A Change of Scenery
By: Melissa Peterman
Published: June 4, 2009

My hands smell like lovage, my boots are speckled with potting soil and I just finished planting sweet Italian peppers in the garden. Unfortunately, it’s not my garden, but a girl can dream. A couple days a week, I help out at The Herbfarmculinary garden for the Herbfarm restaurant, just outside of Woodinville, Washington, where I cake on the dirt and become one with the plants. 
If you haven’t heard about the infamous, nine-course, four hour long dinners—(complete with a pig visit!), then it should be put on your bucket list. The Herbfarm garden, just two miles from the restaurant is a culinarian dream come true. Bill Vingelen, is the head gardener at the Herbfarm and he is incredibly knowledgeable about Northwest herbs, fruits and vegetables and he knows exactly what the Herbfarm kitchen is looking for and how to grow it. 
As a passionate consumer of garden vegetables and someone who has equated the Sunday’s farmer’s market as their church, I decided I should get more educated about the physical farm to table experience. I looked up on the Tilth Producers of Washington State websiteto find a farm/garden that needed some help and came across the Herbfarm. Who knew there were so many small farms needing volunteers! I will be the first person to tell you that I am not a gardener- or at least I wasn’t one before I got started, but I was more than eager to learn. For me the best way to learn something new is to dive right in and just do it. If you are thinking about volunteering at a local farm, but feeling like a fish out of water, enthusiasm over experience should surely win out, although reading up on basic gardening techniques will greatly improve your learning and volunteering experience. 
So if you secretly crave dirt under your fingernails and sweat and dust in your hair, or perhaps you just need a good break for a couple hours a week from behind your computer monitor, think about rolling up your sleeves and helping out at a farm in your area. There are tons of great farm volunteering websites, but here’s a good place to start: World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, or WWOOF and Local Harvest.

Comments:
amy pennington
June 4, 2009

Fantastic post - I am sick with envy for your garden experience. "My hands smell like lovage..." - beautifully written.  (and yes, I over use the em dash)
Melissa Peterman

Thank you Amy! Perhaps it was I who envy's your incredible Go Go Garden career!