Mother of two empowers others through a life of gardening – Alton Telegraph

Jeanie Stephens, jeanie.stephens@thetelegraph.com

Gardener and author Crystal Stevens, right, with her husband and two children who work together on the family farm and business, FLOURISH, in Godfrey.

Gardener and author Crystal Stevens, right, with her husband and two children who work together on the family farm and business, FLOURISH, in Godfrey.

Photo: Photos By Candice Pyle |The Telegraph

Gardener and author Crystal Stevens, right, with her husband and two children who work together on the family farm and business, FLOURISH, in Godfrey.

Gardener and author Crystal Stevens, right, with her husband and two children who work together on the family farm and business, FLOURISH, in Godfrey.

Mother of two empowers others through a life of gardening

GODFREY Crystal Stevens of Godfrey may not care for summer heat, but that hasnt kept her from doing what she loves: running a successful organic farm and plant nursery with her husband and two children.

An expert in growing ones own food and herbs, the local garden enthusiast and three-time author launched FLOURISH in 2018 along with her husband, Eric.

It just feels good to do what I love, she said. I wouldnt have it any other way.

Being able to wake up and go outside at sunrise and tend to the crops is my favorite part, along with getting to show my children the seed-to-table process and being able to work side-by-side with my husband growing good food and working with plants, she said. We make a really good team.

The FLOURISH farm, plant nursery and small apothecary operates on about 1.5 acres. It offers garden installation, landscape design and educational workshops as well as heirloom vegetables, herbs, fruit trees and pollinator plants. The couple, who have been farming together since 2008, have nearly 40 years of combined experience in farming and gardening.

My mom got me into gardening, she said. She never really grew vegetables. She grew heirloom irises from her grandmothers yard. So its fifth generation iris flowers that we have growing in our garden, passed down for five generations.

The plant nursery also sells a variety of fruit and nut trees such as service berries, hazelnuts and chinese chestnuts. Pollinator plants, like smooth sumac, are also available through the online store. FLOURISHs newly launched Community Supported Agriculture program offers a weekly harvest of its crops for a set fee. With the launching of an herbal foundations program last year, its products, services and opportunities continue to increase.

Last year my friend Alex Queathem and I launched the Tend and Flourish School of Botanicals, which is an herbal foundations program, she said. Its like an herb school, basically, for the Midwest.

A vegetarian since she was 13, Stevens said she has always had an interest in healthy eating and herbal medicine. Her path became more solidified when her father was diagnosed with cancer in 2000. Due to leave for college in less than a month, she instead got a job at a health food store to help her dad who didnt want to go through chemo and radiation.

He was given six months to live, she said. I just started working there to get the supplements discount and discount on local produce and juice to bring to my dad, and he lived five additional years with acupuncture, healthy eating, medicinal mushrooms, herbal tea blends and herbal suppleme nts.

The mother of two also has used her experience to author three books on gardening and farming, finding the transition from gardener to author came rather naturally.

I just started writing, said Stevens. I was really interested in writing poetry and that kind of morphed into writing about gardening and farming and telling the stories of the land, stewarding land and anecdotes of a day in the life of an organic farmer.

Worms at Work, Grow, Create, Inspire and Your Edible Yard offer gardening tips and simple ways budding gardeners can operate on a budget. They cover topics such as vermicompost, preparing and preserving harvest and growing food. She said the books are one way she hopes to cultivate a life of health, happiness and abundance for herself and others.

It feels good to just be empowering others to grow food and simplifying it in a way that makes it accessible for people to feel like they can also start a garden, because it can be expensive, intimidating and overwhelming, said Stevens. I absolutely love working with plants.

Stevens also makes public speaking engagements and offers educational workshops some at The Nature Institute in Godfrey geared to resilient living, gardening and compost, healthy eating and herbal medicine. She also spoke at Mother Earth News fairs across the country before the pandemic.

For more information on FLOURISH, visit growcreateinspire.com, shop.growcreateinspire.com or tendandflourishschool.com. FLOURISH also sells at the Tower Grove Farmers Market and the Alton Farmers and Artisans Market.

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Mother of two empowers others through a life of gardening - Alton Telegraph