What is Growing Ambition?

Our Garden July 2018

Growing Ambition is a resource dedicated to promoting an all natural lifestyle. We have maintained an organic garden at our Massachusetts home since 2012 and have gone bigger and better every year since. Each year's garden presents a unique set of challenges, first time successes and wild failures. We'll be documenting them all right here so you can hopefully pick up a few tips and learn a few hard lessons vicariously through us along the way. 

We used to think of all natural and organic as terms that only applied to food and gardening, but our world has been opened up to the fact that harmful chemicals are in so many staple products we are lead to believe are safe. Things we either put in or on our bodies every day like deodorant, toothpaste, and makeup may contain ingredients harmful to you and the world around us. The great news is that people have never been more aware of that fact and all-natural alternatives exist for just about everything you use today. We believe most people would choose to use these products if they just knew they existed and where to get them. A major focus of the site will be letting you know which of these products we have tried and which ones we recommend you consider switching over to. 

Most websites and blogs you come across are created by someone positioning themselves as an "expert" on whatever the subject may be. This is just the opposite. We are looking to create a community of like-minded people where we can learn just as much from you as you do from us. 

---

About Jill

Hello and thank you for joining us at Growing Ambition!  Although this is the About Me section, I really can't wait to get to know more about YOU.  Join the discussion on our Growing Ambition Facebook page! 

If you're looking to grow your own organic garden but have little time, knowledge or space, then you have come to the right place.   We know that your time is valuable and have taken that into high consideration when creating this resource for you.  This website is a culmination of decades of actual gardening experience that started when I was a little girl and has slowly changed into the organic gardening methods we share with you today.  

This website will be your Go To Organic Gardening Reference Guide as well as your new Organic Gardening Community to get fast answers on all your pressing gardening questions.  We are regular human beings just like you that have a huge desire to better our  planet and our health by helping people like you grow and manage their own organic garden as efficiently as possible.   If you are short on time and want to get started gardening, you can get started here.  Or if you have some time, read on to learn more about your new GBFF, Jill.

---

I laugh when I tell people my story because it sounds like I grew up in the 1920's.  This is probably why I love the elderly, we have a ton in common!  I grew up on a farm shoveling shit, feeding animals, riding horses, slinging bails of hay, collecting eggs, and gardening.  We were the family going down the street in a horse and carriage, the tractor your car was stuck behind, the people bailing hay in a field on the side of the road, and yes those cows on your lawn were ours (or horses, pigs, chickens, etc.) and we always appreciated when you helped us get them back home. 

​Growing up, we were constantly outside playing and working.  I can't say that I always enjoyed every task, but I can say that always being in nature with my family has given me a deep appreciation and respect for our planet.  It has become my purpose in life to teach my children and you and yours about our delicate planet and how each day we can make small decisions to protect it and keep it healthy for all to enjoy.  My passion has lead me here, and I want to connect with each and every one of you so that we can learn and grow together.  

---

​
​Today I'm married and have 2 little girls that I love digging in the dirt with.  I'm a Stay at Home Mommer, a DIYer, a crafter, a wine drinkerer, an early morning gym rat, and an absolute bathrobe lover.  I know that last one sounds lazy and ridiculous, but let me explain.  My dad always said, "In the morning you get up, get dressed, make your bed, comb your hair, brush your teeth and start your day."  It's a great philosophy, don't get me wrong, but notice how my PJs were off the second I got up?  So of course I never even owned a bathrobe until one magical Christmas when I opened one up from my husband.  BEST. GIFT. EVER!  I can assure you that I am the hardest working robe wearer you've ever met in your life and no I'm not the lunatic getting her mail in it.  I never wear my robe outside of the house.  But I have to say I'd love to.

---

Fine! I wore it outside once hahahahahaha!

Gardening is my biggest passion, the one subject I could talk about for hours and the hobby I've learned the most from and have done the longest.  Organic gardening pulls at my heart because you can help make the planet and every living thing on it healthier and stronger just by planting an organic seed in the dirt.  We aren't just one person living on Earth, we are all connected and our gardening decisions matter greatly for the future of our health, our children's and our planet's health.  So grab your bath robe and a glass of wine, relax on the couch and get started on creating your little piece of Heaven on Earth.  I swear it is way easier and less time consuming than you think.  You already have the answers inside yourself and you're going to listen to what feels right and that will make all the difference.  

Lastly, I greatly want to start Growing Ambition;  both yours and mine.  I know that even though I am but one person, I am strong and I can be the change I want to see in the world and so can you.  It will no longer be part of my vocabulary to say "I am just one person, what can I do?"  Because I know that we are ALL ONE PERSON.  What is inside of me is also inside of you, we are no different.  Not only are we no different but my actions affect you and yours affect mine.  But when we work together in love, there is nothing that we can't do.  We must start Growing Ambition and daring greatly.  I will leave you with this quote before we get down to gardening.  

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasm, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails daring greatly..

Theodore Roosevelt

Let's Get Growing!! ​

About Mike

Unlike my wife Jill I had never grown a thing in my entire life, but then we moved into a condo that had a good size balcony and decided to hang some plants out there. The flowers were alright, but what really got my interest was when Jill showed me a picture of someone who had rigged up gutters around their balcony railings to grow vegetables in. Living in a condo with no kids leaves plenty of time for such projects so I built my own version, added a few tomato plants in pots, and that would become our first "garden". I even found a picture (see below). 

When we moved to our house we brought all the living plants with us. We decided to start a garden in our backyard that summer and the first thing we planted were those chives you can barely see in the far left corner of the gutter. Being a perennial they have  continued to grow bigger and multiply year after year. Between dividing larger ones and others growing from seeds dropped by the original, we now have about 10 plants and have given away dozens more. The rest of the garden has pretty much grown at the same pace. Every year I look at the view from my deck in June and say, "OK, this is it. No way we can go any bigger". And yet like clockwork I am out there with a tape measure and shovel the next March digging out the latest addition.  Most people think I'm a little crazy or wonder where I find the time or why I would pick back breaking manual labor as my hobby of choice. It would take too long to list out all the reasons and my explanations for each, so instead I'll direct you to the following quote by the author Anne Lamott. This pretty much sums it up:

“The garden is one of the great metaphors for humanity.
The garden is about life and beauty and the impermanence of all living things.
The garden is about feeding your children, providing food for the tribe.
It’s part of an urgent territorial drive that we can probably trace back to animals storing food.
It’s a competitive display mechanism, like having a prize bull, this greed for the best tomatoes and English tea roses.
It’s about winning; about providing society with superior things; and about proving that you have taste, and good values, and you work hard.
And what a wonderful relief, every so often, to know who the enemy is.
Because in the garden, the enemy is everything: the aphids, the weather, time.
And so you pour yourself into it, care so much, and see up close so much birth, and growth, and beauty, and danger, and triumph.
And then everything dies anyway, right?
But you just keep doing it.”

Other than gardening I am a finely tuned 2-sport athlete (slow pitch over 30 beer league softball and candlepin bowling during which I also drink beer), a die hard Patriots, Bruins, and Celtics fan, bandwagon Red Sox fan, half-ass vegan, father of 2 girls and lover of all pizza (unless its Greek pizza - that stuff is trash). 

---

​The original "garden". Picture taken June 5, 2011

The original "garden". Picture taken June 5, 2011