I live in Putney, Vermont, which is north of Brattleboro, about eight miles from where the FiberMark plant is located. I come from a long line of gardeners—vegetable gardeners. I’ve slowly been expanding my garden here in Vermont, but back in the Midwest where I grew up, we had a really sizeable garden every year. We’d go the trouble of starting our own plants from seeds in the spring, but it didn’t seem like work; it was a labor of love, therapeutic. We’d raise as many as 20 to 25 different varieties of tomatoes, peppers, onions, sweet corn. It was a family event. My wife has always been heavily into gardening—and very good at it—and my brother is also an excellent gardener. Of course, we learned it from our folks.

Every spring, we would toy with different varieties of tomatoes and have contests to see who could raise the biggest or the juiciest or the most flavorful. Here in Vermont, it’s a little different. Tomatoes are a bit more difficult to grow and don’t seem to have the acidy “bite” of some of the heirloom varieties we used to grow back home. Back in Indiana, we would set our plants out on Mother’s Day and things would pretty much finish up by early fall. Here, though, I’ve been absolutely amazed at the length of the growing season. Back in Indiana, we were done eating fresh sweet corn by Labor Day. But here in Vermont last year I had local sweet corn on October 18th which, incidentally, was also the date of the first snowfall!

I have three daughters and I’m happy to say they all followed their dad’s interest in gardening. One year, along time ago, we set out to raise a giant pumpkin. We ended up taking all the pumpkin plants out but one and we then focused on that one to nurture it to help it grow. It didn’t end up being massive, about 141 pounds, but in an old photo, there’s my three daughters sitting on that big old pumpkin! It’s something I treasure.

I don’t know if our Vermont garden will end up being as big as the one we had in Indiana, but it will certainly be just as enjoyable. We’ve done more composting here in Vermont—it’s really big here. It’s amazing how composting can break down a lot of kitchen scraps and other material and turn an average piece of soil into a great base for a garden.

Another thing we’ve done is to change our gardening with regard to fertilizer and pesticides. There used to be a lot of nasty stuff that they’d put in the ground, but here in Vermont we’ve transitioned to use more organic material, like cow manure and other fertilizers. We’re trying as much as we can to avoid using harmful chemicals.

We carry this very same philosophy into our jobs at FiberMark. It’s Vermont, after all, and that’s what people do here. I find it very consistent with how we’re always seeking ways to reduce our waste here at the plant, and find new uses and re-uses for a lot of our waste material. It’s a way of living and working that I have enormous respect for.