We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chelsea Gastelum a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Chelsea, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

The Busy Bee Garden Co-op is an all volunteer organization installing native pollinator gardens around Lemon Grove, so it doesn’t function the same way as a business.

I have been gardening for pollinators and using native plants for several years, and have a very established garden. My garden is along a storm drain ravine behind my home, and the ravine starts behind my house and runs behind all the rest of the homes on my side of the street. On the other side of the ravine is the backside of an elementary school. My neighbor across the street has 2 little girls that have always enjoyed playing in my garden. When the COVID Pandemic closed everything down in 2020, my garden became a park for the neighbor girls to play in.

At the time, both of the girls were under school age, but one was going to be starting kindergarten in the Fall at the school behind my house. For kids on the back side of the school, there is a little cut through path for them to use, because there are no sidewalks in our neighborhood for them to walk around to the front of the school. This path was full of weeds and overgrown grasses and had a lot of goat head weed. In the hopes that school would reopen in the Fall, the Neighbor suggested cleaning an area along the path and planting a butterfly garden for kids to enjoy while entering and exiting the school. So, we got to work. As we were cleaning things up and planting, we realized that the rest of the path looked pretty bad, so we kept expanding our area. Then we decided it would be nice to have a Little Free Library for just kid’s books. Things kept going from there.

It turned out school didn’t start in the Fall. We had time to keep working on the garden and expanding it. Areas that had been planted were filling in and looking beautiful, and more neighbors started to notice. Then I decided to add in a free Native Seed Library (sponsored by the San Diego Audubon Society, and built by my husband), as well. When school did finally open, we had a decent garden started.

Meanwhile, I was participating in our local Lemon Grove Plant Swaps, hosted by our Lemon Grove Garden and Nature Club. I was taking my Native Seed Library info out with me to Plant Swaps, bringing native plant seeds, and giving out some native plants that I was growing at the swaps. I was trying to get more people interested in native plants. Then came this fabulous opportunity! I saw a post in one of the native plant Facebook groups I am in asking for people who wanted to help grow and distribute milkweed. This is how I met Ari Silberman, founder of the Monarch Fellowship. I signed up to grow milkweed through that program, and my plant swap table stepped up a notch. People even started coming from outside of Lemon Grove to get free plants and seeds.

Then I came up with this idea. What if I give entire garden packs out to people, not just 1 plant or seed pack at a time? I posted in the LGG&NC Facebook group asking for a dozen volunteers that wanted to install native gardens, and I would supply them with native plants and seeds, and a basic overview of the yard. I had about 10 takers, and like many volunteer things, not everyone went through with it.

One of the very enthusiastic people I met, who wanted to participate, was Juliet “Jules” DeAmicis. I went to her house, spoke a bit with her, and left her a garden pack. A few months later I ran into Jules at a Plant Swap, and she confessed that all the plants had died in their pots. She didn’t know how to get a garden started, and she just didn’t know what to do. She said she would have done better with some help, and I told her I had gone over and helped someone, and her garden was doing great. It was then that we decided we should form a group and help people put in the gardens at each other’s homes. After some round tabling, we came up with the Busy Bee Garden Co-op. A group of neighbors helping neighbors install pollinator gardens at their houses. Now, to find people willing to do yard labor at someone else’s home, when they could be home working on their own yard.

We decided it would be best to show people what the end results could be. We decided to hold a meeting for interested people at my house, show them my garden, and explain the concept. My garden was in full bloom, and a perfect time to show it off. Jules got to work posting on local social media pages inviting people to one of two sessions over a weekend. We crossed our fingers and waited to see who would be interested. We were so thankful we had people interested, and people loved the concept! (That was how we started with most of our core volunteer crew that still helps out a year later.)

At the same time that we were getting this together, a great connection by the Lemon Grove Historical Society’s president was made with the owners of a new restaurant that was going into one of the historical buildings here in Lemon Grove. She suggested having community members install the garden for their outdoor dining area, and that it could be done with donations from our Plant Swaps. I was appointed the lead on the project and went and met with the owners to discuss their garden design ideas and offer my suggestions. I asked for a few beds to be designated for local native plants, and they agreed.

Technically our first Busy Bee project was this one, at the now open, and established, Lemon Grove Bistro. We began planting several months before the restaurant actually opened, so this gave the garden time to be established and start filling in. As the plants were filling in, I applied for the business to be a Certified Monarch Waystation through Monarch Watch. When the Bisto opened its doors to the public, it was the first business in Lemon Grove to open with this designation. (I suggest a visit for lunch so you can sit outside and enjoy the butterflies.)

The Lemon Grove Bistro planting overlapped with our first home garden. We posted again asking who wanted to be the first yard and had a lovely military family volunteer their yard. I went over and did the assessment, made a list of plants I thought would work in the area, and we set a date and time, inviting everyone, not knowing who would show up. I even asked a friend to come out just in case there was no one but Jules and myself. I am so glad I was wrong!

Here is the exact approach so others understand it. Volunteers come out to a project, and then they have the opportunity to put their front yard up for a yard make-over. The homeowner buys the plants, volunteers come out to help install them, and then those volunteers can put their front yards up to be one of our projects. This way we continually get volunteers and get to install more and more pollinator gardens. In each of the gardens I also supplement plants I grow through my Monarch Fellowship Plant Hub, so the homeowner can save on costs. This concept helps make native gardens more affordable for everyone. I bring my knowledge of planting, and know what works where, and everyone helping also gets a free hands-on workshop. We work on home gardens once a month in a 2-3 hour time span. I come out about a week ahead of each project and come up with a garden design, with the homeowner, and a work flow. Then on project day, we bring out most of the big tools, and some garden gloves for the people who need some, go over the project plan, and we all get to work!

As we started to do this, one of our core volunteers, who has been with us since the very first project, suggested instead of doing her yard, we clean up a path school kids use. This bought me back to the first school path garden my neighbor and I installed, and I was very enthusiastic to work on this one, with the fitting name, Mariposa Lane. A path that already had a beautiful mural of butterflies painted on it, it just needed a lot of weeding and some good plants in the ground. This time we had a lot of physical help to tap into, and had several nurseries donate plants. (Thank you- Caterpillar Chow, Native West Nursery, and Cuyamaca College Nursery!)

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I work a full time job in the insurance industry, and gardening is my escape. My solitude. What puts my soul to rest. Being out in nature after sitting in an office desk all week is exactly what I need to reset.

I was born and raised in San Diego, and from infancy I was taught to have respect, appreciation and a love of Nature. My mother always pointed out the various birds and butterflies, and we were taught to pick up trash when we were out and about. I took many trips to State and National Parks growing up. You learn to have an appreciation for the plants that belong in certain areas and learn to understand their place in the eco-system. So often people want to fill their yards with exotic plants that don’t support the local pollinators. I’m not saying don’t use any plants from other places, but leave room for adding them in, or have a special garden area set aside for them.

Many people complain that they can’t grow anything or that their soil is clay and nothing will grow. I always tell them they just aren’t growing the right thing. It can be a lot easier than people think to get a native garden going. The right native plants are drought tolerant and take little care once established. There is also tons of support and guidance in on-line communities, native plant conservation groups (such as Wild Ones and California Native Plant Society, and even the SD Audubon Society) and local garden talks/seminars. With our Busy Bee projects, I get the opportunity to teach people on site, provide information about native plants and pollinators, and give people a hands-on experience working with the plants. Many people have come to volunteer just to take the knowledge back with them to work on their backyards.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

We have been very fortunate that many of our volunteers come out over and over again. We have a good group of core people that know how we run a project and can help lead others through a project. Since we do meet monthly there is always a concern of volunteer burn-out, but seeing immediate results after a garden install is very rewarding.

As we have grown, we have also been very fortunate to receive several grants. Most of them have been plant grants from the Xerces Society and Monarch Joint Venture, but we also recently landed a large grant from Wild Ones for a native pollinator garden to be installed inside the elementary school that the original school path garden was created for. This will allow students to have a connection both inside and outside of the school to native habitats. With the plant grants we have received, we have been able to begin a restoration project all the way down the storm drain ravine where my garden started. The area has been named the Dartmoor Naturehood Project, and we are proud to be the first and only native habitat in California to be a Certified Native Habitat by Wild Ones. The area is also a Certified Monarch Waystation and is a Homegrown National Park. These designations and achievements help motivate the volunteers because we know we are making a difference in our community.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Jules is our social media and community outreach manager. She has a good following from other groups she runs in our community, most notably Lemon Grove Happenings. She is good at posts that speak to people and hype people up, and her energy comes through in the videos she makes. We even have people coming from outside of our community to come help with garden projects. We also have our own Busy Bee Facebook Page where we have recently started doing Volunteer Spotlights. This helps people share with their friends, spreading the word a little further. I’ve been to garden events in other places and have had people say, “Oh, I follow you guys! I love what you are doing.” We have both a FB page and an IG account.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/busybee_coop/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/695202849323619