By Logan C. Ritchie, contributor
Decatur, GA – Garden therapist Rachel Cochran discovered a passion for gardening almost 15 years ago while working on the farm-to-school movement in Decatur. She was completing a garden installation at Oakhurst Elementary School when a teacher asked if her special education students could spend time in the room.
“Nobody ever thinks of people with disabilities in the garden,” said Cochran, and was choked to death. “I’ve taken it to heart. There are many options for people who can move their bodies quickly. But there aren’t the same opportunities for wheelchair users to immerse themselves in nature and enjoy it. “
With her business partner, Wendy Battaglia, Cochran founded the Trellis Horticulture Therapy Alliance (HTA) in 2017. At the Callanwolde Art Center, Trellis offers HTA workshops and courses for special school students from Inman Middle School, seniors and military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, people with diabetes, and adults with spinal and brain trauma.
“Plants are a reason to get out of bed. They require care. As soon as something grows, you have to take care of it, ”said Cochran. “Plants need motivation and purpose.”
There must be something in the Decatur filth that inspires gardeners.
Rita Gowler’s hobby slowly turned into a business when she started selling handmade cards and illustrated seed packets at festivals and conventions. Her son encouraged her to start a website for her small company, Botany Yards, selling seeds suitable for growing in Georgia.
With a degree in horticulture, she has worked in greenhouses and garden centers. Originally from Illinois, Gowler is best known for the butterfly garden she created while teaching at the Decatur Presbyterian Children’s Community.
As COVID-19 forced schools to close, Gowler spent more and more time turning her half acre of land in Oak Grove into a landscape of grasses and perennials like milkweed, light purple coneflower, goldenrod, river oats and pink muhly grass. Botany Yards offers 36 types of flowers and seven types of grass.
Some seeds can go straight into the ground with no fuss, Gowler said. First-time gardeners can try easy-to-grow flowers in the ground from seeds such as columbine, hibiscus, coreopsis, and sunflower.
Chelsea Townsend is another gardener with a seed habit. In 2016 she had so many seeds that she started growing seedlings at farmers’ markets to support her non-profit organization. The nonprofit later broke up, but the sale of seeds and saplings grew into Strange and Co.
“Some women buy shoes, I buy seeds,” said Townsend, who uses a table to keep track of 350 varieties of seeds.
She starts seeds in her little home office, and once it’s germinated, Townsend puts the thousands of seedlings in a collapsible greenhouse outside. From April she will be selling plants online. Customers can pick up contactless from her porch, but she’s also happy to come out and chat about the plants.
Townsend teaches gardening to children and adults in their East Point neighborhood. She calls it nano-farming. She says gardeners can use any tiny amount of land to grow food. Her inspiration is a family in California who grow 7,000 pounds of food on a small lot each year.
While farming with children at Main Street Academy, she gave students the opportunity to grow their own food. She enjoyed watching struggling students open up to the garden.
“Their eyes light up, they ask questions, they lose fear, and they realize that they can take care of something and make it flourish,” she said.
Urban agriculture is also at the heart of Atplanta, a company run by Emory University alumni Gabe Eisen and Azhar Khanmohamed until 2020. The guys encourage gardeners to think about food politics – how and why we have year-round access to fruits and vegetables, the impact food has on the environment, and how farm workers are exploited around the world.
“Grow your own food. Rethink the food on your plate. You don’t have to be as radical as Gabe and I,” said Khanmohamed.
Atplanta’s business model is to hold a gardener’s hand at all times of the year and educate as it grows. Atplanta uses a sliding scale for customers to make gardening accessible to as many customers as possible. You install a garden, come back to check the plants and stay in touch as much as the customer needs via text or a virtual meeting.
“The idea is to hedge against the steady decline I’ve seen in the ability to keep a garden going year round,” said Eisen, who grew up in DeKalb County.
Khanmohamed’s court in East Atlanta is the model for the business.
“We can’t grow food for other people if we don’t do it ourselves,” he said.
For the summer, Atplanta recommends planting okra, peppers, tomatoes, pumpkin, melons, beans, cucumbers, eggplants, peppers, flowers, sweet potatoes and basil. What if a gardener leaves town for a week or a long weekend? Plants that can be neglected a bit are beans, okra, and arugula.
Protect your plants from squirrels with a bird net, especially if the garden is near a tree canopy. Squirrels love tomatoes, but they don’t care about cucumbers or peppers, Eisen and Khanmohamed suggested.
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