Author & Environmental Consultant – Ellen Vande Visse, MS

Ellen Vande Visse, MS, somewhere in her shady past, served as Environmental Education Consultant in West Michigan. Since 1987 in Alaska, she’s operated Good Earth Gardens as a market garden, a CSA, a demo garden, and now a home garden.

Ellen was the grower for the kitchens of the National Outdoor Leadership School, Alaska Branch. She created and supervised a community garden for Mat-Su College, University of Alaska.

Ellen is especially fond of all things decaying, and is known in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley as The Compost Queen. She is known to mysteriously brew compost tea for farmers, stores, and markets. She provides consultations on eco-agriculture growing systems (when she’s not playing in her multiple bins of red wiggler worms).

Ellen’s joy is training folks on how to farm and garden using regenerative methods. Teaching topics include organic fertilizers; non-toxic pest management; building healthy soil; composting successfully; raising nutrient-dense vegetables, fruits, and herbs; and carbon farming. She instructs through her own Good Earth Garden School, as well as through University of Alaska Anchorage and Matanuska-Susitna College. Rumor has it that she’s become a soil nerd.

For those interested, Ellen also offers courses that combine the science and the spiritual methods of organic growing. These classes utilize the Findhorn-Perelandra-style of co-creation with nature, and are based on her book, Ask Mother Nature, a Conscious Gardener’s Guide. To learn more about the classes Ellen instructs, or to host a class in your community, please email her or see Need a Speaker page.