Welcome to Let's Nerd Out About Gardening

Nature-ly curious? Start here!

Do you…

• find yourself lost down rabbit holes researching plants you’ll never grow?

• wonder what that strange “weed” growing in the sidewalk cracks actually is?

• marvel over the details, the why, instead of just the headline?

• delight in learning the unexpected, like that ants herd aphids for honeydew, or that plants can communicate threats through releasing volatile organic compounds into the air?

• find yourself immediately researching the above two facts?

If this is you, then you’ve found the right place. Welcome!

Hi, I’m Tanith (pronounced Tay-nef) and I am a Gardenerd. Life is at its best when I’m learning — especially when I learn things that I never would have thought were true.

And when you’re a gardener and nature enthusiast, there’s no end to the rabbit holes to explore.

But sometimes you get stuck. Unpiqued. You can’t learn about something you don’t know exists. You may not know where to start. You need inspiration.

Or you find something out that’s so fascinating that you want to share it with everyone, but you don’t have anyone (or enough people) to share it with.

That’s why I came up with Let’s Nerd Out About Gardening.

Let’s Nerd Out About Gardening is a community for curious people like you who love to dive into rabbit holes about gardening and nature, a place to get your curiosity piqued and discover something amazing, to become a better gardener and better world citizen by understanding what’s going on in your own backyard, and to share your own passion with other Gardenerds.

Together, we’ll become better gardeners and better nature stewards one rabbit hole at a time.

(Don’t worry, you don’t need to be a gardener to be a Gardenerd. You just need to be curious.)

So what can you expect from this newsletter?

When you subscribe, you’ll get new articles delivered straight to your inbox twice-per-month that include:

• Research-backed deep-dives into nature and gardening topics that are as diverse as they are intriguing.

• Thoughtfully curated articles, videos, and books to delve even deeper into each topic.

• Passionate community discussions where you can share your knowledge and passion with like-minded people.

Together, we’ll learn about:

• unusual, forgotten, and obscure plants and insects, like:

  • 3 once-popular fruits that are making a comeback in home gardens,

  • 3 unusual aquatic plants I never would have suspected grow in my home province, and

  • 6 amazing things about the obscure leafcutter bees.

• whether commonly hated plants and creatures actually have redeeming qualities, like:

  • why the much-vilified cottonwood tree is actually an eco-treasure for humans and nature alike.

• simple actions in the garden that make a big environmental impact, like:

  • how microgreens are helping solve food insecurity,

  • how adding a wildlife pond can support beneficial insects and keep squirrels out of your tomatoes, and

  • how growing vines on buildings lowers energy demands without damaging the building.

What this newsletter isn’t

You’re not in the right place if you’re looking for:

• how-to articles on basic gardening topics or garden design. Instead, I write about new inspiring ideas and unusual topics that maybe you’ll use, maybe you won’t, but you’ll be all the richer for knowing.

• climate-change panic or bleakness. Instead, I offer practical low-tech, simple solutions you can take to help the environment and yourself, no matter how big your garden is.

• unsubstantiated hype or claims. Instead, I delve into research and use knowledgeable sources. I won’t talk about humus (now disproved) or try to sell you miracle additives for your garden. And I include scientific names when mentioning plants and insects, so you don’t mix them up with others with the same common name.

Who I am

In 2019, I was stuck. I’d just finished up a year of round-the-world travel with my husband, and I had no idea what I wanted to do.

When you travel, you can’t help but learn new things even just when grocery shopping. You think you know what a place is like from watching movies and reading books, but when you arrive, you find out that it’s actually very different — and way better.

Back in Canada, where everything is so familiar even across the country, I lost that. I needed something to keep that curiosity and wonder alive.

But you don’t need to travel to uncover new worlds. It turns out that there were whole worlds I knew nothing about, and they were close at hand.

I found them in my backyard and in local parks.

(I’m talking about nature.)

I realized that beyond a few obvious specimens (like maples), I couldn’t name any of the trees, riverside flowers, or tiny birds flitting past me in the trees (those are all sparrows, right?).

So I picked up books and apps and started learning what they were called.

I discovered the “sparrows” darting through the trees were actually the distinctive bandit-masked Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum), and they’re one of the few birds that specialize in fruit (and they love to dash into you-pick strawberry fields for a quick meal, the first time I positively identified them without having to look them up).

I learned that many of the conifers growing alongside the rivers were actually Eastern white cedar (Thuja occidentalis), related to the ancient towering Western red cedar (Thuja plicata) of BC, although a lot shorter because the east coast gets hit with a lot more damaging storms than the west coast.

I learned that the white “butterflies” I’d seen all my life were actually white cabbage moths or cabbage white butterflies (Pieris rapae), and while innocuous in most backyards, they love to eat the kale I’d planted. (They’re also diurnal butterflies, and not moths, but we call them cabbage moths in North America.)

Once I saw them, once I knew their names, I couldn’t unsee them.

And I wanted more.

Since then, I:

• fell in love with regenerative vegetable gardening, and completed the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario (EFAO)’s New Farmer Training Program. After a few years of container gardening, I’m now working on my first permanent vegetable gardens in Canadian Zone 3 (aka the extremely cold, really short growing season prairie zone).

• became a freelance garden writer, getting paid to delve into rabbit holes and share all the juicy tidbits I found. I love to take complex subjects and break them down so that they’re easy to understand, and teach people how to garden from a regenerative perspective.

• notice nature more in my backyard, whether it’s a Downy Woodpecker hopping up a tree trunk, hover flies pollinating my tomatoes, or strawberry blight growing in sidewalk cracks. With CFS/ME, I can’t exactly go hiking to see the “interesting” and “wild” nature. Instead, I got better at seeing the nature around me.

• enjoy gardening more and get angry less. Gardening is supposed to be a fun hobby that I enjoy spending my limited energy on. Delving deep into the things that plague me (whether squirrels, wasps, or cottonwood trees) teaches me not to listen to my knee-jerk reactions and instead how to work with them in a way that benefits us both. Yes, I still get frustrated, but at least I can head off some problems at the pass and do better in my wildlife-friendly gardening efforts.

And that’s the experience I want to bring to Let’s Nerd Out About Gardening.

I want to help us all become better gardeners and better nature stewards one serendipitous rabbit hole at a time.

Come nerd out about gardening and nature. Become a Gardenerd today!

✍ Join the Conversation:

What is your Gardenerd origin story?

What are the best/most interesting rabbit holes you’ve jumped down?

Let me know in the comments!

Happy gardening!

Tanith