Nancy
The Gardener
It may be obvious from the information on the site that I live in Nebraska, but Indiana is where I grew up. We lived in a woods in Bloomington, Indiana. I could spend the entire day in the woods and never be bored. In the summer I never worried about food because of all the things you can eat in the forest. Grazing as you play.
Hooked on Gardening
Every summer when I was small, we went to visit my maternal grandmother who lived in New York state near Lake Erie near a small town called Silver Creek. She had wonderful gardens of flowers and vegetables around her cottage. Her gardens were always so beautiful and fragrant and the vegetable garden productive.
We had fresh vegetables to eat every day. She did wonderful things like make vegetable juice from her vegetables, dried raspberry leaves for tea and grew roses with large berries called rose hips that she said she raised back in World War II to harvest the hips which were used in the war effort to make vitamin C tablets for our soldiers.
I learned at a young age that the vegetable garden should be a beautiful space. My first memorable gardening experience was when my grandmother gave me some packages of flower seeds to plant in the very front rows of her vegetable garden. She showed me how to decide to plant the shortest growers in the front, how to prepare the soil and plant the seeds. There were nastrutiums, marigolds and zinnias. They looked wonderful all summer and I got to cut flowers for the table every day. I was hooked on gardening.
Our house in Indianawas surrounded with gardens. Mom had flowers around the house and all the way down the curving drive out to the road. She also let the spring wild flowers grow up through the turf grass. Every spring the yard was white with a little flower called spring beauties. We had three vegetable garden spaces. One was mixed with flowers and close to the house. One was in a clearing in the woods and we had to carry water in gallon jugs out to the garden to water it. This garden had long rows of tomatoes, peppers, greens, beans, and a big strawberry bed. The third was on the far end of our woods of 14 acres where we planted potatoes and corn and which never got supplemental water.
The best part of gardening was harvesting. I especially liked picking berries. We had not only strawberries, but red raspberries, black raspberries, golden raspberries, dewberries, blackberries, mulberries, persimmons, and pawpaws. In the springtime we picked morel mushrooms and puffball mushrooms in the fall.
There was a tree called sassafras in the woods. Every year or two we would dig some roots of the sassafras and scrape off the bark and dry it for the best tasting tea I have ever had. A number of years ago there was osme research that showed sassafras causes cancer, but it is hard to believe that something so wonderful could cause cancer.
My Mom gave me a my first garden right in front of the house where I could do whatever I wanted to do and I spent many hours playing in that garden.
Move to Nebraska
The year I started college, Dad got a job teaching geology at the University of Nebraska, so my parents and brother, sister and I left the woods in southern Indiana and moved to Nebraska. I was a bit homesick at first because there are not a lot of trees in Nebraska, which is mostly open farmland or city, and I was used to living in the forest and spending my free time in the woods. Over the years I have come to love the prairies of Nebraska.
Education
I enjoy learning and have been taking classes nearly continuously since I first entered kindergarten. I graduated from Bloomington High School in Bloomington Indiana in 1968.
I graduated from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln in 1971, majoring in art education with minors in social science and English. Later I worked on a masters degree in special education and an associates degree in drafting.
Although not a degree, I have taken a number of university horticulture courses at the University of Nebraska, and many seminars over the years with the county Extension, Master Gardeners, Nebraska Nursery and Landscape Association, Western Nursery and Landscape Association, Iowa State and Nebraska trees conferences and others and I am a Nebraska Certified Nurseryman.
My Masters degree is in Recreation Administration from the University of Nebraska, Omaha and am a certified Professional with the Nebraska Recreation and Park Association. For the past few years I have been taking computer, math, English and Spanish courses at the local community college.
In addition to formal education I enjoy learning how to do things that some people consider useless forgotten crafts like spinning wool and other fibers, felting and coloring fiber with natural dyes from the garden, and other fiber crafts. I also grow herbs and study about their historical uses.
Work
I have worked at a range of professions. Fresh out of the University, I taught 7th grade and then substituted for several at the local high schools while attending grad school and working, but you loose your certification if you don't have a permanent teaching position in Nebraska. During that time I was also running the business end of a family gravel hauling company, worked for several landscaping companies and was raising a family. For a while I worked at the Youth Center at the Air Force base and later worked in the Offutt Air Force Base publicity office writing news articles, fliers and other publicity for the Air Force.
Most of the jobs I have held were in horticulture. The most exciting was as a licensed arborist, climbing tall street trees to trim them. For the next 5 years I became a Park worker caring for gardens, parks, public fountains and the greenhouse for the City of Lincoln, Nebraska
I have worked at a golf course and then for a Design-build landscaping company caring for beautiful gardens. I left that position to become a salesperson at a garden center. I loved caring for the nursery stock and helping people select the perfect trees and shrubs for their gardens. I quit working for a few years to give my daughter more attention when she was in high school. I am now back with the design-build company, Kinghorn Gardens.
Interests
Everyone has a hot button interest and mine has been gardening. I love the out-of doors and gardens of all types.
In my garden I raise angora rabbits and spin their wool. I enjoy doing needlework and other fiber crafts, drawing, reading, playing on the computer and of course, my family. I'm married & have 3 children & 3 grandchildren. Current events, watching politics, observing the way people believe and behave, finding out about other cultures and people, religion and history are some of my favorite interests.
Politically, I am Environmentalist and Jimmy Carter is my favorite president. I like Al Gore and sure wish he was president, but maybe I will be able to vote for him in the next election, again.
My birth sign is Aquarius, which seems to matter so some and not to others. I'm not so sure it makes any difference.
My gardens are a combination of food and flowers with many woody plants. At last count there were about 178 woody plant species on our normal sized urban corner lot. I like to find dwarfs or smaller selections so I can add more to the collection without it being too crowded ...although my urban raised husband differes, thinking its a serious jungle out there already.
There are gardens for every nitch of the yard. Herbs are a favorite for cooking, healing, dye, and just plain 'cause I like them. The main vegy garden is in the sunniest part of the yard, but vegetables may be found in nearly every bed of flowers.
One of my goals when we moved to this house and garden was to have flowers blooming as many days of the year as possible. Except for the very coldest days, I have met this goal using perennials that are long blooming and species that bloom at different times of the year. Perennials, bulbs, tender bulbs, trees and shrubs, with annuals to fill in the gaps are the secret.
Attracting wildlife was another goal. When we moved here there was nothing but the feeder I put up. Now there is habitat. Trees, shrubs and flowers that provide food, homes and shelter along with water attract many species. Supplemental food and subsidized housing for birds and bats attract more.
One goal I had was to try to recreate for my children in a small way, what I had as a child. I could be gone all day in the forest, at least in the summer, and never go home for lunch, and never be hungry. There are edible foods all over the yard. Young guests to our yard are always amazed at all the good tasting and fragrant plants and hopefully take home a fun memory also.
The Gita I discovered a wonderful book called the Bhagavad Gita a few years ago. It is an important scripture in India and written in Sanskrit. Nearly every situation a person is faced with in life can be understood from the wisdom in this book. Each time I sit down to read a verse it seems like I discover something more. I am very lucky to have found a small group which meets weekly here in Omaha to study the Gita, which is helpful in gaining more insight and understanding.
The original Sanskrit is also included in my English translation. This led me to be interested in trying to understand it better so I am working on learning Sanskrit. I had a teacher for a while and learned the alphabet and began learning the grammar under him. Without a teacher, progress is much slower.
Television I haven't watched much television lately because they keep taking off good shows and replacing them with shows that glorify greed, violence and overt sexuality with no consequences. I used to enjoy the family shows that used to make up most of television. Except for reruns, there is not much of that type of programming anymore.
Two favorite television programs were Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and First Edition, which have both been removed. Occasionally I check out the Nature channel, Public TV or the Gardening channel and the news.
