Most people know Debra Gaines and her husband Warren Gaines as artists who sell their work at the Vineyard Artisans Festival, the All-Island Art Show, and the Chilmark Flea Market. Debra Gaines is known for her evocative, panoramic landscape and seascape photography, her original encaustic paintings, and pastel work. I have known her since I moved to the Island. Two years ago, she began to garden, and posted wonderful photos of her bounty on Facebook. I decided to pay her a visit at the home and studio she shares with her husband in Edgartown.
First she takes me upstairs into her studio to show me where she is drying
herbs, flowers, rose petals, calendula, garlic, and other plants on large aluminum trays, for use in teas, tinctures, and bath oils. Then she takes down a series of glass apothecary jars filled with lemon verbena, lemon balm, celery tops, stevia,
eucalyptus, peppermint, holy basil, rosemary, and lavender.
This is only Debra Gaines’ second full year as a gardener, although she started playing with a little patch of pumpkins three years ago to see if she’d stick with it. She grew up in Western Massachusetts, where her family had a small garden, her uncle had a full greenhouse, and her grandmother grew flowers. Debra did not seriously participate in any of these gardens. So what precipitated her newfound hobby?
“My kids have always had food issues, skin rashes, welts after eating dairy. My daughter came home from college sick, so we’ve gone gluten-free,” she said. “I wanted to see if I could grow plants without toxins. We’re all so reliant on grocery stores. I did a little research, and they’ve only been around in Massachusetts since the ’40s.”
Debra set out to see how much of her family’s food she could grow. She learned how to can, and keeps a freezer stocked with soups and purées.
She cannot ignore her garden for more than two days. In the summer, to combat humidity, she sprays neem oil, a naturally occurring vegetable oil pesticide, and also uses diatomaceous earth (made from fossilized remains of aquatic organisms) as a fertilizer.
“Slugs were awful this year,” Debra said, but the natural remedy can cause harm to children or dogs, so she skipped it.
Her house and studio are piled with stacks of garden books, which she catches up on during the winter months. Debra is a passionate autodidact when it comes to finding the best solutions for her garden. Right now she’s making cayenne oil, using her Western Massachusetts cousin’s plants. Next season she
will switch it out with the neem oil, so the bugs don’t get used to one natural pesticide.
She has a still for making oils and hydrosols, and is even ServSafe certified on
proper techniques. She’s made oregano oil to use for tick bites, oregano tea for her hummingbird feeder, and rose-hip oil for her skin. The nice thing about hydrosols is you don’t have to make them right away, but can store the dried leaves and use them when you’re ready. She plans to make peppermint
oil for peppermint patties. Using her own sunflower seeds and flax seeds with cacao, Debra says, she bakes yummy cookies. She looks forward to making a tea with the lemongrass, lemon verbena, and lemon balm.
She’s also learned to powder her vegetables when worms and pests compromise her garden. This year, the celery grew better than she ever expected, and Debra admits she buys chowder just so she can add her celery seasoning.
Other plantings have required a lot of trial and error. Her kale got worms,
potato bugs munched the potatoes, ants sawed down the sunflowers, and the slugs decimated her beets. She also tried peanuts. One plant died — Debra thinks it didn’t like being next to tomato plants — but the others did just
fine. She grew peas, but was not pleased with the amount of space they take up or the amount of her harvest, so they will not be in next year’s plan.
Other plants are doing surprisingly well: Debra proudly points to a lemon balm plant that is flourishing, though it was a pipsqueak of a plant when she received it as a gift from Native Earth Teaching Farm’s Rebecca Gilbert.
At this point, Debra Gaines is not part of any plant or garden group. She lets her garden tell her what it wants to do, and is focused on foods and herbs that support a strong immune system and overall health. She tells me, “I’m living my dream,” and adds, “It’s where you put your intentions.” We’ll have to check in next year and see how things are growing.
