Carisa Weinberg: My Story

Gardening is a lifeline that I have relied on for the past 15 years to wend my way through trying times and to tame past demons. I don’t just like to weed, water and tend my plants… I need to.

My father’s family became farmers during the Depression, and I suspect he always carried some shame along with his love of keeping chickens and growing food, because he never shared those joys with me. But as an only child growing up in farm country in central New York, I was never far from my roots.

…Which is where I turned during a seven-year journey to bring my daughter into the world. I wanted to plant a fruit tree for every miscarriage, experience the miracle of reproduction through every garden shoot and tender blossom. When I believed I couldn’t carry on with my fertility journey, I adopted four young hens — pullets — and spent long hours lying in the warm afternoon sun, watching them forage in the grass, take dust baths and cluck proudly over their daily egg. As the sun set each day, I would lay back in the hammock and watch them waddle back to their coop before the door gently closed behind them.

As I sank my roots into the earth, I felt the strength welling to try again. And I did. The day I started my final round of IVF, I placed seven fertile eggs under my best hen, Syd. She hatched all seven, and as I studied her fierce and instinctual mothering, my own child took root in me.

I still have a few of Syd’s babies — old hens now. And my daughter? She only eats berries off the bush. She pulls up crisp orange carrots, feeds the tops to her rabbits, and stores the roots for the winter. She has learned to carefully collect our hens’ eggs, knowing that each is a perfect miracle… just like her.

My life was saved by gardening, and I want to share that gift with others. I’ve always been drawn to teaching — to the beautiful give and take that can turn the educator into the student. From young undergratuates at private universities to incarcerated women, wisened by heavy loads of guilt, shame and trauma, every opportunity to teach is an opportunity to learn. I am a certified yoga instructor with a focus on trauma-sensitive and mindful movement. My training in horticulture, horticultural therapy and landscape design is through the New York Botanical Garden.

I would be honored to use my experience and training to help you on your journey, from wherever you find yourself now, to wherever you can dream of going.

Zebedee Personius, Arborist

Zebedee is an arborist and earth therapist. He spends his winters working on his family’s coffee farm in Hawaii, but every April he comes back to the Hudson Valley, tend the land and bring forth new life.