Weston Miller in his natural habitat. Metro natural gardening instructor Weston Miller had never really gardened before. In 1994, freshly graduated from Lewis & Clark College with a biology degree, he found himself in the Bay Area with some friends who wanted to start a market garden. They had a tractor, a shoestring budget and a less-than-ideal piece of land: a steep hillside.
"They turned me loose," Weston said. He learned through experimentation and ended up creating a terraced, Shangri-La-style garden focused on food production.
He was hooked, and 17 years later, he's sharing his knowledge at some gardening workshops.
"Working with nature is constantly humbling," Weston said. "There's something embedded in the human psyche that craves that type of relationship with the natural world."
Through a career that included work in landscaping, training at the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms Program in Australia, and a master's degree in environmental science, this self-taught horticulturist found his way back to the Portland area, where he has worked as Community and Urban Horticulturist at Oregon State University Extension Service for the past four years. In his role there, he not only serves as an educator, but also builds partnerships, like the one OSU and Metro share to offer free natural gardening workshops throughout the Portland metropolitan area.
The workshop topics vary, attracting that wide variety of gardeners. Some need a lesson in composting; others want to expand their vegetable gardens; still others just want some healthy grass their kids and pets can play on.
"It is possible to grow a good lawn without toxic chemicals," says Weston, who points out that the Metro program provides research-based information on natural gardening topics to help area residents do just that.
But, he said, whether you want to grow grass or thirty varieties of vegetables, the key is to start small and enjoy the recreational value of growing something. Grow some herbs and enjoy the olfactory benefit. Grow some greens in a container. Even Weston's two sons, Casey, 4 and Joe, 2, have their own gardening tools at their home in Southwest Portland. Casey already knows about "the good bugs."
That way, should they end up needing to grow vegetables on a hill, they won't be starting from scratch.