I first started Grown by Thorns in late 2021. It had been nearly a year in since we had moved back to the United States and I was slowly rebuilding my large houseplant collection stateside. I began Grown by Thorns as an instagram account. The start of Grown by Thorns on Instagram was focused on my houseplant collection as a plantstagram. At the time I was working in the field of mental health and social services and plants were a large part of my self care routines. With somewhere around 100 houseplants by late 2021, even my office at work was full of plants. I started to help with colleagues plants around the office and even gave some plants to regular clients.
In early 2022 my husband was preparing for a deployment and I was looking for things outside of work to keep me occupied during the year. This is when my love of mushroom cultivation began. It all started with a friend sending me a pink oyster growing kit as a joke gift [its a long and weird story we won’t get into here]. After I used the kit I was completely hooked and wanted to learn how to grow more mushrooms. Ultimately, oyster mushroom species became my favorites to grow using the hot water pasteurization method, that I’ll explain in future posts. I began to experiment with different things that I could get oyster mushrooms to grow on like books, art supplies, and more.
As the year progressed, I shifted out of my field and began focusing my work as an illustrator and graphic designer for Katie Pertiet Designs, with my art heavily inspired by my love of plants and mushrooms. Plants were still a large part of my interests at this point but the focus of Grown by Thorns shifted to include more nature related things which also began to be reflected in my art and inspiration sources.
In 2023 my interest in entomology expanded as I began to volunteer as a Texas Master Naturalist. Shortly after certifying for the year I was able to take an advanced entomology course for master volunteers (Master Gardeners + Master Naturalists) which really helped to expand my knowledge and understanding of insects. I began to temporarily re-home and raise caterpillars eating through my friend’s gardens and later began to even raise other moth species like luna moths, silkworms, and polyphemus moths. I also began to volunteer with monarch research on our local military base, bringing my pet insects like silkworms to the master naturalist tables community science expos, and even going into schools teaching about bugs as a master naturalist.
Since then, themes of bugs, mushrooms, and other plants have been a constant in my life. Which now brings us to late 2024 as I expand Grown by Thorns further to this website to create a centralized place for more in-depth DIYs and blog content related to my many moments learning and exploring.
I now invite you to join me as I continue to learn and explore with all things moths, mushrooms, and plants here on grownbythorns.com.