Community Highlights: Meet Jennifer Everett

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Everett.

Hi Jennifer, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My love for God only grows as I continue to learn about his designs, and I’ve become more committed to using them (naturals) in my life the more I learn. But though I’m tremendously blessed by the turn of events, I didn’t set out to grow my own food.

My journey began with the discovery that the electric rate in Phoenix was higher than in Seattle and that my cooling bill in the summer would be far bigger than I’d planned for. It was in asking around for plants that would quickly shade my windows that I fell in love with the idea of growing my own food, but the potted fig trees that were suggested hardly met my original need of shading windows.

A seed company told me of another fast-growing tree to try, and it worked much better partly because it truly does grow quickly and partly because it doesn’t mind staying in a pot. It is also highly unusual in that it fruits a good deal in less than a year when grown from seed! Most fruit trees take several years to fruit for the first time and even longer if started from seed.

But it wasn’t until the third year of growing food organically (note that my garden was funded by a “starvation” diet and long-term planning: 1. buying seeds, young plants, pots, soil, fertilizer, trellis supplies, and more instead of most groceries and 2. by eating little more than what I’m able to grow), when I’d already moved out of the home with the many windows that needed shading, that I found the perfect solution–an edible vine that laughs at the Phoenix heat! It grew up my wall (trellising recommended especially if shading a window) with ease and speed–to the roof in perhaps less than six months.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Having to use my monthly food money on plants, soil, fertilizer, pots, trellises, and other gardening supplies instead of most groceries has been my greatest challenge as many plants don’t produce a substantial amount of food quickly.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
A number of gardening consulting services begin with a roughly hour-long, in-person consultation of about $150 and then cost $50+ hourly after that. One of my goals is to help more people than can be helped with those types of consulting services—through e-mail and phone consulting which works for both locals and those outside of my immediate area, plus reducing the amount of time spent driving reduces cost.

As I have spent hundreds of hours researching answers to my questions and learning through trial and error, it is also a goal to save my customers much time, money, and effort! I’ve documented much along the way for sharing via computer.

My experience is with growing food organically—mostly potted and in a raised bed—in a supremely hot and dry, low desert climate (Zone 9B), but I can also help those in climates less hot than Phoenix, Arizona’s 105-118ish-degree summers, and I’ve done a good amount of research on plants best grown in-ground or that can’t fit into my relatively small space.

What matters most to you? Why?
Ornamentals clearly benefit the planet (producing oxygen, consuming CO2, reducing pathogens and pollution, creating the coolness of shade, providing a habitat that nurtures our diverse ecosystem, and feeding the bees that help to feed us are a few reasons that come to mind), but if you ask me, food is too infrequently planted in our yards.

Edible plants provide many of the benefits of ornamentals and tend to be ornamental themselves; plus, of course, they provide food. They can also nourish us better than what’s available from stores if fertilized sufficiently and consumed quickly. (Vitamin C levels, for example, tend to drop quickly after harvest—in some foods more quickly than others.) That combination is what I believe makes edible landscaping a far superior use of resources!

But there are additional reasons that motivate me to grow my own food and help others grow their own food. One is that pollen from GMO fields can be carried by wind and insects to non-GMO fields, making it harder for organic farmers to obtain organic certification from crops started with last year’s seed and making it so that a much larger percentage of God’s edible creation could someday become contaminated with laboratory created, GMO genes. Plants that contain fruit fly or other non-plant genes are something that would never be found in nature as the two cannot mate. Someday many more commercially available foods and even seeds may be GMO. If I haven’t already obtained pure seed and begun growing my own food, then what?

We live in an imperfect world, and there will always be some variables that are flat out beyond my control (e.g., smokers transferring third-hand smoke to my garden), but risk reduction is always wise if you ask me.

With my own organic edible garden, I can take control of a number of the variables that affect the quality of my food. I know what I put into the soil or onto the foliage, what I didn’t (the bad stuff like unnecessarily strong/toxic pesticides), and I can consume my food within minutes of harvest–in some cases, for far higher nutrient density–instead of days, weeks, or months after harvest. My food is often prettier (e.g., okra that has not browned) and tastier or more tender partly due to the cultivar (e.g., eggplants that aren’t bitter or tomatoes with the amount of sweetness and acidity that I prefer). I can grow food that is not easily found in stores, I can harvest small amounts at a time (e.g., for a parakeet), and it won’t be touched by numbers of hands by the time I bring it home. But while I do grow mostly in plastic containers (some types of plastic are better than others), I can choose a better hose (even storing it indoors when not in use) and minimize the transfer of its plastic chemicals (and metals from some hoses) to my garden. For those with a bigger budget, it would also be possible to filter out some of the undesirable components of tap water.

But there are additional reasons for growing organically. A big one for me is that it reduces dependence on laboratories as it uses the simple system that God put in place for feeding ourselves. Another is that organic gardening involves a slow breakdown of organic materials by microbes and more to supply the plant what it needs in small bites while minimizing run-off that is common with water-soluble fertilizers. It’s not only loss of nutrients through run-off that concerns me but that the dead zones in our oceans and temporary red coloration in other bodies of water are caused by the deadly algae that proliferates to a large degree in response to excess nitrogen, phosphorus, and chemical waste ending up there from commercial agriculture and other industries. God’s systems may be slower in some ways, but they work for us, for plants, and for the planet.

Contact Info:

• Email: jegrowsfoodorganically@yahoo.com
• Website: www.jegrowsfoodorganically.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/jegrowsfoodorganicallyphoenix/
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/JEGrowsFoodOrganically

Image Credits
Jennifer Everett Grows Food Organically