Laueana Growing

Category: business

  • Eco landscapes: winter schemes for spring dreams!

    A small pile of Sacre Bleu kidney beans. They are dark indigo in color. Beans are very important for regenerative gardening systems.

    Sacre Bleu kidney beans

    I haven’t started, let alone finished, my final vegetable review (but you can read part 1 and part 2). Yet, I started planning this year’s garden months ago! This frosty winter passed slowly and then all at once. I spent many snowy days planning a client’s landscape. With permission, I am writing about our design. We are planning on two garden beds: one with corn, squash, and beans, and the other with peppers, potatoes, tomato, and herbs.

    The benefits of “three sisters” agriculture

    My client requested a “three sisters” garden bed, or “milpa.” Native Mesoamerican people designed this strategy, which optimizes the harvest of three mutually beneficial crops: corn, squash, and beans. People must harvest a milpa by hand. Because of this, it is not suitable for mass-scale industrial agriculture. “It takes five people four days to pick the beans and harvest the maize” for a one hectare plot (Landzettel, 2026).

    However, it is a sustainable and productive system that deserves more attention. The milpa has high value for food security gardening. Growing the three sisters together creates climate resilience through mutually beneficial interactions between the three crops.

    Pungo Creek Butcher Dent Corn seed packet from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. The seed packet has illustrations of yellow, orange, and red cobs of corn.

    Pungo Creek Butcher Dent Corn seed packet from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

    Each plant plays a role so that the garden stays healthy. The beans “fix” nitrogen from the air into the soil, where plants can absorb it. The corn provides a pole for the beans to climb, and the squash’s large leaves cast a cooling shade on the soil (Landzettel, 2026;Kruse-Peeples & Marinaro 2016). These mutually beneficial interactions are what make the milpa so wildly resilient!

    A milpa can have mounds or rows. Kruse-Peeples & Marinaro (2016) report that the traditional Iroquoian way to build a milpa is by making mounds, which we will emulate.

    “Other sisters” are also important to southwestern Native cultures, and can grow in a milpa (Kruse-Peeples & Marinaro, 2016). For example, we will grow melons alongside our squash.

    Using lasagna mulching to build soil

    No-till techniques help the soil stay healthy because they disturb it less than digging it up. We will use “lasagna mulching” to create two garden beds with mounds. Lasagna mulching is layering composting materials on top of existing soil (Rauter & Sherp, 2025). We will layer compost between cardboard to create mounds. On top of this we will add mixed coco coir and compost. The cardboard will be inoculated with oyster mushroom grain spawn, which will integrate outdoor mushrooms into the garden bed.

    My client and I are totally thrilled about this design! This mound-based intercropping design is taking shape well. I would love to repeat this design in the future. Hopefully this summer, we will have a green and growing garden brimming with vegetables and mushrooms. Stay tuned to follow this project as it grows!

    Oyster mushroom grain spawn in a quart sized wide mouth mason jar. White oyster mushroom mycelium grows as a fuzz over rye grains.

    Oyster mushroom grain spawn

    Bibliography

    Landzettel, M. (2026, February 13). Milpa. How an Ancient Farming System Helps Small Farmers in Today’s Mexico. Slow Food. https://www.slowfood.com/blog-and-news/milpa-ancient-farming-system-mexico/

    Kruse-Peeples, M. & Marinaro, L. (2016, May 27). How to Grow a Three Sisters Garden. Native Seeds/SEARCH. Native Seeds/SEARCH. https://www.nativeseeds.org/blogs/blog-news/how-to-grow-a-three-sisters-garden

    Rauter, S. & Sherp, L. (2025). Sheet mulching and lasagna composting with cardboard. Oregon State University Extension Service. https://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/em-9559-sheet-mulching-lasagna-composting-cardboard

  • Carnivorous Plant Show

    I had an amazing time at the Mid Atlantic Carnivorous Plant Society’s inaugural 2025 carnivorous plant show at Haverford College in Lancaster, PA!

    Mid Atlantic Carnivorous Plant Society 2025 carnivorous plant show in the field house at Haverford College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA. Vendors set up tables inside an indoor track arena.

    This was the first time I tabled as a vendor, and the first time I went to a carnivorous plant show. I had a wonderful experience and I am extremely grateful to MACPS for coordinating and hosting this event. There were about 300 people attending, enough for consistent engagement at my table but not overwhelming.

    I was one of about a dozen vendors there. Most had some kind of carnivorous plant, but a few had orchids and one even had bonsai trees. Sarracenia, or American pitcher plants, were very popular, as were Nepenthes, or tropical pitcher plants. Pinguicula were a small but distinct presence at many booths, and the star of the show at a few, counting myself.

    Two different types of Sarracenia side by side, both are tall but one is green and reddish and one is all green and white with no red.
    A large Nepenthes or tropical pitcher plant pitcher at a carnivorous plant show
    Purple, pink, and yellow orchids
    brown and white and yellow orchids

    About a month and a half before the show, a household cat got into my inventory and destroyed the majority of it. This sent me scrambling to put together arrangements to sell with extras from my surviving collection. I decided to sell ping soil and small, non-draining containers I thrifted, since pings can grow in those. I also had three Echinopsis cactus cuttings for sale, two of which were a complex hybrid from Prickocereus with monstrose growth forms.

    In addition to items for sale, I presented several display items. The one I am most proud of is a small bonbon dish with three seed grown in-house hybrids (bottom image of next gallery). The plants in the dish are: P. moranensis ‘Kewensis’ x P. ‘Seductora,’ P. laueana x P. ibarre, and P. laueana “Red” x P. ehlersiae “Mighty Mouse.”

    The following gallery is of my table, my items for sale, and my items on display.

    My table at the carnivorous plant show with arrangements and items for sale plus containers. My dog's head pokes out from behind the table and there are other tables in the background.
    A carnivorous plant arrangement with Pinguicula agnata 'El Lobo' x gypsicola
    A carnivorous plant arrangement featuring Pinguicula gigantaea x moctezumae.
    A carnivorous plant arrangement with Pinguicula macrophylla in flower. The flower is purple with five petals and a cream/white throat spot.
    A carnivorous plant arrangement in a bonbon dish featuring three in house by Laueana Growing seed grown Pinguicula hybrids.

    To my surprise, my best selling item was my ping soil. It is just turface, perlite, and some vermiculite. Most carnivorous plants prefer peat perlite mix, but tropical pings are lithophytes, or plants that grow on rocks. They much prefer sandy, rocky soil.

    I also sold a few containers, one small ping arrangement, and one cactus cutting. Overall, I think I did well. I will definitely come back!

    The next gallery is of plants at the carnivorous plant show display tables.

    A carnivorous plant arrangement featuring pink Pinguicula ehlersiae
    A table displaying several carnivorous plants one of which has won a red ribbon.
    Large heart shaped utricularia leaves
    Blue ribbon winning Dionaea (venus fly trap)
    Maroon Sarracenia purpurea pitchers
    A large Nepenthes tropical pitcher plant with many pitchers
    Pinguicula primuliflora with lime green foliage
    A spherical glass container with Pinguicula hybrid "dragon" inside

  • Plant show was totally awesome!

    I had an amazing time at the MACPS 2025 plant show! I sold a few items and handed out literally all of my business cards. I have tons of pictures to go through so stay tuned for updates on that!

  • Business updates and upcoming sales event

    It has been a little while since I have written a blog post. I started this project due to inability to work a regular job due to chronic illness. Unfortunately for me, sometimes it even prevents me from working flexibly for myself. However, I will persist. I am likely going to scale back from aiming to do horticulture AND mycology comercially, to just horticulture, while keeping mycology as a casual hobby for now. I have one item of excellent news: I will be tabling as a vendor for the first time at the Mid Atlantic Carnivorous Plant Society show on October 11 in Haverford, Pennsylvania!