Jenessa Stark

Jenessa is Eartheasy’s social media manager and a Pacific Northwest gardener in Zone 8b. She grew up with a father who loved gardening, but it wasn’t until adulthood that she began nurturing a green thumb of her own. What started as an experiment quickly became a deeper appreciation for the connection between growing food, eating seasonally, and creating a healthier, more grounded way of life. Today, Jenessa creates educational and inspiring content for Eartheasy’s social media community, sharing practical gardening ideas, seasonal tips, and stories that help people feel more confident growing at home. She is especially interested in herbs, vegetables, pollinator-friendly plants, and simple ways to make the most of each harvest in the kitchen with seasonal recipes and small-batch preserving.Much of her inspiration comes directly from the Eartheasy community. She loves seeing the creative ways gardeners adapt to their spaces, solve problems, and build outdoor spaces that reflect their lives. When she’s not creating content for Eartheasy, you can find her chasing her malamute around the yard, reading crime novels, or whipping up a seasonal dish.

Jenessa has been gardening at home for about five years, starting with container gardening before growing into a quarter-acre yard in Vancouver, WA — most of it lawn — that's been evolving since 2021. The centerpiece is a 50-plus-year-old wisteria vine, planted by her husband's grandmother, that she's learned to care for over time.

Much of what she knows came from getting it wrong first. An early attempt at in-ground planting failed almost entirely because she hadn't tested or understood her native soil. The yard flooded due to poor grading, forcing her to pull everything and start over. A full-sun front bed has resisted every planting plan through recent record heat, and she eventually gave up on elaborate seed-starting setups in favor of direct sowing and nursery starts to fill the gaps.

On the DIY side, she's built her own pea-gravel dining patio with raised beds and a flagstone walkway, all within a 750-square-foot footprint — including Eartheasy's Natural Cedar L-shaped raised beds, a trellis raised bed, and a cedar shed — still in use two years later, alongside non-toxic garden hoses she's had for about four. Her take: no amount of YouTube videos can substitute for learning to garden through doing it.