Wendy Akin, Texas Pick-Your-Own Organic Gardener and Soap Maker

Background: Wendy was a longtime MOTHER EARTH NEWS contributor and lifelong learner who was happy to share her traditional-skills wisdom. Over the years, she earned many state fair ribbons for pickles, relishes, preserves and special condiments, and even a few for breads. Her first blue ribbon at a state fair was at the 1957 Danbury, Conn. Fair at age 15 for strawberry jam. She took ribbons that year for watermelon pickles and peach marmalade

Wendy also has made and sold luxury aromatherapy soaps for 25 years and she and her late husband had a wonderful organic farm, much of it pick-your-own, where they learned to preserve all the crops they grew. She sent out a weekly newsletter to her customer base with recipes and tips for the crops harvested each week.

Wendy was interviewed by several magazines over the years, including in an Organic Gardening magazine article about growing green beans. In a Dallas Morning News article, the food editor, after visiting the farm and picking asparagus, quoted her at length on preparing the vegetable before going on to quote Julia Child and Jacques Pepin, comparing the three techniques — exalted company Wendy was thrilled to be associated with (and a status for which MOTHER EARTH NEWS knows Wendy deserved).