Featured Gardener: Jess

Chapter: Whatcom-WA

How long have you been gardening?

I had my first vegetable garden in middle school! I've always loved growing food and cooking up delicious meals with stuff I've grown. I farmed for a handful of years but currently I garden with my partner Rory in our small yard and greenhouse.

What are your “must-grow” crops?

Garlic and pumpkins! Garlic is just such a household staple and genuinely tastes better when you grow it yourself. And pumpkins are beautiful! So many varieties and flavors.

One piece of advice for beginners?

You don't need all the tools or the perfect growing space to start - gardening can be pretty simple! Put some seeds in the ground, use GeoGardenClub to track what happened, and adjust as needed. You will learn so much watching things grow!

Favorite feature of GeoGardenClub?

When I farmed, I drew maps, crafted intricate spreadsheets, and took tons of photos to capture all the data I needed to plan out plantings and it always felt disjointed. With GeoGardenClub, everything lives in one place! I have the visual representation of how long the crop will be in the bed (that I can easily edit on the fly), and if I want data on the crop, I can click on it. And I can capture observations to better visualize how the crop is growing at different times of year, in different beds, etc. It saves me so much time and headache!