**
*
Stand Up for Your Garden! Stand Up for Good Food!
*
by Kasey Cox, published in Wellsboro & Mansfield Gazettes in May 2012
*
*
Do you love the idea of knowing where your food comes from, what chemicals were (or more importantly, WEREN’T) involved in the process, of walking off your porch steps to gather fresh, tasty ingredients for your dinner this summer? I daresay most people will say, "yes!!" to this, or, more likely, "yes, but…"

Many of us love the idea of gardening, of fresh produce, of growing at least some of our own food. What we don’t like, or perhaps simply just can’t do, is push a rototiller, pick up lots of rocks, kneel to plant seeds, bend over to weed, crouch over beds of lettuce, weed some more, bend down to inspect the leaves for slugs and bugs and rot, squat to pick…. A lot of folks would like to do more gardening, but honestly believe they can’t, because the effort involved causes them too much physical pain. As Mary Moss-Sprague says in the introduction to her brand-new book, Stand Up and Garden, "Having inherited my sainted mother’s osteoarthritis, I discovered many years ago that in-ground gardening just wasn’t working for me. The price I paid for putting in hours of the painful work involved was just too much."

Moss-Sprague, through suggestions of friends, experimenting on her own, and much help from her local extension office, discovered a series of techniques to use so that she could build a "vertical garden." The more knowledgeable she became, and the more speaking and writing she did on the subject, the more people asked her, “is there a book where I can read all about these ‘stand up and garden’ projects?” While there is a chapter in this book, or an article in that magazine, Moss-Sprague noticed that there wasn’t really ONE book she could recommend that brought all of these techniques together. She realized she would need to be the one to write it.

Thus, Stand Up and Garden: The No-Digging, No-Tilling, No-Stooping Approach to Growing Vegetables and Herbs, just released this past month from Countryman Press in Woodstock, Vermont, though Moss-Sprague herself hails from Wayne County, just north of the Finger Lakes, nestled between Rochester, NY to the west and Syracuse, NY to the east. Though this area is not far from the Twin Tiers, Mary and her knowledge are currently in such high demand just in her own area that she regretfully replied to our invitation to visit Wellsboro for a book signing this year.

After years of using their services, and of volunteering herself, Mary is a Wayne County, CCE (Cornell Cooperative Extension) Master Gardener. Her list of upcoming seminars reads just like the table of contents in her new book, including such topics as straw-based raised beds, container gardening, using trellises, building a simple but effective micro-drip irrigation system, composting, and how to deal with plant disease and garden pests without harsh chemicals. In reading through these chapters, I am reassured by Mary’s personal, humorous style. The reader can immediately tell that Mary has fielded all of the questions before, and has come up with clear, concise, encouraging answers, such as “If I, a woman in her 60s with no plumbing skills, can design, lay out, and connect a micro-drip irrigation system, so can you!”

Last, but not least, Stand Up and Garden is actually a beautiful book in and of itself, with gorgeous, helpful, color photos on nearly every page, paper that feels nice in your hands, and an extremely reasonable cover price of $16.95. No wonder Mary and her book are in such huge demand for this upcoming gardening season. That’s why she wrote it: to share her “all-gain, no pain” style of gardening with gardeners and garden-dreamers when she can’t be here herself. I’m excited, because even with my chronically stiff neck, strained calf muscle (from moving bookstore boxes, oops), and limited time, I think we can have an actual garden this year on our own less-than-1-acre lawn. Let’s see what Mary Moss-Sprague, you, and I can do together this year!