In 2011, Rebecca Hart received an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. She’s been a garden columnist for the Daily Astorian, feature writer and columnist for HipFish, the Astoria arts and culture magazine, and in 1997 she became a Master Gardener. She helped start the Astoria public radio station KMUN’s radio gardening program, Diggin’ the Dirt. She has been published in Fine Gardening, and was former editor of the American Conifer Society’s Bulletin. Her nursery career began in 1974, outside Astoria, where James Beard shopped for supplies while vacationing at his summer home in Gearhart. Hart now lives in Ilwaco, Washington, in a house built in 1880. She is working on a collection of essays that will become a memoir, tentatively titled Tending Kwan Yin’s Garden. Hart also raises heirloom turkeys and closely tracks trends in local and global food self-sufficiency. This article was originally published in The Nation on September 21, 2009.