What’s Inside the Garden Gate?
A garden is so many things. It can be a means of knowing what’s in the food you eat. It can be a place of peace, a creative outlet, or occasionally, a source of frustration when weather becomes your enemy. And though a bit of garden solitude can soothe the stressed-out soul, some of the best a garden has to offer is still the people-to-people stuff – neighbors wandering over to chat; scheming with a friend how to get her kids to love basil, since she planted an entire flat of it. That’s what you’ll find Inside the Garden Gate – gardening tips, tricks and the occasional humorous life observation. The gate’s open. Come on in!
About Veggie Cage
In 2003, Michel Paille, co-owner of Veggie Cage, LLC, was out in his garden retying several of his tomato plants to the stakes supporting them – for the third time. He wasn’t sure if the tomato plants were sagging again because of the previous night’s storm or if the groundhog was back. What he was sure of, though, was that tying tomato plants was a royal pain…and he was determined to do something about it. A number of different contraptions were devised and tried, but nothing that really quite said, “This is it!” But when long-time friend, Rob Sanazaro, joined the effort, the “two heads are better than one” axiom proved to be true.
The result of the partnership was the first incarnation of what today is known as the Veggie Cage. In 2008, they began the design process for yet another form of “garden pain relief” in the creation of the Tomato Ring, introduced for the 2009 garden season. While both the Tomato Ring and the Veggie Cage have changed a bit through the years through ongoing process improvement, the basic focus of the company has not changed at all: to help people enjoy their gardens more by offering a way to work a little less. To do more of the fun stuff — planning, dreaming, even diggin’ in the dirt – and less of the chore that just about no one enjoys, namely, tying and retying plants to keep them up off the ground.
They also believe that gardens should be beautiful. In their opinion, nothing spoils the view like a support system that is clunky and out of place in such a natural setting. “The trend of making vegetable gardens more than just functional is really not a trend at all,” says Rob Sanazaro. “It’s become a permanent part of garden thought, to be able to mix function with beauty.” So devising a means of support that draws very little attention to itself, whether for vegetables or flowers, was key in the design of both the Veggie Cage and the Tomato Ring.
Although their plant supports are innovative, the Veggie Cage folks like to say that their customer service remains quite old-fashioned, in the best sense of the term. “We see our customers as fellow-gardeners,” Michel Paille explains. “Customer support is a high priority for us, both before and after a purchase.”
Veggie Cage, LLC is proud to say that both the Veggie Cage and the Tomato Ring are manufactured right here in the U.S.A.
About Mary Ann
As a gardener, I would describe myself as a combination of self-taught, book-taught, and neighbor-taught. While still in my 20’s, I moved into a house next-door to a woman who lived for her landscaping. I could see her from my kitchen stool, strolling through her gorgeous gardens. At our initial introduction, Barb, the neighbor, (who turned out to be a fabulous mentor) casually mentioned that “Suzie,” the woman from whom I bought the house, was perfect in just about every way. She made her own curtains, painted her own furniture, and birthed flawless children. “She’s so cute,” Barb gushed. “She planted that bed of impatiens even though she was moving – and with a new baby, too.” Oh, yeah? That very day I bought a shovel, a hand trowel, a bag of peat moss, and 3 flats of mixed-color impatiens. There in the bare area under the driveway pine, I installed WAY more plants per square foot than Suzie had ever dreamed of planting. The result was a little bit spectacular, if I do say so myself. Neighbors out for a walk slowed down to ogle my pine tree extravaganza. I was hooked. That tree never lacked impatiens for all the years I lived there.
Of course, there were failures along the way. Like planting a bed of ostrich ferns in full sun because they looked so pretty there (until about late-June, that is). Or my misinterpretation of the phrase “full sun”. (If you happen to be new to gardening, I beg you to believe me that 2 hours of filtered rays peaking through tall pin oaks between 9 and 11 a.m. does not qualify as “full sun”. Three hours of hand-digging through sod, 15 pepper plants, and 10 tomato plants, and not a single anything.) On the bright side, it created a chance to learn the joys of shade-gardening.
In addition to gardening and cooking with fresh things from our garden, in my professional life I’m a public speaker. I especially love the opportunities to speak at faith-based women’s events, and I often find it exactly right to frame my presentation with a garden theme. Because really, there’s so much you can learn in a garden.
Inside the Garden Gate 