Home Gardening Inspiration & Education

Have fun today, friends, & if you have a horn, blow it! 

In my years of veggie growing, I've been featured in various publications, by colleges, and in conferences for my horticultural knowledge and businesses.   

Recognized as a local celeb due to my 30x30 portrait that hung in a local restaurant for 10 years, I'm happy to have come this far.  I'm saying all that, to say this - Follow your heart, know your strengths, and share them with the world. 

My 10 year journey as an entrepreneur and garden guru came with many difficulties and heartaches.  Many fails and many successes.  The important thing is that I kept going.  Kept learning.  Kept pushing.

The point is, to chase your calling and keep nurturing it.  I have found mine with YOU.  Educating and empowering you to grow a garden with confidence, guidance, and support lights me up inside.

I live for it.  A passion, a good cause, a healthy...

Hi there!

My name is Marlena Wolf.  I am the founder and CEO of Guidance for Growers Consulting, LLC.  And gardening did not come natural to me!

I never had a garden growing up so learning how to grow fruits, veggies, and herbs took me some time.  Like years.  I fled corporate America as a young woman due to reoccurring health issues, and took an apprenticeship on an organic vegetable farm. 

I know, I'm extreme. After the first month, I feared I had made the worst decision of my life!  I jumped out on faith & conviction that I could improve my health, if only I could change the food system.  Well that was enough.  I feel in love with horticulture and never looked back.

Two years later, I started Girl Next Door Farm at age 28.  We were on a 22 acre farm just outside of Louisville, Kentucky.  It was my very first entrepreneurial endeavor and I LOVED it.  And hey, growing edible plants is fun, fascinating, and...

Download our 10 Signature Secrets to Beautifying an Edible Garden!  We'll take you from start to finish on how to create the ultimate garden experience.

Our free guide is packed full of beauty, structure, and essential details to turning your aspirations into a reality.

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Your 2021 Garden will be the best its ever been!
Happy Holidays!!

Are Garden lessons right for your family?

I want to share a short story about my client who is such an inspiration to me!  Katherine and I went to high school together, then reconnected 10 yrs later at the St. Matthews farmer's market.  I was working for Kenny's Cheese and she was with Fox Hollow.  She is a mom of two, a food-preservationist, home-schooler, and an essential oil guru.  Fast forward to 2019, she invested in our Reap What You Sow garden course and helped her son grow an edible garden.  They did the Three Sisters: corn, beans, and pumpkins (squash)!

Earlier this week she approached me about providing personal garden lessons for her son and daughter.  (And her son wants to be a farmer!)  OMG YES, the answer is yes, yes, yes!

This invitation has inspired me so much to usher in the next generation of gardeners.  I've never offered this level of personal service in my garden coaching until now!   So, thank...

Step into joy among parenting, politics, pandemic, & now the holidays!

Plant seeds of inspiration this season with garden-inspired gifts.

Gifts that are:
Fruitful. Fun. Fascinating. Educational. Relaxing.

Sound valuable?

Browse our site. Give garden-inspired gifts. Let us build you a custom garden. Gift a garden consult. Take a class. Sponsor a garden.

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Black gold, soil, compost...whaaaat? 

What is Composting all about? 

In a nut shell, it's a process that breaks down natural materials at an accelerated rate that brings gold to the garden!  While compost isn't a fertilizer, it greatly reduces the need for one by improving soil fertility & structure.  It adds organic material to your garden, and inoculates the soil with microbial life!  I'm short-changing the benefit list.  For a more in-depth compost experience see our Winter Workshop Bundle!

So how does it work?  Composting uses a combination of microbes, water, air (oxygen), carbon (dead/brown materials), and nitrogen (living/green materials.)  When managed properly, the original ingredients will become unrecognizable upon completion.  

What are carbon examples?  Sticks, straw, saw dust, dried leaves, pine needles.

What are nitrogen examples?  Raw veggies scrapes, yard litter, grass clippings, flowers. ...

Hi!  I’m Marlena Wolf, former farmer and owner of Girl Next Door Farm!  I am a sixth year farmer, inspired by a dream of self-sufficiency, health and environmental advocacy, and a lifestyle similar to many an ancestor.  I was born and raised in the suburbs of Louisville, Kentucky.  But I do have some agricultural roots… My father grew up on a 2100 acre farm with his parents, and grandparents in French Lick, Indiana.  My mama grew up in St. Matthews and Jeffersontown, Kentucky.

My great grandparents, Goldie and William Bolin owned the Castle Knoll Farm in French Lick, Indiana; Orange County.  It was a dairy and hog operation with some row crops.  William’s parents, Philomena and Bennett Bolin, my great great grandparents, farmed out in Brooks, Kentucky; Bullitt County.  Actually, Philomena and her many children ran the farm operation, while Ben worked in a Louisville factory after his military...