Episode 389: All About Herbs with Designer Sue Goetz, author of A Taste for Herbs, Plus State Spotlight: Colorado
February 20th, 2019
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Whenever possible, I enjoy sharing those connections with the Slow Flowers Community. Because many of you come from these closely-related disciplines, I know you’ll enjoy today’s interview with my friend Sue Goetz. Sue is the owner of The Creative Gardener, based in Tacoma, Wash. She is a certified professional horticulturist, an author, speaker and award-winning designer.
I consider Sue a “sister” because we share the same book publisher, St. Lynn’s Press. While I’ve been writing and documenting the Slow Flowers movement, Sue has been writing, designing and photographing inspiring books about herbs.
Her first book, The Herb Lover’s Spa Book, is filled with ideas and recipes about growing fragrant herbs in your garden and how to use them to create a luxury spa experience. Her newest book, A Taste for Herbs, moves from the aromatherapy into the culinary realm. I asked Sue to join me on the Slow Flowers Podcast to talk all about her favorite subject. I’m sure you’re growing herbs and I know this conversation will spark new ideas for what, how and why to add more herbs to your garden, farm, containers or greenhouse.
Here’s more about Sue Goetz:
Writing and speaking are Sue’s favorite ways to share her love of gardening. Her motto “…inspiring gardeners to create” defines all of her talks with hands-on workshops, how to’s and other projects that inspire creativity in and out of the garden. In 2012, she was named educator of the year by the Washington State Nursery and Landscape Association. Sue is a member of GardenComm, formerly the Garden Writers Association, and her work has appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines.
Sue Goetz is a garden designer, writer and speaker. Through her garden design business, the Creative Gardener, she works with clients, personalizing garden spaces from the seasonal tasks to the design of large projects. Sue’s garden design work has earned gold medals at the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival, including the Sunset Magazine Western Living award, the Fine Gardening best design award and The AHS environmental award. Her home garden was featured in Northwest Home and Garden magazine, as well as Country Gardens Magazine.
Sue is a member of APLD (Association of Professional Landscape Designers) and the Northwest Horticultural Society. Sue lives and gardens in Washington state. She has three daughters, who no matter how far they roam, they still call home for some of mom’s fragrant, herbal concoctions.
You can find all of Sue’s herb-related content and details about her two books, her lectures, and lots of recipes at herbloversgarden.com.
Find and follow Sue Goetz at these social places:
The Creative Gardener on Facebook
The Creative Gardener on Instagram
Our theme for 2019 – #FiftyStatesofSlowFlowers – continues today, with Robin Taber of Blue Door Farm in Grand Junction, Colorado.
I first met Robin through her friend and fellow Colorado flower farmer, Megan McGuire of Red Daisy Farm, a Slow Flowers member and past guest of this podcast.
We both traveled to the Denver area in 2016 to stay at Meg’s wonderful farm and participate in a Slow Flowers Potluck as well as attend the Field to Vase Dinner at The Fresh Herb Co. It impressed me that Robin traveled 250 miles all the way across the state to be part of this gathering. It’s not unusual for flower people to do that sort of thing and we had a wonderful time together with Meg and also Andrea K. Grist, who joined us from Kansas City. See the cute photo of our time together above, along with Alicia Schwede and Robyn Rissman.
Robin is deaf and communicates by lip-reading. In our conversation you’ll hear her speak with a mild accent. Her husband Mark Taber assisted us during the Skype interview.
Download the full transcript of our conversation here.
Find and follow Blue Door Farm at these social places:
Blue Door Farm on Facebook
The Vacation Rental/Guest House at Blue Door Farm
Thanks so much for joining me on this journey, seeking new and inspiring voices, people with passion, heart, commitment and expertise to share with you. I hope today’s episode gave you at least one inspiring insight or tip to apply to your floral enterprise. What you gain will be multiplied as you pay it forward and help someone else.
This was a week of highlights, including lots of great press attention for Slow Flowers during the lead up to Valentine’s Day. I’ll share all of those links in our March newsletter, so if you’re not a subscriber, you may wish to sign up at debraprinzing.com.
Truly, we have a vital and vibrant community of flower farmers and floral designers who together define the Slow Flowers Movement. As our cause gains more supporters and more passionate participants who believe in the importance of the American cut flower industry, the momentum is contagious.
And thank you to our lead sponsor, Florists’ Review magazine. I’m delighted to serve as Contributing Editor for Slow Flowers Journal, found in the pages of Florists’ Review. It’s the leading trade magazine in the floral industry and the only independent periodical for the retail, wholesale and supplier market. Take advantage of the special subscription offer for members of the Slow Flowers Community.
Our first Sponsor Spotlight and thanks goes to Mayesh Wholesale Florist. Family-owned since 1978, Mayesh is the premier wedding and event supplier in the U.S. and we’re thrilled to partner with Mayesh to promote local and domestic flowers, which they source from farms large and small around the U.S. Learn more at mayesh.com.
Our Second Sponsor Spotlight today includes a thanks to NW Green Panels. Based in Madras, Oregon, NW Green Panels designs and constructs a wide array of wood-framed greenhouses offering versatility, style and durability. Their greenhouses are 100% Oregon-made using twin-wall polycarbonate manufactured in Wisconsin, making NW Green Panel structures a great value for your backyard. The 8×8 foot Modern Slant greenhouse has become the essential hub of my cutting garden — check out photos of my greenhouse or visit nwgreenpanels.com to see more.
Our final sponsor thank you this week goes to the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market, a farmer-owned cooperative committed to providing the very best the Pacific Northwest has to offer in cut flowers, foliage and plants. The Growers Market’s mission is to foster a vibrant marketplace that sustains local flower farms and provides top-quality products and service to the local floral industry.
I know you feel it, too. I value your support and invite you to show your thanks and with a donation to support my ongoing advocacy, education and outreach activities. You can find the donate button in the column to the right.
The Slow Flowers Summit is five months away on July 1 & 2nd in St. Paul, Minnesota. We just wrapped up a very successful Galentine’s Day-Valentine’s Day promotion for the Slow Flowers Summit, generating new registrants to bump us well over the 50% sold-out mark for the 3rd annual Summit
I owe a big bouquet of thanks to event manager Karen Thornton and social media manager Niesha Blancas for all their extra effort to make that happen!
Make your way to slowflowerssummit.com to learn all about the many opportunities to join us — from flower farm tours and dinner on a flower farm to business and branding presentations to interactive and inspiring design sessions . . . all designed to serve you! Subscribe to Summit news and updates at slowflowerssummit.com.
The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 411,000 times by listeners like you. Thank you for listening, commenting and sharing – it means so much. Thank you all!
I’m Debra Prinzing, host and producer of the Slow Flowers Podcast.
Next week, you’re invited to join me in putting more American grown flowers on the table, one vase at a time. And If you like what you hear, please consider logging onto iTunes and posting a listener review.
The content and opinions expressed here are either mine alone or those of my guests alone, independent of any podcast sponsor or other person, company or organization.
The Slow Flowers Podcast is engineered and edited by Andrew Brenlan. Learn more about his work at soundbodymovement.com.
Music Credits:
Loopy; Rabbit Hole; Gaena; Perspirationby Blue Dot Sessionshttp://www.sessions.bluehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Lovely by Tryad http://tryad.bandcamp.com/album/instrumentals
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
In The Field
Music from:
audionautix.com
February 20th, 2019 at 11:13 am
[…] Wash. She is a certified professional horticulturist, an author, speaker and award-winning […]Episode 389: All About Herbs with Designer Sue Goetz, author of A Taste for Herbs, Plus State Spotli… this post has been replublished from the original […]