From the Past: Anya McCoy in Organic Gardening magazine Feb. 1997

In my first semester in college I wrote a paper on organic gardening.  I was studying horticulture and living in Berkeley, so it was a perfect topic.  At 21, I was managing the apartment complex where I lived (don't ask me how I snagged that job, just a bit assertive with the management, I guess) and wanted to research the basics of organic gardening to supplement what I had practiced since childhood.

Years later, (again assertive!) I wrote to the editors of Organic Gardening magazine asking why they didn't have any Zone 10 (South Florida) seed testers.  Growing herbs, veggies and flowers in this climate was very different from the other zones I had lived and gardened in, inlcuding California, Oregon, Pennsylvania and New York.  Editor Mike McGrath asked me to be the first Zone 10 tester and I was happily overwhelmed with lots of seeds sent every Spring (wrong time of year!) to test.

So, when they interviewed me I was able to explain the switch in seasons we have here so that the general public could be educated about our winter growing season.

I like that they put a bit in there about my perfume line, Anya's Tropical Essences (true perfumes, not essential oils as written) and my silly marketing line 'won't go sour on your skin in the hot Florida sun' - but that was the exact reason I started my perfume line!  Not catchy, but true, lol. The link to the .pdf of the article is on the homepage of Anya's Garden http://anyasgarden.com/Organic-Gardening-AnyaMcCoy-Feb97.pdf In the photo I seem to be grimacing a bit, and that's because I was being hit in the face intermittently by 50mph winds - yet the curly bangs stayed in place!