The gardening coach: Helping busy clients cultivate their green thumb

By BRIAN KLUEPFEL  

Born on a potato farm near the Finger Lakes, Mary Buri began life with a strong earth connection. Later, when the family relocated to Somers, Conn., her Merchant Marine dad always kept a vegetable garden.

Maintaining that cultivator culture was harder with Buri’s own family of four in urban Brooklyn, the results of a rooftop tomato plant experiment — “probably from Home Depot, grown in Miracle-Gro soil” — were disastrous. It was time to get back to the country.

Buri and family moved to South Salem in 2013, giving the children space to expand — and for Buri, room to grow plants. It was an experiential education. “I learned many things the hard way,” she said. Having plants fail or get eaten by groundhogs provided hard lessons but left her undaunted. Buri is insistent that “it’s a skill — I’m not an innate gardener,” she said, “But it’s still super-fulfilling. Every time I’m out in the garden, it’s just an absolute gift.”

Having left an editorial career behind to raise her family, she broke new ground in northern Westchester, opening Mars Kitchen Garden, a gardening consulting and design business, in February 2020. The pandemic proved a boon to her nascent enterprise, as people wanted to be outside, and many were marooned at home for the first time in ages.

“The interest was big out of the gate,” she said. “We went from zero to 60 immediately.” Although demand was heavy, she eventually scaled back to a reasonable workforce — a building team of three and herself as the lone planter — and Mars Kitchen remains, shall we say, fruitful, entering its sixth year in business.

Typically, Buri begins by surveying a property for the most crucial element: sunlight. In New York’s relatively short growing season, she feels it’s the most important aspect of successful gardening. She works with existing gardens, but can also come up with a design from scratch and build and install it. Admittedly a poor drawer, she abandoned paper-and-pencil for more accurate Adobe Illustrator plans.

“Coaching means coming up with a garden plan, creating full planting plans, considering spacing, trellising options, a calendar, and crop layout,” said Buri. Also discussed are which veggies can be seeded directly into the garden, and which might need to be started indoors.

“Timing is a big thing,” said Buri. “Traditionally (in New York) we go out on Mother’s Day. But really we should be starting in early to mid-April to take advantage of the cool days.” She notes, for example, if lettuce is planted in May, it will have only about one month to flourish before the summer heat wilts it.

Knowing things are not always going to work is part of the process. “You practice your fail tolerance,” said Buri, “but you’re learning, and being taught continually by nature.”

In the end, clients have an appreciation for the natural cycle and an educated palate that can only come from eating off-the-vine tomatoes and other vegetables. 

“Harvesting itself is such joy,” said Buri. “My clients get the same feeling I have — ‘Oh my god, this works! Now we get to pick it and eat it.’”

She notes there is “nothing like” the flavor of garden-fresh produce, but that the intimacy with the soil has a longer-range effect. “I work with people who don’t have a lot of time for hobbies, but when they garden, they find it grounding and peaceful.”

Mars Kitchen clients also learn the responsibility that comes with growing your own, no matter the time constraints. “I remind them it’s still on them, but I’m empowering them,” said Buri. “The people reaching out to me are busy, so I’m making it doable if you only have an hour a week.”

For Buri herself, the skills that she gleaned from her father, dozens of YouTube videos and various teachers along the way still produce a sensation that is “elemental and humbling. Gardening makes me feel my smallness,” she said.

For more information, visit marskitchengarden.com.