Garden Spotlight: Jason Romine (Plot 44)

If you've ever admired an impossibly full lettuce bed, wondered how someone managed to harvest six grocery bags of greens, or been offered a handful of fresh produce at a garden workday, chances are you've crossed paths with Jason.

Jason Romine pictured gleefully showing off a head of lettuce

By day, Jason works in research and development for MonoSol, a division of Kuraray, where he helps develop the water-soluble film used in Tide Pods. It's the kind of career that perfectly fits someone who enjoys experimenting. When he's not engineering polymers, you might find him formulating his own fragrances (his favorites lean toward woody scents), training for his next race, or diving into the latest Dungeon Crawler Carl novel. His hobbies over the years have included everything from growing mushrooms and making moonshine to animal rights activism and spending far too many hours playing the factory-building game Factorio. In other words, if it's a little nerdy and involves learning how something works, Jason is probably interested.

Running is another passion. He logs between 500 and 1,000 miles every year and is steadily working toward an ambitious lifetime goal of 10,000 miles. This spring, he also earned some office bragging rights by finishing ahead of all of his coworkers in a half marathon.

Gardening, though, isn't a new hobby.

Jason grew up on a grain and livestock farm in rural Ohio, where vegetable gardens were simply part of life. His family grew lettuce, cabbage, peas, zucchini, asparagus, tomatoes... and, if you ask Jason, an unforgettable amount of green beans. ("Did I mention green beans?") Even now, apple trees he planted years ago are still producing fruit that his mom happily turns into applesauce. Sweet corn, however, was always a losing battle against the local raccoons. The trick, he says, was hoping it ripened at exactly the same time as the neighboring field corn so the raccoons would choose the easier buffet.

That lifelong gardening experience shows in his Maxwell Street plot.

Plot 48: Jason's Garden Bed

On April 1, Jason packed his bed with three varieties of lettuce, mizuna mustard greens, and his self-seeding wild arugula—quickly clarifying that it's "not a weed, it's a volunteer salad." By June, he'd harvested an astonishing six grocery bags of greens, giving most of them away to fellow gardeners during a workday.

His advice for growing lettuce isn't complicated.

"The secret is just following the package directions, planting it when Google says to, and thinning the seedlings to the right spacing."

Simple enough.

This season, he's also growing Sweetie cherry tomatoes from seed and experimenting with two varieties of green beans. While the "Contender" beans have thrived, the "Blue Lake 274" variety has struggled with poor germination and some hungry wildlife. As every gardener eventually learns, even experience can't outsmart every seed—or every critter.

Jason first heard about Maxwell Street Community Garden through his coworker, Dmitry, and found exactly what he was missing after moving into the city.

Asked what the garden means to him, his answer was classic Jason:

"I've got dirt in my blood, and a high-rise doesn't have enough."

It's a simple statement, but it says a lot. For someone raised on a farm, the garden offers more than a place to grow vegetables. It's a chance to reconnect with the rhythm of planting, harvesting, and getting a little dirt under your fingernails. The friendships are a nice bonus, too—even if he'll shrug that off with a smile.

One thing is certain: whether he's engineering polymers, chasing half-marathon personal bests, or harvesting six grocery bags of lettuce, Jason approaches life with curiosity, humor, and just enough dirt under his fingernails to feel right at home in the garden.