- Hi, everyone, it's Ashley with Modern Gardener and I am thrilled to announce Cynthia Stringham as our new host of Modern Gardener.

(calm music) - I am so excited.

I can't tell you like secret dreaming of having a gardening show has always kind of been one of those things in the corner of my mind.

I just love gardening.

I love talking about it.

I love doing it.

I love dreaming of it and so this is truly an exciting moment for me.

- Awesome.

Can you tell us a little bit about your gardening history?

- So I've always been gardening.

My parents were big gardeners.

My dad was a huge vegetable garden person.

My mom loved the flowers and I just soaked it all in.

Barefoot all day long out in the garden as a kid.

Truly, I am thinking, working or doing something in the garden on a daily basis.

Come spring, it's a lot of work and that's like kind of when I'm like why do I do this to myself?

- [Ashley] Yeah.

- And then come summer, it's really maintaining every day and then harvest time, it's one of those questions of like, why did I plant this much food?

- [Ashley] Yeah.

- But then come winter, we're eating from our garden and it's just great so yeah, I don't think everybody needs to do it on the daily but that's just what I live and breathe so.

- Yeah, well, we are so excited about this upcoming season of Modern Gardener.

- Me too, I'm like super excited.

- We got lots of episodes, yeah.

- I think the great thing is is that what I have learned is there's not one way to garden.

There are so many ways to get that fresh tomato.

There's so many ways to do a small garden or aquaponics garden.

There's so many different ways to garden out there and I am so excited to see what other people are doing especially all the experts and all the amazing talent that there is out there.

- Yeah and we have a really strong local gardening community here so.

- Yeah, it's awesome.

It's gonna be fantastic especially 'cause Utah's so unique.

I mean, there's so many different areas, different climates and soils in Utah.

So there is a lot to be learned here.

- [Ashley] Yeah.

- I told my husband like we have to have a big garden.

This was my tradition growing up as a child and I absolutely loved it.

So this is kind of the workhorse garden.

The front beds are kind of fun, beautiful.

We squeeze some vegetables in between but this is where we eat.

So this is what provides us food all season and all year round.

This year, we did quite a few different structural changes.

So we put up a fence around.

I call it my Peter Rabbit fence.

We just found a bunch of sticks in the forest.

We're like, well, I gotta have a grand entrance to my garden.

So we built this.

So I wanted all these tunnels.

I wanted some high structures and I grow some passion vine fruit that we will bring into the winter and they needed a home.

They've needed some structure for a while.

So I thought this is a perfect way.

We'll put some archways here and pull those plants out so that they can bloom, set some fruit and then come wintertime, we pull 'em in and come January, we actually are harvesting passion fruit in our house.

- Wow.

- I know, it's kinda crazy.

- Oh my gosh.

- It's really weird, I know.

So you kind of have to juggle what is important to you and this year for me it was structure.

It wasn't getting my vegetables and having the first corn on July one.

We're gonna be okay.

(calm music) - All right, here we are off the side of your driveway and I love this garden bed because I think it's really inspiring for someone to just start small just off the side of your driveway but look at what you've developed it into.

I mean, you literally use all the space you can to have a garden.

- Oh, I totally do.

Well, what I love about this space is that it has totally evolved too but it was nothing.

It was barren.

So when we first moved in, we used this as our squash bed.

So we planted a bunch of squashes here and planted these trees which were just tiny.

So I've changed it where it's more, there's more perennials than most of my gardens.

They're perennials that are kind of memorials to people that I love.

So this was a hydrangea bush from my mom's yard, some iris from a really good friend of mine, peonies that just remind me of people so as they bloom, I am reminded of people that I love.

- So here we are in the front of your yard.

This is like a very beautiful, showy large garden bed you've developed here.

- I want people to see all the visuals of the flowers so that when people start walking by, not only do they smell it but they visually see it but I'm also as you know like a big foodie and so I keep my vegetables in here too.

So I'll wedge in some radishes.

My artichokes do super well out here.

I have garlic down at this end.

We get visitors from all sorts of bees here.

We have the carpenter bees.

Everybody comes.

It's like buzzing, truly buzzing at like six PM at night.

- Come on, come up first.

There you go.

- Thanks, everyone.

I'm so excited to be growing with you this season.

I'm so excited to be learning all the new things and to become the new host of Modern Gardener.

- Yeah, let us know any questions you have below and subscribe to our channel.

- So excited.

See ya.