Editor’s note: Amanda Rutan, a member of Union Rural Electric Cooperative, uses her knowledge and love of plants to create a community attraction from her sunflower fields and a gourd tunnel on her parents’ farm in Mechanicsburg. Her project inspires happiness and kindness in those who visit, causing a ripple effect of goodwill and good feelings throughout the community. Amanda’s mother, Susan Rutan, a member of Pioneer Electric Cooperative, shares the story below. You can visit the Rutan farm and the Plant Kindness Project at 2075 Bullard-Rutan Road, Mechanicsburg, Ohio 43044 and on Facebook at The Plant Kindness Project.
My daughter, Amanda, is 33 years old; lives in Marysville, Ohio; and works full time at Scott’s Miracle-Gro Company as a research specialist. She is a 2009 graduate of the University of Findlay, where she obtained bachelor’s degrees in criminal justice administration as well as sociology. During her earlier employment with Scott’s Miracle-Gro Company and as her Plant Kindness Project manifested, it wasn’t long before she realized her true passion — plants. She is currently attending The Ohio State University in an online program to obtain her master’s degree in plant health management. This is an opportunity that Amanda has been working toward for a while now, so she’s quite excited about it! She hopes to graduate next year (2021).
For the past several years, Amanda has planted vegetables, sunflowers, gourds, and pumpkins at our small grain farm in Mechanicsburg, Ohio. She originally just planted pumpkins and vegetables, then she added sunflowers. Now, it includes all of those, plus some really unique — I’ll say, “extreme gardening” — features that we will talk about shortly. She has built a small produce stand, from which she offers her flowers and vegetables. There are no prices on anything. Instead, she merely places a donation box on her stand for anyone who feels compelled to give. That is an important part of her mission — to offer the fruits of her labor at no cost, as she simply does it for enjoyment and to encourage folks to share and spread kindness in their own ways. This year, she has added a “Kind Words” feature on the stand. With this, she provides note cards and postage-paid envelopes to encourage visitors to write a feel-good note to others to help promote kindness and as a way for folks to keep in touch during the pandemic.
She shares her tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, squash, peppers, and sunflowers, to name a few, with family members and friends. She has graciously donated them in the past to the senior citizens’ apartment complex and to the Caring Kitchen in Champaign County. She does this because it makes her feel good to share some of her passions with others and to see other people so happy in the process.
Amanda plants two types of sunflower fields: one is your typical tall, yellow sunflowers that everyone thinks of when they think “sunflower,” and the other field consists of shorter, more petite varieties, all of which are a mix of colors. She makes bouquets from these patches and makes them available to others either on her produce stand or by local pick-up/delivery. In one season, it isn’t uncommon for Amanda to create over 250 bouquets, and each bouquet generally comprises 10 stems — that’s over 2,500 stems a season! Locals are always excited to come see the small sunflower fields and take photos or to grab a beautiful bouquet. Amanda says, “Sunflowers are my favorite. I just can’t help but to feel happy when I see a sunflower, no matter what mood I may be in. I feel they’re very symbolic of the way we should aspire to live our lives.” One of her favorite quotes is by author Rupi Kaur, who says “Despite knowing they won’t be here long, they (sunflowers) still choose to live their brightest lives.”
The Plant Kindness Project started as an idea four years ago. During year two, Amanda built a vertical gardening wall — a wall 40 feet long and 4 feet tall that she could plant into to create a readable message. She made the structure from wooden pallets, which were then covered with brown landscape fabric and filled in with soil. Planted into the wall are Dusty Miller flowers, strategically placed to read “PLANT KINDNESS.” It was not long before folks were driving by just to see the beautiful creation! This year, Amanda added a wildflower garden in front of the wall and placed a bench amid the beautiful flowers for picture-taking. It is such a peaceful place for folks to be right next to all of the beautiful blooms and busy pollinators!
Last year, she and her dad built a 65-foot long gourd tunnel constructed from cattle panels behind the flowered wall. Amanda planted and trained about 120 gourd plants to entwine into the wire, thus creating a menagerie of beautiful foliage, gourds, and pumpkins, completely covering the outside and inside of the tunnel. It is such an unusual and creative idea! Like the old cliche, “build it and they will come,” kids and adults alike come to stroll through the tunnel to see all varieties of gourds and pumpkins hanging inside and all along the walls. This year, Amanda has added solar lights for a nighttime attraction. It is gorgeous and looks so magical! And of course, she has put tiny gifts (jars of bubbles, plastic sunglasses, tiny paintable flower pots, etc.) inside the tunnel for kids to take as mementos. At harvest, Amanda will invite folks to come out to the farm and cut their own gourds from the tunnel!
Amanda's country roots have certainly been a big influence on her love of nature and growing things! The Rutan family has been farming for at least five generations, and Amanda’s 94-year old grandmother, Jean, still lives at the original homestead that was purchased in 1871. I believe Amanda inherited her love of growing from her Grandma Jean, who was also her 4-H advisor for several years. Amanda's dad, Keith, operates the small family grain farm. Amanda's brother, Jeff, obtained his PhD in plant science/agronomy at Michigan State University and currently works for the university. Who knows — one day Amanda and Jeff may make the sixth generation Rutan family farmers!
Amanda has made quite an impact on her family, friends, and the citizens of Mechanicsburg with her PLANT KINDNESS PROJECT. People look forward to seeing what new progress she has made from week to week or year to year. It was a huge family debate whether to open the stand this year amid the pandemic, but we decided we could do it safely by encouraging social distancing and offering sanitization tools on the produce stand for folks to use.
Young or old, visitors seem to all leave smiling. Amanda has certainly turned our yard into a true masterpiece, and it is a “happy place to be,” as one neighbor has affectionately described it.
The PLANT KINDNESS PROJECT has certainly been a labor of love, but Amanda claims she reaps the benefits by making people smile, and she hopes that perhaps, in turn, those people will plant some kindness in their own way. After all, as Amanda says, “a little bit of kindness goes a long way.”
