Gardening in Eastern North Carolina can be challenging.  We hope our new segment on The Down East Journal, aptly titled The Garden Journal,  will guide you through the highs and lows  and ultimate joys of gardening in this very special region.

Anne Edwards, host of The Garden Journal, started her love affair with growing plants in 1973, when she began studying crop science (Agronomy) at Virginia Tech.  With a BS in Agronomy, Anne headed to Rodale's Organic Gardening and Farming Research Center in PA, where she worked as a New Crops Research Scientist.  She then returned to Virginia Tech for  her MS in Crop Science, taught on the faculty at Virginia Tech as an  Instructor for a year, and then took over as County Director and Agriculture Extension Agent in King George, Virginia for four years.

Just for fun, Anne left her early career to attend law school at William and Mary's Marshall Wythe School of Law, in Williamsburg, VA, and then practiced law as a litigator in New Bern for just over 14 years.  The month before she turned 50, Anne decided to reinvent herself one more time, leaving law to return to a career closer to the outdoors and gardens.  She now is the Horticulture Extension Agent in Carteret County, NC.

Anne lives way Down East in Carteret County, on a marshfront lot full of  native grasses and shrubs, fiddler crabs and sea birds.  She has a few  small raised bed vegetable garden plots, a few fruit trees, some hardy  citrus, and a front yard consisting of a riot of trees, shrubs and  perennial flowers, most of which were chosen for their value as sources  of food (nectar and pollen) for honeybees, native pollinators, and other beneficial insects.

Anne's garden scraps are fed to her four hens, Pauline, Hilda, Louise,  and Lena, or to her unnamed hundreds of composting red wiggler worms in their worm bin.  In addition to her fruits and vegetables, she harvests  honey from her 3 bee hives, run by queens Loretta, Dolly, and Grace (Slick).  Anne will share her love of gardening with you on The Garden Journal, on her blog at www.soundharvest.blogspot.com, and with the  occasional rare tweet from Twitter @soundharvest.  For scientifically  based answers to your horticulture questions, Anne suggests you ask her  or any number of other Horticulture Agents from the NC Cooperative Extension Service at http://www.extension.org