Resolution Support: The Five-Minute Gardener, Nicole Burke of Gardener
Jan 9, 2025
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Nicole Burke, founder of Gardenary and author of "The 5-Minute Gardener," shares her passion for making gardening accessible to everyone, even the busiest individuals. She discusses how dedicating just five minutes a day can lead to significant personal growth and community well-being. Nicole highlights gardening's power to transform our relationship with food and encourages listeners to embrace their gardening journey. Her insights emphasize the importance of cultivating habits that nourish both body and soul, all while fostering a stronger connection to nature.
Establishing a gardening habit requires time and intention, similar to other valued pursuits like relationships and exercise.
Nicole Burke advocates that growing one’s own food is a human right crucial for personal well-being and community health.
The 'Five-Minute Gardener' concept shows that small, consistent actions can yield substantial gardening success, even amidst busy schedules.
Deep dives
The Joy and Importance of Gardening
Gardening is presented as a deeply rewarding activity that requires time and intention, akin to other valued pursuits like relationships and exercise. Once a habit is established, nurturing a garden can take just a few minutes a day, leading to significant personal growth and fulfillment. Nicole Burke passionately believes that growing one’s own food is a human right, essential for both personal well-being and community health. Starting with just one seed can catalyze transformative changes that ripple out to benefit families and communities alike.
Nicole Burke's Unlikely Journey to Gardening
Nicole Burke, despite her initial disdain for yard work during her childhood, has transformed her life through gardening. Growing up in a family surrounded by horticulture, she initially pursued a career in accounting before experiencing an identity crisis that led her to China, where she discovered the joys of fresh, local food. Her return to the United States was marked by a struggle with food addiction and a desire to improve her relationship with food, which ultimately inspired her to start her own garden. The joy she found in her garden prompted her to vigorously promote gardening as a rewarding and life-changing endeavor.
From a Passion for Gardening to an Online Business
Burke’s entrepreneurial journey began when she decided to turn her gardening passion into a business that would help others establish their own gardens. Initially, her efforts were modest, consisting of offering consultations and designs for backyard gardens. As demand grew, Burke expanded her services to include building and maintaining gardens for clients, leading to the establishment of her brand, Gardenary. By leveraging social media to share her experiences, she built a thriving community that continues to inspire others to garden.
Breaking the Cycle of Food Addiction
Burke openly discusses her struggles with food addiction and the impact of the industrial food system on mental and physical health. She emphasizes the importance of understanding that addictive foods are designed to be hard to resist and advocates for a shift towards real, whole foods. By promoting the idea of filling up on nutritious fruits and vegetables, she encourages individuals to embrace food as a source of joy rather than restriction. This holistic approach to food aligns with her gardening philosophy of cultivating not only plants but also a healthier lifestyle.
The Concept of the Five-Minute Gardener
Burke introduces the concept of the 'Five-Minute Gardener,' emphasizing that small, consistent actions can lead to substantial gardening success over time. Her latest book is structured around establishing seasonal gardening habits that fit into busy lifestyles, allowing individuals to engage with their gardens even with limited time. By providing practical tips for quick tasks, she encourages gardeners to make small yet impactful contributions to their gardening efforts every day. This approach reinforces the idea that gardening can be accessible and fulfilling, regardless of one's schedule.
Maybe your New Year’s resolution was to take up gardening, or to garden more, or in a new way? Well, this week’s Cultivating Place conversation is all about making time for gardening even for very busy people!
Nicole Burke, the energy force behind the online forum known as Gardenary, is with us to share more about the philosophy centered in her new book: The 5-Minute Gardener.
It’s the genius of compounded interest – in the garden. And Nicole’s work focuses very specifically on organic, urban kitchen gardens as a way to improve our individual nutritional and physical lives - and as a way to upend the broken and addictive food system we exist within.
Gardening is like any other activities or practices we value – relationships, reading, exercising, spirituality – it takes time and intention, but like all of these other valued endeavors, once the foundation is in place – it does not take all that long to see monumental results – in you and in your cultivation.
A career-long garden designer, garden coach, and trainer of a network of garden consultants, Nicole Burke knows that establishing the habit of gardening is key and once it is set, you really only need 5 minutes at time to “nurture a year-round gardening habit,” which is deeply personal, meaningful, and FRUITFUL.
The author of Kitchen Garden Revival and Leaves, Roots & Fruit, and previously a guest here on Cultivating Place, Nicole offers us great energy for the new seasons ahead. Listen in!
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