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Biophilia in Your Community – Growing for the Greater Good

  • Date: Wednesday, April 14, 2021
  • Time: 6:30 to 7:00 p.m. social (optional); 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. program
  • Via Zoom
  • Suggested donation: $15

Biophilia describes our innate desire and need to connect with nature. Bringing nature into your life can be even more than walking through the woods or nurturing houseplants. In the fourth installment of our Love Our Living World Series we will talk about enhancing our connection to nature through how we grow our food and how we plan our gardens and landscapes. 

Please join us in a conversation about our food, gardening, communities, and creating sustainable landscapes with Carolyn Quinn, founder of Dug In Farms, and Jeanette Ankoma-Sey, Adjunct Faculty of the Sustainable Landscapes Masters Program at George Washington University. 

Carolyn Quinn will share how the Dug In Farms and Market grew into a thriving community center by engaging its neighbors directly in the work and wonder of small farm production, providing enough fresh, seasonal produce to feed the community, plus beautiful cut flowers, & healthy nursery plants. 

Jeanette Ankoma-Sey will share her philosophy on the function of landscape and its vital role as a part of our everyday surroundings, big or small, and why landscapes that support growing edibles can contribute to both uniting communities and achieving sustainability goals.

Please join us for an optional social from 6:30 to 7:00 p.m. to meet and mingle with other participants. The presentations will be followed by a Q&A session.

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Speakers Spotlight

Carolyn Quinn, Founder, Dug in Farms

Carolyn Quinn posing in front of counter with products behind them

Carolyn Quinn is the owner and operator of Dug In Farms, an eight acre produce and flower farm located between White Stone and Kilmarnock, Virginia. The Dug In Farms’ Market, started on a picnic table with an honor box in 2015, is now open seven days a week from March through Christmas Eve.  The Market sells fresh produce, flowers and farm products, all grown or procured on the Northern Neck. The Dug In Farms Nursery, opened in 2020, specializing in native and pollinator friendly plants. The farm employs eight part-time employees and a committed volunteer labor force.  

Dug In Farms has been voted the Best of Virginia (Eastern Region) Farmer’s Market for two years in a row. In 2020, Carolyn was awarded Farmer of the Year by the Virginia State University Small Farm Outreach Program.

Carolyn has been a full-time resident of the Northern Neck since 2006.  She moved to the Northern Neck from Washington, DC where she was a government relations executive specializing in Defense and Homeland Security research and development policy. Carolyn shares her farm house with her beloved Australian Cattle Dog, Doug. In their off time Carolyn and Doug spend their time hiking, open water swimming and napping. 

Jeanette Ankoma-Sey, Adjunct Faculty, the Sustainable Landscapes Masters Program at George Washington University

Jeanette Ankoma-Sey is a horticulturist, designer and educator who believes, in simple terms, plants in the landscape can make the world a better place.  She sees the world of design through the lens that good design, and in particular good planting design, serves a greater purpose in the landscape for a balanced, healthier environment. As a Landscape Architect with Arlington County DPR she is integral in projects from their inception as ideas to conceptual design through built implementation for capital improvement projects, park master planning,  urban site plan development and playgrounds. She is enthusiastic about re-envisioning the experience and character of public parks and spaces by encouraging innovation and connectivity through design. 

As an educator, Jeanette teaches and lectures on the intersection of horticulture, ecology and agriculture and their shared relationship in the (urban) landscape setting through her courses taught at the George Washington University (Sustainable Landscapes Program).

As a mom, wife and urban homesteader, Jeanette can be found experimenting in her ‘grow everything you can’ edible and habitat friendly urban garden, traipsing through public gardens with her family or cooking to celebrate her Ghanaian culture with family and friends.

Jeanette is a licensed landscape architect and holds a B.Sc. in Horticulture (Go Hokies!) and an MLA from Cornell University.