Garden Phoenix - The Next Life of the Pray Plants Garden

We are thrilled to hear about a drastic increase in the number of people turning to gardening this 2020 season. Gardening is therapeutic and helps build resilience into the homestead setting.

While many experienced gardeners continue on as normal, I have had to sacrifice nearly every live plant I owned during the move on July 6th. None of my plants were able to fit into the moving truck, so I was forced to quick-sell all of my potted plants right before departing. This left me with just a few potted herbs to my name.

"You can grow them all over again," someone tried to reassure me. But it is simply not the same as having that security and ease of mind right now.

This year, 2020, we all need gardening more than ever. I was profoundly depressed to arrive back home in Virginia with less than one twentieth the plant matter I had in my dreamy Ohio garden.

Then it occurred to me that this could be an opportunity. I may have pulled the "Death" card for my garden but it still has a bright future after being rebuilt from its own ashes. Every lesson I learned while creating my first, second, third, fourth, and fifth gardens, I can now implement into my FINAL garden with much more wisdom.

Better yet, I could share this wisdom with others! For those who are just starting out now that 2020 has turned out so insane, I might be able to share a tip or two to help you get started!

Stay tuned, because as soon as I get my little slice of paradise, I will start my garden from scratch and take you with me the whole way through!

Best wishes, and see you in the garden soon!

Becca Pray

Exciting Developments After a Long Hiatus

Hello Again!

Lucas and I have finally moved back to Virginia's beautiful Blue Ridge and are staying in a studio for the time being. We will isolate for a few weeks before diving back into work. In the meantime, we are still selling some products. In finding ways to work and social distance at the same time, we will be adding a few new features to the business:

• Pray Plants Seeds - Given the shortage of seeds at this time, we have decided to open our seed bank for sale to the Floyd community. Details will be posted on the Products page by September.

• Pray Plants YouTube - We want to share our new home and garden with friends, family, and clients as we build it. Every project contains teachable moments and idiosyncrasies that we can highlight for the greater community to build resilience into the homestead. As private as we are, we will post some videos on YouTube to help Pray Plants affect more people across the world. Stay tuned!

We look forward to catching up with members of the Floyd community and resuming some good ole gardening!

See you in the garden,

Becca Pray

The "Good to be Home" Happy Dance

Plants for Sale Info & Tentative May 1st Pickup Date

Greetings from the Pray Plants garden! Today turned out to be a gorgeous day for a little garden work. Luckily, all of the seedlings and plants in our gardens survived the surprise snow without so much as a frostbitten leaf. We are ever-grateful for this considering the lack of availability of seeds in the marketplace. Because of the current global situation, many people have placed orders with seed companies and overwhelmed these businesses. Starting in on Mother's Day, we will offer our smorgasbord of herb and veggie transplants to help clients establish some resilience and food security in these difficult times.

About Our Transplants:

1. Our seeds are sourced from the following businesses:

- The Appalachian Herb Growers Consortium with the Blue Ridge Center for Chinese Medicine

- Baker Creek Heirloom Seed

- Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

- Wood County Parks Stewardship Department

2. Transplants are grown in accordance with organic standards but are not organic certified. That certification is incredibly expensive and a lot of work! We use organic fertilizer and insect repellents, and propagate from organic products; Plus we put ample love into our plants to keep them healthy.

3. We sell less than 199 transplants per year since we are not an industrial greenhouse operation. Be sure to reserve your transplants ahead of time so that they do not sell out from under you :)

4. We offer planting and re-potting services for our transplants as well as from the local garden shops:

- Black Diamond Nursery

- Bostdorff's Greenhouse

5. We offer upkeep services for the plants we sell and transplant into client gardens.

Governor DeWine plans to make changes toward opening the economy beginning May 1st. It is our hope that we will be able to commence on-site projects for clients, and we will definitely announce on the Home Page of the website if this is the case.

Moving forward, I will mainly be working by myself or with my partner and we will likely not be seeing clients face-to-face -- all in order to prevent any viral transmission from household to household. We remain committed to our original Pandemic Plan (see Home Page for more), and want to continue to serve our clients safely.

Until then, be safe and prep the garden! See you there soon :)

- Becca