Our Story

Hi there, I’m Rachel. I’m a Southern gal living my homesteading dream in Vermont. Growing up in Northeast Georgia, I helped my mom pickle homegrown cucumbers on hot mid-summer days and plant daffodil bulbs in late fall. However, my passion for gardening didn’t sprout until my early 30s. After a summer trip to my future in-laws’ productive backyard garden in Upstate New York, I was inspired to start my first kitchen garden in Seattle, WA in 2019. That summer, I took a sabbatical from a fast-paced, high-intensity job to slow down and reconnect with myself and my natural surroundings. I planted a quaint vegetable, herb, and cut flower garden on our small rental property with no experience, just a passed-down copy of The Garden Primer (aka “The Gardener’s Bible”) in one hand and a trowel in the other. Quickly realizing I had much to glean, I began volunteering and taking classes at an urban community learning garden focused on native plants and organic vegetable gardening. Not only did I acquire a wide variety of skills like deadheading, composting, and seed saving, but I also gained a profound love of tending plants with like-minded folks. The garden quickly became my refuge; an escape from the stressors of big city life. Before I knew it, I was googling “homesteading” and “back-to-the-land” and daydreaming of a self-sufficient life close to nature. Nearly six months later, my now husband, Matt, and I traded in our 1,000-square-foot Seattle home for 5 acres and a 1,000-square-foot garden in the Green Mountains of Central Vermont.

Immediately upon arrival in January 2020, I enrolled in the University of Vermont Extension Master Gardener program where I received training from faculty and industry professionals on research-based topics including basic botany, soil fertility, insects and diseases, vegetable planning and production, herbaceous perennials, small fruit and tree fruit, pollinator plants, tree care, and landscape design. That spring, Matt and I painstakingly installed our expansive raised bed garden on our hillside property to grow the flowers for our wedding and as much food as we could during the COVID lockdown. Since then, I’ve grown over 200 varieties of vegetables, berries, herbs, and flowers nearly all from seed. I’ve volunteered at community garden projects across the state educating others on home horticulture topics. All the while, my resilient garden has persisted through a pandemic, the birth of our son, record-breaking heatwaves, and a “100-year flood”.

Through it all, the garden remains my happy place. In 2024, I started Goldenrod Design to help you cultivate your own happy place in the garden.