Event Details

About the instructor

T.J. Oliver is a Horticulturist in charge of the Kroger Community Kitchen Garden here at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. Since 2010, he has traveled all over the United States learning and working in Agriculture and in the Apiary business, including in Hawaii, California, New York, Vermont, and now here in Virginia. T.J. utilizes a no-dig gardening method, recognizing that macro and micro biotic organisms in the soil constitute a food-web community which convert available nutrients in the soil to the mineral components plants need to thrive, simulating the natural processes which the natural world uses to maintain fertility in its soil. T.J. cares deeply about organization, cleanliness, and views gardening as a visual art form, incorporating beauty, varieties of beneficial and ornamental flowers, and native plant species into his agricultural gardens. He also prioritizes compost, soil building, and ensuring a thriving mycorrhiza symbiosis between plants and fungi within the soil. In his spare time T.J. likes to fish, hike, camp, and canoe with his wife and also creates aquariums, vivariums, and paludariums which simulate the natural biomes for the many creatures he takes care of, all while progressing his knowledge of the natural world.