Gardener interviews/Ivy

Demographics
Age:


 * 30-55

Gender: female

Where do you live? (general area ok) Long Beach, California, USA

Do you live in a house, flat, ??? House with front and back yard.

Do you rent or own? own

Your garden
Tell me about your garden?


 * Our garden is complicated by the fact that the previous owners were very into concrete, so much of our back yard is covered in the stuff (and the front yard is, in California, a very tough place to grow food, because people who walk past feel comfortable helping themselves, plus I prefer to work on my garden where other people are not likely to wander by and want to chat). So we have a few areas of in-the-ground planting and other areas with containers. We have eight containers of various sizes, including three 8 x 4 x 4 (feet) boxes (two on top of concrete, one on top of dirt so it's more like a raised bed, an oddly-shaped brick thing installed by the previous owners (probably works out the same as a 2 x 4 x 4), and a number of 20 or 50 gallon pots. What I'm saying here is this is a very haphazard garden. There is no structured layout - I just make sure it's easy to reach the plants (after the first year, when picking stuff became increasingly difficult because I inadvertently created a jungle, although to be honest it's not like that problem has gone away) and walk between the containers.


 * We split between veggie type gardening and permaculture. We grow apples, lemons, grapes (although we have not yet had a successful harvest with those, still fighting it out vs. the birds), plums, raspberries, tomatoes, squash (summer and winter), strawberries, watermelons, chilies (jalapeño, serrano, Hungarian banana peppers, and one mutant variety whose identity I don't know, but they're tasty), herbs, beans, eggplants, cucumbers, and other random stuff. I've tried carrots but never successfully; I don't have the gift for making carrots happen, I guess. We planted bell peppers but something terrible happened to them. One year we accidentally grew pinto beans. I've learned to avoid things that don't change color when ripe.


 * We start some stuff from seed and some stuff from seedlings we buy.


 * We also sharecrop, I think it's called; we have some plants in my sister's garden, for example.

How long have you been growing food?


 * I started growing food four years ago, mostly because our neighbor in our old place sold tomato seedlings for fifty cents. When we moved to this house, I got more into it. So I've been seriously gardening for roughly three years.

Why do you grow your own food? What do you like best about it?


 * I started growing my own food because - I guess because it seemed interesting? I don't know. I'm not very good with plants, but I was outside anyway, and the flowers kept dying because I forgot about them, so we had a lot of available soil. And I wanted to get rid of the grass, because it's ridiculous to have your main crop be GRASS, so something needed to replace it. I guess I don't really remember why I started.


 * I think what I like best about it is - maybe two things. First, there's a certain satisfaction in MAKING FOOD. Like. You started with things that weren't food! And now there's FOOD. It's just cool. And also I like that there's no way to know what's going to happen. Gardening is a crazy adventure, a lot of the time. And also where I live it's very rewarding, usually. That helps.

Do you buy fruit/veg from other places? Where? Why do you shop there?


 * Of course I do; there's no way my garden could support my family's ridiculous produce needs. I buy mostly from the farmers market nearby; California is ground zero for farmers markets. They're everywhere here. I shop there mostly because I feel like we should support local farmers, and the produce is way better than at the grocery store. Also, it's ridiculous to buy tomatoes that come from a thousand miles away when you LIVE IN CALIFORNIA. At the farmers market, I know the food didn't have an epic journey to get there.


 * Also, of course, my son (age 4) greatly prefers the food from the farmers market. He's kind of a food snob. So that's another reason to prefer that route.


 * And I occasionally supplement farmers market purchases with grocery store purchases.

Do you garden with anyone else/does anyone help you with the garden?


 * My son helps! And also my wife helps with heavy lifting and things like prepping the food glut for cooking or storage.

Do you know how much you spend on your garden? Supplies, seeds, plants, etc?


 * I honestly have no idea. It varies from year to year, and anyway I basically view gardening purchases as entertainment-related spending.

Where do you buy garden supplies etc?


 * Two main places: Home Depot, which is a very large US chain of home improvement/building stores, and Armstrong Garden Center, which is a local chain of gardening supply stores.

Where do you get information/help about gardening? Which sources are most useful?


 * I read some books and I google when I have specific questions. Mostly, to be honest, I wing it; general sources of information for gardening do not apply to my garden. Like, ever. Take planting information as an example. Books and seed packets and websites all tell you to plant X number of days after the last frost. Our last local frost occurred in the 1950s, and I don't expect another one any time soon, so I would need a time machine to do that.


 * And even when the information is supposed to be geared toward my specific area, it is obviously wrong. I found one website that had hardiness zone specific advice and articles, and I started reading, and - okay, first the woman who wrote for my zone opened one article by saying if she lived in my zone, she'd live off the land. This left me wondering why the site didn't have someone who ACTUALLY LIVES HERE write the article. (For the record, no one who lives here would talk about living off the land. Our land is ridiculously expensive. To get the kind of square footage you'd need to feed a family year round would cost millions. Also, water is an issue.) Later in the article she said you can grow anything here except apples. But as I said above, I do grow apples. Lots of people here grow apples, which she would know if she actually lived here. We use low-chill cultivars like the Beverly Hills apple, which isn't grown anywhere else that I know of (they're not good commercial apples because they don't travel well, but they are INCREDIBLY tasty) but is sure grown a lot here. There's at least half a dozen low-chill varieties that I know of! Apples happen reliably every year! So it's hard to trust the other stuff that website says, obviously.


 * And books are super frustrating because they're mostly geared to flower growers, which I am not and never will be, and also often contain information that is openly inaccurate for the area.


 * Anyway, I realize you don't want an epic lecture on all the sources of information I've tried and found wanting, but the answer is: I don't get much help beyond asking the folks at Armstrong, and I don't get much information I can actually use. This definitely enhances the crazy adventure aspect of gardening, but can get really frustrating when there's something specific I need to know. Often I will have a question, never get the answer, and then find it out a year later, reading something unrelated to gardening. (Bill Bryson is surprisingly good for this. As are English humor authors in general. I can only conclude the standard of gardening knowledge is much higher in the UK than here.)

What are the *best* sources of information?


 * I have a book that is actually on urban homesteading, but it talks a lot about gardening, and it was written by locals. Admittedly, they're trying for a wider audience, so it isn't hugely specific, but they do understand what it's like to garden here and it shows. These are people who really understand our tomato issues, for example. It's nice to feel understood.


 * Also, there's a website that hasn't been updated since the early 2000s that has a chart for planting in this specific area that shows what times things should go in the ground. That's been invaluable, even though I've had to modify it slightly to reflect our trend toward higher temperatures lately. That's the single best resource I've found.

Do any of your family members or close friends have veggie gardens?


 * My mother had a huge one but she switched to all permaculture this year, because managing her garden was getting hard on her physically. So now she has a lot more fruit trees and brambles and just a few herbs. Plus the ubiquitous avocado tree (are avocadoes a fruit?), which - you randomly select three gardens in this area and at least one will have an avocado tree. They're everywhere.


 * My sister and brother-in-law grow tomatoes and strawberries (lots of people here just grow tomatoes and strawberries, as they give the biggest reward in terms of taste and abundance) and some herbs, plus we have shared fruit trees and one nut tree. (We bought the trees - although not the nut tree, that came with their house - and they water them and we split the fruit that results.)

Do you keep a garden journal or otherwise keep track of what you plant? Tell us about it.


 * I used to use a website called myfolia.com, but it wanted more information than I generally have and was just - too effort intensive. I only have so much time, and I decided I wanted to use it on the garden, rather than tracking the garden.


 * Sometimes I write about my garden. I take lots of photos so I can remember what went on from year to year. And last year I finally remembered to WRITE DOWN what tomato varieties were planted where so we'd know what we were eating. That was exceptionally rewarding. (If you're wondering why I say last year: this year isn't going so well on the writing down what it is. There are already some plants out there that I'm pretty sure are squashes, but we're not going to know unless they fruit something.)

If no: Would you consider keeping a garden journal? What might inspire or motivate you to do so?


 * Of course I'd consider it. I'd need an easy way to do it - I'm never going to handwrite anything or do anything that involves a lot of careful documentation of cultivars from a lengthy list of potential ones or anything like that. It would need to be mostly text-based. It would help if I knew other people might read it and be interested in it. It would be most motivating if I knew I would get useful responses - you know, like, "If you find you're hating that kind of tomato but really loving this other kind, try this third one!" Or "This kind of plant is hardier for heat, maybe try that?" Or "Spray it with a mixture of dishsoap and water." Like, actually useful advice.


 * I'd do a lot to get useful advice from people who know what they're talking about. Most gardening forum posts are either full of scary gardeners growing challenging things in really difficult places (one time I asked a question and got asked about the square footage of my greenhouse and how I prepped my soil, which - I don't have a greenhouse and I wasn't aware soil needed prepping, so waaaaay above my level, there) or full of people who don't actually know anything.

Are you involved in any community groups or organisations related to gardening?


 * No. Except myfolia, which I don't use anymore, so really no. There aren't many local vegetable gardening groups I know about. I think people mostly just put stuff in the ground and water it here. There's not a really gardening culture.


 * Which is odd, now that I type that, since most people here garden a bit. We just don't get into it as much as in other places, I think. There's more dilettante gardeners. (That's exactly what I am! A dilettante gardener!) It's easy to get started here and you don't have to know much, so mostly we don't.

Online behaviour
Do you have high-speed Internet at home? What do you mostly use it for?


 * Yes. And I use it for - I mean, LIFE. I work on it! I play on it! I read explicit fan fiction on it! I talk to all my friends on it!


 * To be honest, I feel like you just asked me what I use the oxygen in our home for. I USE IT FOR LIVING, PEOPLE.

Do you have a smart phone? What kind? What do you mostly use it for?


 * I have an iPhone. Not an iPhone 5, just the basic kind. I use it for Twitter and texting and playing Puzzlecraft and other apps. And googling. And keeping up with hockey. And my schedule. And keeping track of time. Can I just say I use it for living, too? Basically the only thing I hardly ever do with it is make phone calls.

Do you use social networks? Which? What for? How much time do you spend?


 * Yup. Dreamwidth and Twitter. At least a few hours a day, spread out over the whole day. These are my primary sources of in-depth social interaction, for one thing, and also where I talk about my hobbies and my life.

Do you talk about your veggie garden on social networks? Why or why not?


 * I mostly don't. Sometimes I write posts about it on DW/LJ! But mostly I don't know anyone who is interested in gardening, and I fear being that person nattering on about composting, you know?


 * Plus I just really think not that many people are interested in the news that my chilies all overwintered (they did! It's so weird!) and NEVER STOPPED FRUITING. I mean, I'm fascinated, but I get why no one else would be. People's eggplant news may be the next pictures of cats, for all I know - uninteresting unless you really love eggplants or it comes with amusing text.

Do you pay for any online services/subscriptions? Which and how much?


 * I pay for Dreamwidth. I bought a seed account. I share a portion of hockey news subscription fees (a group of fans will each chip in a few bucks and subscribe). I pay for Flickr for photo hosting. I support the OTW and animemusicvideos.org with donations. I bought an account at Pinboard and will probably pay for a subscription upgrade soon. I did donate to 750words.com, but I don't use it enough to pay a subscription now that it's subscription only.


 * Basically, if I use a service and it asks for donations, I will give them. If it is subscription based, I'll pay if I use it a lot or value it a lot.

For each service, what makes it worth paying for?


 * It's a part of my daily life. Or it's something I don't want going away. Or it's worth supporting - like, Dreamwidth, I bought a seed account because I liked the concept and the values of the people who started it.


 * I guess you could say there's a series of factors: amount I use it, connection I feel to it, importance in my life, how good I feel about it (so, like, the values of the organization, for instance), how much I want it to stay around. When those combine for a total value of - hypothetically - fifty, I pay. So like the hockey news organizations - I don't actually care about them at all, but they give me information I need. So I'm willing to pay. (But if I stopped using them, I'd immediately drop below fifty and stop.) Dreamwidth I paid for before I used it at all because I felt good about it and I wanted it to work, and that alone made it over fifty. And so on.

Do you use any gardening websites or apps? For instance garden planners, trackers, planting guides/reminders, forums, or wikis/encyclopedias of plants?


 * No. Really, I just wing it.

What do you like best about them?


 * N/A

What do you dislike about them?


 * N/A

Growstuff
We're building a website for food gardeners. It's called Growstuff. It's free to use. It lets you (blah blah...)

Would you consider using a website like this? Again, reiterate: it's free to use.


 * I would try it! I'm interested, and it's free, so why not?

What part of it sounds interesting or useful to you?


 * It all sounds like something I might be interested in. But, again, myfolia offered all those things. Just in practice it was too much work. So it depends on the execution.

We're also thinking of offering a paid upgrade to provide premium features. These might include things like (blah blah...)

Would you consider paying for something like that?


 * Not for the extra features. If the community was important to me or the service was valuable, I might pay just to support it. Or buy a subscription for someone else who wanted the special features.

Which of those features sounded interesting to you?


 * None of them. I would pay for other features - like, for example, something that tracked the market value of what I've grown, or suggested other plants I might like to grow based on my area and the plants I've rated the most highly (or ANY plant rating thing, anything like that that might help me remember what we liked and how it grew), but not those features.

Are there any other features that might be cool enough to make you want to buy a premium account?


 * ...Whoops, I think I already answered this one. BUT let me add that I would also pay for a "What Plant Is This Volunteer?" diagnostic system. A "What Is This Bug I Have Taken a Picture of, and Is It Likely to Be a Problem?" service. A gardening equipment rating system, so I know BEFORE I TRY IT that this particular tomato support LOOKS good but in fact does not actually work (speaks the voice of bitter experience) or that this twine looks fine but will in fact flay your skin and then rend the flesh from your fingers (again, bitter experience). I'd love a plant ratings system, like I said, especially one that told me how easy a plant would be to grow (I'm not a very good gardener!). I'd love something that integrated gardening and children, since I spend a lot of time in the garden with a kid and I can tell you that, for example, some plants are REALLY NOT child friendly, and that's not always obviously when you buy them.


 * I could likely come up with others if you check back in about two months. That's when I'll really have a lot of gardening frustrations.

How much do you think would be a reasonable price? (Feel free to compare to other online services, if it helps you think about what are normal sorts of prices.)


 * It depends on the score and the amount over fifty, to use my earlier analogy. I'd probably find $5/month easy to pay. A lot more than that and it'd really have to add value to my gardening experience. Like, a LOT.

Growstuff works towards social good in a number of ways. For instance (blah blah...):

Knowing this, would you be more or less likely to pay for a premium account on Growstuff?


 * More. Much more.

Does this change the amount you'd be willing to pay?


 * I'm always willing to add on a premium amount for organizational values and positive impact. So, like $10/month?

Other
Anything else you'd like to tell us that we didn't cover in the questions?


 * Ease of use and ease of getting started is a BIG DEAL.


 * If I can do it from my phone, I'm always more likely to do it.


 * Also, I don't know if this actually fits with your project, but MAN I would like some garden narrative essays. You know, like travel essays - people writing about their gardens in more than just a "strawberries ripe" and "picked 18 tomatoes, very tasty" kind of way - the gardening experience, I guess is what I'm saying. I tried looking for that in published non-fiction, but a lot of it was not exactly from normal gardeners - I'm thinking here of The $64 Tomato, which, while light and amusing, starts with the dude spending an enormous sum of money on a professional landscape designer for his vegetable garden. Not really my level, plus it kind of made me want to throttle him. Of course your tomatoes cost $64/each, sir! You spent a FORTUNTE ON LANDSCAPING and average it into your per-item price!

Would you like to receive our newsletter? (fortnightly, gives updates on our progress and will tell you when Growstuff is launched)


 * Sure! Although I thought I already signed up and it wasn't happening yet? Maybe I just meant to and never did, though.