist, not simply as objects of beauty, but also as sources of sustenance, both physical, psychological and philosophical.
Curious about gardening in the era of climate change? Check out this article. Author James Barilla effectively argues that "a resilient garden is a diverse garden."
Growing perennial edible and native plants, we feed ourselves and the living creatures and systems that sustain us. Creating ecological habitats that emphasize systemic wellbeing can reconnect us to our communities, and feed us in ways that run much deeper than a simple meal. Wild spaces that incorporate food production and support local wildlife can reunite us with a sense of belonging to place. In growing gardens for my clients, I aim for the creation of a natural sanctuary: a place to slow down, to unwind, to pay attention to the present, to notice the creative forces in our lives, and to gain inspiration and comfort from the regenerative spirit of the garden.
Ecological Values and ethics
Resiliency in your garden means, in a word, connection. Designing and facilitating a web of connections in your garden through ecological gardening practices helps your yard to sustainably adapt and grow despite ever changing local and global conditions. In today’s uncertain times, we need sustainable design more than ever.
Permaculture, a branch of ecological design, combines thoughtful, creative observation with an understanding of ecological and social principles to evolve designs that build resiliency by caring for ourselves, our neighbors and the ecosystems that sustain us all. I enjoy creating gardens that incorporate native plants to support the wild habitats and wildlife we are surrounded by, and edible plants and fruit trees to support our families, our friends, and the neighbors we are surrounded by. Nothing builds trust and care like being able to share a fresh-picked lemon or a pineapple guava harvest with one’s community.
The following principles, based upon scientific understanding of healthy ecological systems, inform the ecological design process I employ in some of my clients’ gardens. These principles also apply to a sustainable design for your life, or for any system:
Work with nature rather than against it
The problem is the solution - think creatively
Make the least change for the greatest possible effect
The yield of a system is only limited by our imagination
Thoughtful, protracted observation leads to better design
Catch and store energy on site through composting and mulching
Plan for both short-term and long-term yield - plant radishes for next week, and fruit trees for 3 years from now
Apply self-regulation & accept feedback (reflect, reassess, and reorient when necessary)
Use & value renewable resources & services
Design from patterns to details
Integrate rather than segregate elements in a system - create connections!
Use small & slow solutions over time, instead of big sudden changes
Use & value diversity
Use edges & value the marginal - it’s where something new is born
