The Evolution of a Gardener

I was invited to give a gardening presentation to the local Unitarian Universalist congregation in Lanoka Harbor. My friend Irene, a master naturalist, asked me to share my enthusiasm for growing food and somehow relate it to spirituality if I could. sure! I hope you enjoy the presentation, I certainly loved giving it.

I’m Lisa Mazzuca professionally I am a website designer and an SEO specialist, That’s search engine optimization my education is a double major in visual art and communication I went to Rutgers for my undergraduate degree and then I went to the new school at Parsons in New York for a certificate in digital and graphic design, I’ve always said that building a website is much like growing a garden you have to tend it and add to it over time for best results and success, however I did not start gardening until a few years after I started working on the web, in 2009 I planted my first vegetable garden, we were in Beachwood New Jersey and my husband and I and my two kids Giovani and Abigail lived there from 2007 to 2015, I started out with a very traditional rows and specific spacing garden, I double dug my garden beds in very heavy clay and with a pickaxe and incorporated my first batch of lousy unfinished compost but you’ve got to start somewhere, we had a strange front yard situation where landscaping fabric, which I hate, was underneath about five or six inches of river rock and then a landscaper had basically skim coated the surface with top soil and we hoped that grass would grow, that said, once I grew food, once I coaxed those plants out of the soil out of those two small garden beds and experienced abundance due to my effort, and watched the miracle of the earth providing sustenance, I was hooked, when it got too cold to grow and plant I read, I scoured the Ocean County Library for all the garden books and spent cold winter nights reading, I was particularly attracted to permaculture because I had small kids, I was a business owner, I was busy, I wanted to garden with less maintenance because I wanted to grow a lot and micromanaging a garden wouldn’t work for me, permaculture is an approach to land management that adopts biomimicry, it includes design principles using a holistic thought process, you design your landscape in a way that works best for the plants on this Earth that are not being managed by people, this concept, if designed well, requires less Hands-On management than a structured Garden that’s really meant for optimal production and sometimes even mechanized agriculture, I could partner with natural systems to best use space and ecology and minimize effort, I think my first introduction to permaculture was the Back to Eden documentary uh with Paul Gautschi, could it be that easy? cover the soil in deep wood chips, don’t till it, in no need to water or fertilize and fruit trees will grow and produce in any soil, well no it’s not quite that easy but it was a good start, in those colder months I learned to compost and dove into that in a big way, we had mature Oaks on the property and I was always inundated with leaves, problem solved, the problem is the solution which is a big principle in permaculture, I read books by many people who’d been doing this for decades and here are some of the resources I wanted to share with you today, but back to Beachwood, my kids were small and helping me outside, I told myself I was investing so much time and energy into setting up these systems to play outside with them and spend time outdoors with them, which we did do, but this was for me, it lit up my soul and I was driven to do it, grow more, plant another bed, make another path, a wooded shade garden, guilds of berry bushes and fruit trees, and perennial herbs, and tea I could not imagine not doing it, so the kids grew and so did the garden, and then my dad passed away, my folks lived in Brick and we were very close and it was very hard, and when we asked my mom to move in with us she did, our current home wasn’t right for our family and so we moved, and I dug up my plants and I brought as many as I could with me and I said goodbye to my first Gardens, but I cut my teeth here, I knew what I wanted, I made mistakes, I knew what I would never want to do again, no brambles with thorns, they’re a nightmare and you can’t really compost them because you’re dealing with thorns, it’s horrible, and then no 12 foot Sunchokes in the front of the garden beds, or in the front of the front yard is not a good idea and don’t let friends hoard fresh grass clippings and then dump them in your yard for you to use in your garden days later in the summer, they are a slimy smelly mess and the all the neighbors were very upset for a long time, we moved to a blank slate, new construction built in 2015, we moved in right before Christmas that year, on Google Maps our property is still a heavily wooded lot, but they clear cut and there was literally nothing there, I brought over some plants to start and was thrilled I didn’t need my pickaxe, no clay, no Rock, I could dig to China if I wanted, wait what? no worms, no roots, no life, it was sand exactly like a beach, soft cave in on itself, not a single worm sand, okay let’s figure this out, I mulched and I planted, that’s the sand, I took a class with Jersey friendly yards and the Ocean County Soil Conservation District this was a home gardening seminar where I began to learn about soil and native plants and the benefits of planting native as opposed to invasive or other species that don’t support our local ecology, this was new to me, I was planting all the productive things that would grow in my planting zone which had more to do with average temperature and climate than native geographical ranges, this Workshop provided a grant to install a native plant garden in your landscape so I chose to set up a rain Garden to capture some storm water runoff that came from my roof down my driveway and out to the Bay, this was such a great experience I decided to take the volunteer master naturalist course in 2018 where I chose to focus on Native edible plants and learned there were many options to choose from, the beauty of natives was that they evolved in our local conditions they don’t require much fertilizer or maintenance and they support local Wildlife maximizing the native food web for Critters insects and birds, I was on my way to to converting sand to healthy microbial rich soil that could support my polyculture with native plants included, back to the books and YouTube and what I already knew about permaculture, organic matter was my friend, deep Mulch and Sheet mulched beds were helpful, no dig methods allowed the soil to take on structure without becoming compacted and let the worms and critters do the work of aerating the soil, nitrogen fixing plants positioned as companions help to pull nitrogen out of the air and fix it in nodules along the roots to improve the soil bring the worms bring the life the sand swallowed up plants for the first couple of years, some made it some died I learned all about so Health from soil scientists like Dr Elaine Ingham, and Dr Christine Brown, and Dr Kris Nichols, and expert Educators and Growers like Matt Powers, and David Montgomery a geologist, I learned that biodiversity is key, which is your last principal over there I believe diversity and the permaculture tenant of planting a polyculture made sense, not just to maximize space and yield and deal with pests and attract pollinators above ground, but diversity influenced and improved the soil below ground as well where we couldn’t see, different plants farm and attract different microbes and the more microbes the more they use organic matter to build the soil environment for them to happily live and multiply and support the plants, if you build it they will come, plant the plants, add the mulch, pull the weeds, provide the water, right plants right place, and the system builds itself and recycles nutrients and gets better and better and you get to watch it and help it and be part of it, there is no place where I belong as much as I do in my yard walking among the trees and bushes and flowers and buzzing things and birds singing and abundance, I don’t even want to wear sunglasses when I’m out there because I don’t want to block any of it out, and over the years we’ve built the soil and I’ve learned to make biochar – homemade charcoal that can be primed with nutrients in the compost and added to sandy soil infusing it with stable carbon structure for microbes, I began to build infrastructure a compost and rainwater collection system a substantial Arbor for Hardy kiwi Vines and during the height of the pandemic I built a DIY Greenhouse from recycled windows and old slider doors with my husband and this is the process of that happening, thank you, so that’s what that looks like, this is why I do it, why I’m driven to grow, and this is the Mazzuca Homestead mynjgarden.com is my garden blog where I’ve kind of tracked my journey um this is Bayville June of 2024 eight and a half years in, I took these pictures yesterday, there is still sand, and the lawn is not awesome but I don’t care for grass, i’d mulch the planet if I could but grass makes my mom happy and so I try to keep up with it in my garden blog I wrote this March this is the rain garden now I wrote this in March of 2020 near the beginning of lockdowns my garden has always brought me joy joy and a sense of purpose when I’m worried I see Leaf buds swell on shrubs and trees watch bees buzz and wiggle inside blooming flowers and see hints of new green comrey leaves rising up from the shriveled refu that was last season’s fol foliage and my shoulders relax I smile in spite of myself and I walk around and visit my plants and I know in my heart I’m right where I belong I confidently care for my landscape experiment with different plants methods and projects with ease and enthusiasm of informed Instinct now in light of what’s happening in the world I wish more than ever that others would see the value and benefits of gardening and growing food and creating an edible landscape I can’t help but look up to God and Nod in agreement as if to say I get it now this is why you put me on this path we’ve been training for this haven’t we building healthy soil and saving seeds is like putting money in the bank in fact it’s better than that you are building a resource and creating resiliency to potentially debilitating circumstances yes it would be worthless effort if in the face of Fire or earthquake or tornado which could wipe out our immediate environment and belongings but this isolation and possible supply chain disruption locally sourced Essentials become much more important I can always improve and add skills to what I’ve been doing the next obvious step for me is preserving the food I grow so beyond freezing my fruit and produce I need to make an effort to practice canning and drying what comes in from out of the yard these are fruit tree guilds that are set up in a food Forest system and food forests are designed in layers just like a natural Forest so there are the shade trees the canopy layer and then there are um understory trees and then shrubs and then an herbaceous layer down at the ground level and then a root layer and all of these can exist together in the same space which maximizes production and takes advantage of the natural systems some of these understory trees need the shade that the canopy provides and yet they can still be productive especially our native choices like serviceberry and spice bush and uh things of that nature these are the largest uh of the native trees in the yard they’re pawpaws have you ever had a pawpaw so paaws are North America’s largest Native fruit they’re about the size and shape of a mango but instead of one big pit they have a few thumbnail sized seeds inside them and they taste very tropical they’re kind of between a mango and a banana they lean more mango for me but it depends on the variety and they’re easy to grow because they evolved in this soil they don’t care that I live on sand that’s what they want and um so these are a lot of what you can grow on your own if you set things like this up are things that you can’t buy in the grocery store store because paw paws are ripe for a very short amount of time and they don’t travel well and don’t make it through commercial um mechanized packaging and and such in a positive way no one would buy them off the shelf by the time they saw them they’d be brown and shriveled and weird but when you get them out of the yard they’re fresh and wonderful um and and that’s that’s all I have for for you today uh I I wanted to let you know these are baby paw paw that’s what they look like right now but they’ll get they get big um and and so these are pictures from the yard currently the that kiwi Arbor is now covered with kiwi Vines people are typically surprised that you can grow kiwi here they are not native but um these are called hard kiwi they do grow on vines they’re very aggressive Vines so they’ll grow up to 10 feet Plus in a season and um they actually produce what’s more like a kiwi berry they’re like large grapes and the entire thing is edible you don’t have to peel a fuzzy layer but they taste just like kiwi if you cut them open they look just like kiwi they’re green with little seeds just seing yes that’s what they are um and my my backyard is ruled by a two 12 and a half year old yellow Lab who would get into this stuff if she had access to it so so a lot of my backyard is in raised beds but this is the inside of the greenhouse I do grow Greens in there I start seeds in there um and I grow brassas in there because the Cabbage moths take them if I leave them out in the yard ah here’s some more raised beds and this is yes there were figs in that pot um this is the sidey where I have that compost system right in front here you can see mayapples along the floor mayapples are a native plant they’re also called Mandrake and every part of the plant is incredibly toxic and dangerous and you should not eat it until the fruit is very ripe and then you can eat the fruit who figured that out I have no idea but um so mandre mayapple and you’ll find them in deep shade along the forest floor which is hard to find Productive fruit producing plants in deep shade many fruit plants like bu Sun so that’s what I meant when I say right plant right place um there’s Mountain mint and fennel uh fennel is not native Mountain mint is but I enjoy fennel in the garden because it is a host plant for Eastern black swallow tail butterflies so it’s welcome and it comes back every year they like dill and parsley too but that’s annual and I have to replant that so the fennel comes back this is moving onto the other side of my front yard so I I don’t have any part of my yard that is off limits to planting it’s all it all gets plants in it and uh a a raised bed area again I do um pull uh extra plants many of the native plants that I enjoy Reed themselves and so I have seedlings coming up and I just I can’t destroy perfectly good growing plants so I I to pull them and I share them with friends and sometimes I sell things on Facebook Marketplace uh right now I am on the board of a local nonprofit charity organization called a need we feed and they help feed hungry people throughout Ocean County they get meals from local restaurants and then they have volunteers that deliver them to these folks many of them are seniors and Veterans and families who are struggling and some are homeless um so they they were during covid they had financial support from the state via a grant that was very helpful and allowed them to help a lot of people but now we rely on fundraisers and donations uh and we’re running a 50/50 right now but um as I pull things from the yard and pot them up uh I have native plants to sell and I would like to help to support a need we feed so anything that I get from my sales I donate to a need we feed uh so if you’re interested in native plants I can definitely Supply you with a list that I can share and uh and this is the end this is a grape arbor there are uh fava beans planted along Among The Grapes because fava beans are in the legum family and legumes anything in the legum family is going to be those nitrogen fixing plants where they can take nitrogen from the air and fix it in among the roots and improve the soil for the plants around it so uh that’s how I like to fertilize if I can I hope this was helpful thank you so much for inviting me today and for some question oh yes absolutely this is not this isn’t a question thank you very much oh you’re welcome in my own little way I’m kind of connect with what you’re doing I live in a community in crood village and multiple perfect golf course Lawns surround me and nobody ever walks on them or does anything on them I have dedicated my lawn to be a pine bearing lawn yes can walk all over it and do what I want I posted recently on Facebook I went to some of the big box on people low and did nothing but take pictures of their most supplied aisles which are the aisles with pesticides and things that kill and destroy and harm things and I’m trying in my own little way push that out there stop killing start growing and I have a problem with deer but I like living things so on the side of my house I tried a couple the deer ate all the rose bushes and I tried to do things that are kind of native so this year for the first time my prickly pear Garden is growing fantastic and there’s garner snakes and everything living around and I told somebody my Garner snake they like oh did you get I was like what did I what am I getting it for so thank you very much I kind of thinking that way you’re welcome yes and and they do they do help to control when you plant this way you invite Wildlife so I invite VES and they eat my sun choke tubers and I shake my fist at the bunnies and I and and so on but the gardener the garer snake surprises me as I’m walking through my path and I say that’s okay you’re welcome here because they’re going to help take care of the Ws whether I like it or not yes well um my experience is that we live in the garby state we do and that I too live in a neighborhood where everybody loves grass and I only had a small area of sun in my front yard so I planted vegetables in my front yard in this little Sun area cuz I have all oak trees and I somebody came over from the association and told me I couldn’t do that I couldn’t what did you do and I said why not and she said oh and I said well this is a Garden State and I live in The Gardens of pleasant PL and she said oh but flowers only go in gardens so I’m just saying you know people just have these ideas and anyway I kept with my vegetables my neighbor started doing it yes oh they’re converts I love it county is the HOAs and the associations the mindset has to be changed that my neighbors I drive every morning to go to work and it’s raining out and the lawn sprinkers are off and it’s like you’re just wasting it and all the pesticides you used are going into the to the bay and the whole thing that’s a real big issue Jo I might look into that and see if there’s something that can connect with to try change that mindset yeah agreed and and there are in situations like this edible landscaping is not a new thing right so people have been attempting this in different areas of the country on different scales for a long time and there are ways to integrate Edibles into your landscape that people may not realize are Edibles so eggplants have really gorgeous purple flowers and strikingly shaped leaves and foliage they’re easy to tuck into a flower garden and Um passion flower have you ever seen those flowers they are native and they grow on vines and you can get passion fruit people are like passion fruits tropical no you can grow it here and it’s native here and the flowers are unlike anything as far as ornamental that you’ve ever seen they look alien they have squiggles coming out of them gorgeous colors and they are evolutionarily designed to be pollinated by carpenter bees and bumblebees those big fat bees because they go onto the center of the flower and they just spin in a circle and it looks like there’s a little umbrella right over them and and the pollen brushes onto their backs but if they weren’t that big they would never touch the pollen like they evolve together that’s important passion flour yes it’s also called mayap poop but there you need a trellis for that and you’ll never get rid of them after you plant them which is a good thing in a Sandy you don’t want to have to keep replacing your plants de so deer I I was working for a while at Jake’s Branch County Park um and deer don’t come to my yard don’t tell them where I [Music] live don’t they don’t know but at Jake’s Branch they have the ship Gardens which are the soil Health Improvement project and each one of those Gardens is based on different conditions so they have a full sun Garden they have a forest edge Garden a pollinator Garden a wet garden and a rain Garden those are the five ship Gardens at Jake’s branch and I was helping to maintain these Gardens with heavy mulch because they don’t have easy irrigation access there and repeated planting because of deer pressure they have a lot of deer that come through that area the deer do not touch and and it depends of course how hungry they are how high the population has gotten because that is a real problem um and what other food sources they have access to but they do not seem to touch things that are in the Min mint family so Monarda and B balm tend to be okay they don’t bother that um they’ve had luck with sweet Fern uh and they’ve had luck with Virginia sweet Spire which is a really lovely native mounding shrub that’s perfect for foundations because it won’t grow over the windows it kind of stays at that height um they have they’re blooming right now they have spiry like um uh Cascades of white flowers and it’s a lovely replacement for butterfly bush which is so on the invasive list so though people think that they’re planting butterfly bush for the butterflies uh adult butterflies do enjoy the nectar but they cannot support the caterpillars that become butterflies the caterpillars don’t eat butterfly bush so better to plant things like milkweed and um dill and parsley and other native th those two are not native but other native host plants for butterflies rather than butterfly bush um another nice replacement for butterfly bush is also called sweet pepper bush and sweet pepper bush has um that can take part shade or sun so that would work in your yard as well um and that blooms with big um collections of white flowers on it um the blooms when mixed with water lather so Native Americans would use it in soap situations so they’re really cool and um and the native pollinators love it and it’s a host plant for many species but the biggest host plant the best host plant is the oak tree it it hosts over 400 different species of caterpillars that we know of and caterpillars are so important we don’t like to see holes in the leaves of plants um that is annoying in a landscape in some cases but that means you’re part of the food web and you’re supporting the birds because baby birds diets are 95% carnivorous they need caterpillars so Mom and Dad can live off of the seeds out of the bird feeder but the babies can’t they need the caterpillars to survive and get strong enough to leave the nest so let’s plant host PL thank you everybody