Interview with Melissa Will – Empress of Dirt

Melissa Will

Melissa Will is a writer, artist, and organic gardener living in Middlesex County, Ontario, Canada. After sixteen years of developing her dream urban garden, she recently moved with her family (and pet rabbit Eli) to a new home in a small town with a barren yard. Her blog, Empress of Dirt, chronicles the beauty of every day life and the creation of a whole new edible and decorative garden from scratch, avoiding past mistakes and perhaps creating a few new interesting ones along the way. You can find her blog here.

How did you decide upon the name “Empress of Dirt” for your blog?

I was having technical problems with my previous blog and decided to start over with a new one rather than prolong the agony of trying to fix the broken code. Every blog name I could think of that I liked was already taken (any blogger knows this pain). I was listening to Johnny Cash singing the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt. His version just gutted me. I lifted the blog name from the line, You could have it all, my empire of dirt. There’s a deep sadness in the song, but a liberating truth as well: everything is temporary.

On a funny note, I’ve had emails from readers suggesting I should have called it Empress of Soil. It’s a big no-no in the gardening world to call soil ‘dirt’. But I’m sticking with Johnny on this one.

You started over with a blank garden canvass with your new home this spring. How excited were you to start digging up the soil and what is your long term goal for your property?

I was excited and daunted. And, quite unexpectedly, I found myself grieving for the old garden. I had enjoyed many springs watching the masses of mature plants busting through the soil, announcing themselves with great colours and textures. It was like a homecoming after the big sleep of winter each year. And suddenly, here I was with an acre of sod, a couple of bare trees, and nothing but potential. I felt like I was standing at a fork in the road with about 247 different choices to make and nothing to show for myself. (Ego alert!) My mistakes at the last garden often had me wishing for a do-over I never thought I’d get. And suddenly I got it.

My long term goal for the property is to create a thriving, living, ever-changing pocket of gorgeousness, brimming with delicious fresh fruits and veggies. The ultimate compliment is when all the local birds, butterflies, and bugs consider your garden home base.

You said in the blog article Starting Over, “Nothing stirs me (ok, husband and babies excluded) like a gorgeous garden. I get verklempt. Every single piece of anything important in the universe has its stirrings there. And when I first started my garden, I wanted it immediately. STAT. Pronto. Yesterday.” Where does this kind of love, passion and enthusiasm for gardening come from?

My mother is a prolific gardener, writer, and artist. I did not garden with her as a child, but her love of gardens was always a big part of my life with her. She has owned several homes and each time she dives in and creates her dream garden on a modest budget without any concerns about how long she may actually live there. She just does it.

I grew up in the free range child era: outside after breakfast, back home for dinner. We lived in Richmond Hill, Ontario which was a small town back then. We were near the infamous Mill Pond so my formative years were all about running, playing, camping, fishing, ice skating, ant watching, toad catching, building forts, playing kick the can, and examining clouds. I was horribly allergic to mosquitoes and bees, but I think that just made me run a little faster. I loved being outside. I used to eat the neighbour’s sweet peas and raspberries for snacks to avoid going back indoors.

Somewhere along the way I collected up some stereotypes that I presumed to be the road maps for my own life. I always thought: I’ll have my dream home and garden one day when…. also known as I’ll Be Happy When Syndrome. As if life can be planned and controlled and will unfold as imagined. (Insert laugh track here.)

When my husband and I bought our first “starter” home, my mother took me on a local garden tour and that was a big turning point. The gardens were totally inspiring and each one was unique. I realized that each of those gardeners started with a bare, flawed yard just like mine was, but used the quirks to create charm. That same day I got some plants and a shovel and just dug in.

What I wasn’t expecting was the joy I would feel as I worked outside and watched and learned. In my early days, I clearly remember a neighbour sitting on his deck and laughing at me as I worked. Apparently my ineptness amused him, but I was just happy to be outside. And we saved up for a nice high fence to allow more privacy.

It took years for the garden to mature and unfold, mostly because I was stubborn and refused to believe that amending bad soil with compost and mulch is a worthwhile investment. (I later woke up to this truth.) Time is a healer. Nature is a great teacher. Everything you need to know in life is found in the garden. And I still love watching ants.

Also see: The Kitchen Drawer and I Once Kidnapped Someone For Bubblegum.

You have been known to practice what you refer to as “garden art/junk-making” as a means to add interest to your garden. What is the strangest piece of garden art you currently have on display?

I have had a lot of garden art/junk pass through the garden over the years including a few fierce looking dolls riding dump trucks, totem poles made from old glassware, and faux water constructed from beads and wire spilling from old metal watering cans. Right now I have few oddities because I’m just getting started at our new home and there’s a tragic shortage of good junk available in our new town. Here we have a a pay-tag system so everything has to be contained in garbage bags for collection. What’s a scavenger to do? I hope we return one day to having the town dump as an open source of materials for everyone.

Some garden art/junkers go really kitschy and trashy. Others are very country. Some are high-end elegant. I plead guilty to all of the above, with a leaning toward the unexpectedly elegant. My all time favourite pieces are the first ones I ever made: chandeliers from metal colanders strung with lamp crystals and glass beads. They look particularly gorgeous in the winter when there’s little other colour to be found.

In a blog article called, Melon bras you posted a rather provocative picture of a honeydew melon in a makeshift bra! Would you say that Mother Nature’s fruit needs a little support now and then and how does hanging your melons in a garden bra help them?

Funny you would ask this question. I think I have empathy for big melons! I had enormous breasts for much of my adult life and finally had reduction surgery when I was done having children. I use melon bras in the garden to keep heavy cantaloupes from breaking off the vine before they are ripe. You could call me a heavy melon sympathizer.

While we’re on this topic, I have to say nature is very sexy. Sex ridden. Teaming with sex and sensuality. I mean, that’s why it’s eternal, right? It’s all about renewing itself all the time. It’s brilliant really and it amuses me to no end. Sometimes it’s like a bird sexfest in my yard. I see one insect mounting another and I just have to laugh. When I was a kid I couldn’t believe animals didn’t get embarrassed having sex in public places! I’ve since matured in my view. Somewhat. Ok. Not really. It’s natural and brilliant and always entertaining.

Your blog serves as a photo album of sorts with strikingly beautiful photos that you’ve taken not just of your plants and gardens, but all things Mother Nature and more. How much do you enjoy photography and how much do your readers appreciate the photos you share with them on your blog?

Thank you! I love photography. I am a complete amateur with a low end camera, but lucky enough to have my passion find its way into the images now and then. I always have my camera handy, almost to a fault. I always check for my camera and a spare charged battery in my bag before I go anywhere, but I rarely check myself in the mirror to make sure I’m fit to be seen in public.

When photography is more than a visual documentation of something, it captures and provokes a fuller experience. I think it’s the perfect love child of Science and Art.

I started to photograph habitually at the same time that I started to (completely unexpectedly) fall in love with our old neighbourhood. For years I just saw it as the cookie cutter, boring, suburban development. And it kind of was. Formerly farmland and cleared of any remaining old trees or shrubs, it was like living on big bald head for the first few years. Then all the wee new gardens and trees matured, wildlife came back, and things started to get interesting.

Originally I was a ‘mommy blogger’ before the name was coined. Then my oldest daughter sort of fired me, asking that I not include anything about her on the blog. Yikes! That pulled the steering wheel in another direction, focusing more on the garden, books, photography, quilt making, and anything else that rings my bell that doesn’t make my kids feel exposed.

My blog is very much about loving what you have, right where you are. No more waiting for Godot. No more shopping for happiness. No more delaying enjoyment of life. No need to travel to find the beauty of it all. It’s all here, right now, where we are. Even the simplest garden has a secret life. Sometimes you have to look under the rocks or leaves to find it, but it’s there. I hope this is what my readers receive when they visit my blog. Not always of course, but as a cumulative effect over time. I get some rather lovely emails each week saying my love of The Right Now is contagious. That’s a great reward.

Do gardening and blogging go hand in hand for you? Can you imagine one without the other?

It’s very satisfying to have somewhere to report on the garden happenings! And it’s not like my family is lining up to hear about it.

I’m a hermit. I garden alone. In general I am alone a lot. My youngest is a teenager now so I’m gradually being relegated to the sidelines of her life . This means I get to reacquaint myself with that life I once had all those years ago before love and babies and other distractions came along. Imagine that!

I love to write and take photos. It’s wonderful to have blogging as an avenue to share the big feelings and cool things I encounter every day. The quiet life allows a lot of space for feelings of wholeness and awe. I am pathologically shy and get easily overwhelmed around a lot of people. Sharing my gardening (and life) experiences through the blog seems a very natural way to continue the flow without freaking myself out, plus it’s a great tool for gathering one’s tribe. I feel like I’ve cast a great net that catches my new-to-me favourite people in the world on a daily basis. I get a lot of support and encouragement and some good laughs from my readers. I’m a very lucky girl.

You mention different kinds of birds you’ve seen in your backyard and you include photos of many of them in your blog. How much of being a gardener translates into being a birdwatcher?

I think the birdwatching is inevitable. I garden organically with the whole health of the garden in mind. The birds definitely approve. And, if you pay attention, you realize the birds are actually watching you. I put out seed and they all appear out of nowhere. I dig up some soil, and there are my robins, bopping around me to retrieve the worms.

As I mentioned, when we moved to our first home, I was very alarmed by the absence of any wildlife. It was a new housing development on cleared farm land without any trees or shrubs yet, once we moved in, I was startled by the lack of birds. Duh! Why would birds even want to come there?

Funny enough, the first bird I ever saw at that house was a giant pet parrot that landed on the deck railing. It wasn’t what I was hoping for, but I guess it was a start! Years later I happened to meet the person who lost it. That landing spot became prolific through the years. The next big bird to land there was a gorgeous falcon intent on lunch, followed by various hawks interested in the neighbour’s hens, and eventually a dear racing pigeon who needed to rest for a few weeks on a big journey across the country. [See the Story of  PeeBee the Pigeon here.]

As the garden and neighbourhood trees matured, the birds came to stay. I maintain several types of feeders throughout all the seasons because I love to watch the birds and they (along with the butterflies and bees, toads, and insects and more) are essential for the health of any garden. While I’d like to be able to effortlessly rattle off all their names and interesting facts, in reality, I have a sketchy memory and find facts and figures can seriously impede the pleasure of a direct experience. I learn what I can, but mostly enjoy just watching. I make good use of birding websites to get answers when I want them, but basically I know very little, but love it a lot.

A lot of people are under the assumption that a beautiful garden comes with a high price tag. What advice can you offer to someone who wants a great garden, but has a limited budget?

I regret to inform the world that patience is the key. Do as I say, not as I did. I’ve always had a very limited garden budget, but now I know there are certain steps you can take that will definitely provide the biggest bang for your hard-earned bucks.

I have toured hundreds of gardens with budgets ranging from near zero to hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the good news is: money can buy stuff but it rarely seems to buy good taste. The most beautiful and interesting gardens I’ve visited are always the ones where the gardener was deeply resourceful, reflected on the space to create something unique with what they could afford or find, and allowed it to unfold and change over time. I’m yet to see a really expensive garden that knocked my socks off. I’m pretty sure that once you get the landscape design team in, and it’s all built at once, one’s own unique touch is lost. Hard work and ingenuity over time have their own rewards.

A great way to save money gardening is to join your local horticultural society. It’s usually only about $10 a year and the membership card is often good for discounts at local garden centres. Most garden clubs have annual plant sales where you can get amazing deals as well.

Here garden centres open in May. I don’t buy anything until July when they’re almost giving things away. My only exception is when I’m wanting a specific type of tree and I know if I wait they’ll all be gone. Otherwise, I wait until they’re selling things off.

Gardening is a learn as you go process, but if you’re able, sketch out an overview of what you want the garden to become. Plan for structures like decks, arbours, fences, and ponds. Research trees, shrubs and vines before planting. Those are big commitments that become hard to change. When a tag says a tree will grow 30 feet tall and fifteen feet wide: believe it and plan accordingly.

Fix drainage problems before you plant or your money will be washed away.

Amend the soil. Spare no expense on compost and mulch. My biggest mistake was putting good plants in bad soil. When I finally succumbed and enriched the soil, my garden flourished.

Anything that grows really fast will end up being a big annoyance. I’m fond of the 3-5-7 rule which I think I just made up. Most plants start to look good in year 3, become full size by year 5, and make you look like you really know what you’re doing by year 7.

I highly recommend taking photos all along the way. You’ll appreciate the growth a lot more when you can compare one year to the next.

Is there anything you’ve just not been able to grow despite your green thumb? If so, what might this be?

Sometimes plants vanish: I know I put something in the ground last summer and in the spring it is gone, as if the roots dissolved. But other than that, I haven’t really had any failed experiments. My previous garden was rock-hard clay soil. Sometimes plants would take years to grow because the roots were very gradually battling their way through the soil. I once got my money back for a trumpet vine because I thought it had failed to thrive. Then one spring, about five years later, this massive monster came flying out of the soil and grew like a serpent from hell. I sent a photo and confession to the mail-order nursery that had kindly replaced the plant with something else. They sent a humorous note back about the unpredictability of clay soil.

My new garden is sandy soil. Locals have told me of some struggles to grow certain plants. I’ve decided to consider my new plot a test garden for the first few years until I learn what this sand is willing to do. At this point I’m still amazed I can actually get a shovel in the ground without having to stomp on it.

What do you most appreciate about gardening?

The fact that a tiny seed can become a plant really truly astonishes me. Every day. Gardening is a door to the great secrets of life on earth. It’s meditative, invigorating, sometimes discouraging, but always interesting. It’s perfect for a hermit like me who likes to be active outdoors.

How important do you believe it is to take an organic approach to gardening?

For me, it’s the only way to garden. I grew up instilled with a respect for the environment. I attended a Rudoph Steiner school right through high school. He’s the father of Biodynamics. My education focused on the web of life and the interconnectedness of all beings. Nature is the only resource we have. Everything we have originates from nature. Our responsibility is to facilitate health and life in a sustainable manner.

I grow my own fruits and vegetables from organic seeds. I am terrified of the possible repercussions of genetically modified seeds and foods. I cannot control the rest of the world, but I do speak up where I see fit and do what I can to lessen my negative impact on this big, old earth. If a plant in my garden demands too many resources to maintain, the plant goes. I like to have a variety of plantings to foil the predators, and encourage a thriving permaculture. Our future depends on it.

What is your favourite flower?

The one about to bloom. And the one that just finished blooming. Those have the most amazing colours.

What is the most challenging aspect to being an empress of dirt?

Is her Majesty entitled to complain? Seriously, the only challenge I have is that I get more emails from readers than I can manage to adequately reply to. But I love their messages and all the things they share. Otherwise, this Empress is very pleased indeed. That my cup runneth over is a fine problem to have.

Is there anything you’d love to grow but aren’t able to due to the constraints of a Canadian climate?

This became a big topic when the whole local food movement caught on fire a few years ago. While I wholeheartedly agree that eating locally is hugely beneficial for a variety of reasons (personally, financially, environmentally), it’s a bit painful for a Canadian, non-drinking, vegetarian like me. My fellow locavores gladly chow down on pork chops, root vegetables, and local wine while I’m a greenaholic who enjoys any leafy greens and avocados. I grew up addicted to bananas, but one day that switched off, thankfully. So I suppose I wish I could grow avocados and mangoes, but mostly I see that our climate here is advantageous for growing a lot of things that can’t survive in hotter and colder climates.

My project this fall is to build some small hoop houses over my raised beds to continue growing my beloved greens (spinach and kale) into the winter months.

What is your favourite edible plant?

Blueberries are number one. But I’m a total fresh foodie. Spinach. Tomatoes. Kale. Peas. Peaches. Raspberries. Apples. I only grow edibles I love to eat. The list is long. I’m always obsessing over something delicious.

What gardening tool could you not live without?

I used to say my weeder (a long screw-driver-like fork intended for dandelions, but really used for weeds), but that was in the old clay soil. In my new sandy soil, everything lifts out effortlessly. My entire garden tool collection includes: 1 shovel, 1 spade, 1 hoe, 1 weeder, 1 trowel, 1 hand claw, watering can, rain barrels, and an electric lawn mower. Sandy soil seems to need constant hoeing to prevent a crusty surface from forming that prohibits rain absorption, so perhaps my hoe will become my new best friend.

Blog start date:1999. My first blog was called Pioneer Woman with Cell Phone. Blogger was an unreliable mess back then and Internet connections were slow. The blogging world seemed tiny and all of us mommy/crafting/knitting bloggers were a close knit bunch.

Hours spent blogging: It probably averages out to about two hours a week. Sometimes I really want to work on my writing so I take longer.
Blog views: 37,000 page views monthly.
Hobby or professional blogger: Mostly it’s a hobby…
Income generated from blog: Once in a while I accept ads from businesses if their product or service is something I like. I have a few other blogs such as Fabric Dyeing 101 and The Garden Shed Hall of Fame that I don’t really update, but do generate passive income from ads. I keep the money in an account to save for my next bigger and better camera.
Time spent reading other blogs: Twenty minutes a day.
Favourite blogs: Oh boy. I am currently subscribed to over 1100 sites in my Google Reader. Every so often I purge it if I feel like the Internet is kidnapping me from real life, but they all creep back in because there’s so much good stuff. Here’s a few that have charmed me recently:
Soul Mama Great recipe for a successful blog: beautiful photos, five homeschooling children, a new farm, a love of the earth and handwork.
Little City Farm A lovely earth mama on her little city farm.
Fibermania Melody is a dear friend and one of the most productive artists I’ve ever known.
Ridewalker Pete I have a large family and several people blog. This is my brother Pete. He’s a musician and mountain hiker. And should be the world’s Minister of the Environment.
The B in Subtle She writes down to the bones of motherhood.
Zen Habits Simplify and be free!
Down to Earth Rhonda is living a good life on a low retirement income.