Getting Back to the Garden: Charlie Nardozzi and the NGA

Vermont Business Magazine, Feb 01, 2007 by Marcel, Joyce

Once, almost everyone (or at least our grandparents) had a garden. We grew up with an instinctive understanding of the growing cycle: starting seedlings, planting, weeding, harvesting, canning, preserving and, best of all, eating.

Then came commercial canning, preserved foods, processed foods, frozen foods, supermarkets, and along with them, working away from the home and the transition from a rural to an urban society. We became disconnected from our food supply.

Now things are coming around full circle. We're concerned about global warming. We worry about the environmental effects of trucking fruits and vegetables around the country or of flying them in from around the world. We're concerned about the safety of our food. Children think carrots grow in cellophane sacks. Fast food has led to a national crisis of obesity with a side dish of eating disorders, And a lot of us are longing to become more self-sufficient, to get back to the way that most Vermonters lived for the bulk of the 18th, 19th and a big part of the 20th century - by growing what we need to Eve on, or at least by buying it locally.

In other words, gardening has stopped being a hobby and has developed deep, important, multi-level ramifications.

Given Vermont's short growing season, it is odd and interesting that the state sits at the center of the national gardening world. This is in part due to a 34-year old South Burlington nonprofit called the National Gardening Association, with roots deep in the economic history of Vermont.

"We're trying to reconnect people, plants and the environment," said NGA president Michael Metallo. "We've moved away from farming communities and kids don't understand where their food is coming from although Vermont does a much better job with that than most states. Our goal is to help adults and kids understand where food comes from. It comes from the garden aspect of life." How does the NGA help people understand the garden aspect of life? One NGA program, called GROW, has for the past five years turned April into National Garden Month. It raises awareness of the need for healthy food and stewardship of the land.

NGA programs introduce gardening into the nation's public schools. Students can study live plants as part of their science curriculum, learn where food comes from and see how good a carrot can taste right out of the ground. It also helps to break kids' addictions to soda and fast food. And tilling the soil gives them needed exercise.

Community gardens are an important part of the garden aspect of life. As more people - especially in the inner cities grow their own food, they become healthier and there is less need to truck in fruits and vegetables from far away.

In all of the NGA's educational endeavors, its public face is a horticulturist and popular local television and radio star named Charlie Nardozzi.

"Charlie's the best," Metallo said. "He's personable. He's knowledgeable. He's very intelligent in his articulation. He works great with kids. And he looks really good in that hat."

Yes, Nardozzi, 47, is as famous for his trademark straw hats as he is for his cheery attitude and his long-time career as a garden proselytizer. For 11 years, he wrote for the NGA magazine, National Gardening, and he still writes for its newsletters and Web site. He's written and edited a series of gardening books for the "For Dummies" series - "Roses for Dummies," "Flowering Bulbs for Dummies," "Organic Gardening for Dummies," etc. The last one was "Vegetable Gardening for Dummies," which was issued in 1999.

Now a part-time employee of the NGA, Nardozzi has also carved out a career as a freelance gardening expert. He gives gardening commentaries on Vermont Public Radio. He does lectures and gives garden tours around the country. He's a gardening expert on HGTV programs "Today at Home" and "Way to Grow," as well as the Discovery Channel's "Home Matters" and QVC, the Home Shopping Network. He's been doing a weekly call-in gardening radio show on WJOY for many years. Last year he hosted a gardening show on PBS. And he does weekly gardening segments with WCAX-TV weatherwoman Sharon Meyers.

"Charlie is very knowledgeable and he's a lot of fun," Meyers said. "That combination makes him a good communicator. He knows species and diseases. He's also very creative. He has a lot of new ideas. He'll show us a tomato planter, for example, where you plant the plants upside down - a hanging basket for tomato plants, and the plants grow upward. He knows how to put color and texture together to get flower gardens looking beautiful. He's known as being very friendly and quick-witted, very entertaining, and of course he always wears his straw hat."

A vegetarian, Nardozzi is fit, tall, rangy and lean with long fingers and an animated manner. Plants are vital to him; in midwinter he was growing paperwhites, amaryllis and pansies in his office at the NGA, and as late as December he was still eating leeks, potatoes, kale and Brussels sprouts out of his own garden. He also has a strong spiritual side. He meditates regularly, and every other year for the past 15 years he's been studying at a meditation center in Northern India.