Nurtured Soil began with a love of gardening — the kind that makes you slow down while driving past beautiful landscapes, pull over to take photos of plants you don’t recognize, and occasionally almost crash your car because you’re too busy admiring someone’s garden. (True story.)
What started as admiration quickly turned into curiosity. I found myself visiting nurseries often, experimenting with plant propagation, and slowly filling my home with plants at every stage of growth. I eventually took formal courses in horticulture and plant propagation, but I learned early on that nothing replaces getting your hands dirty. Real learning happened in the garden — through trial, error, observation, and time.
Although my family always had vegetable gardens growing up, my interest didn’t truly bloom until later in life. What once felt like a chore became a fascination. When I ran out of room for houseplants, my focus shifted outdoors, and then to growing food for my family. Watching tomato plants volunteer themselves from overwintered seeds sparked a whole new obsession — seed saving, heirloom varieties, and starting nearly everything from seed. (I still buy far too many new seed varieties each year. Some habits die hard.)
During the pandemic, my family moved from the city to cottage country in Trent Lakes, Ontario. Suddenly, I had the space I’d always dreamed of. Gardens expanded. Raised beds multiplied. Herbs, vegetables, and experiments filled the seasons. As food prices rose, so did my desire to grow as much as possible ourselves — vegetables, herbs, medicinal plants, herbal teas, and even raising our own chickens for meat and eggs.
As the garden grew, so did my understanding. I came to realize that no matter how carefully I started seedlings or planned layouts, everything came back to the soil. Healthy soil changed everything — plant growth, resilience, disease resistance, pest pressure, and even the nutritional quality of the food itself. What I once thought was as simple as “plant and water” turned out to be a living, complex system that needed care and attention.
I never imagined I’d be keeping worm bins in my house, hunting down manure, collecting leaves and cardboard to tuck my garden in for winter, or getting genuinely excited about mulch. I didn’t expect to learn about resting soil, planting cover crops, or how abundant and fascinating life beneath the surface really is. But those lessons became the foundation of my most successful growing seasons.
This site grew out of that realization.
Nurtured Soil is a place to explore gardening as a whole — soil health, growing food, herbs, seasonal planning, observation, experimentation, and the small rhythms that come with tending a garden over time. It’s about learning, trying, adjusting, and paying attention. It’s about building something resilient, whether that’s a backyard garden, a single raised bed, or simply a deeper connection to where our food comes from.
You’ll find discussions about soil, yes — but also seed saving, pollinator gardens, native plants, planning tools, herbal projects, seasonal living, and the joy (and challenges) of working with nature rather than against it.
This space is thoughtful, curious, and practical — never perfect.
If you love gardening, learning as you go, and getting your hands dirty, you’re in the right place.