With her blue hair and easy laugh, Rachel Esterday is a Class of 2025 intern who is easily recognized. Her interest and love for gardening started back in 2020 when she began following several gardeners on Instagram, and as she continued to learn from them she also had extra time to devote to gardening once the pandemic began. A desire to develop a slower pace of life that is more connected to the earth and her community grew in her after living in New York City for 10 years. Moving back to her hometown of Nashville in 2017, she left behind her busy city life as a photographer specializing in events like weddings and bar mitzvahs. In Nashville she initially worked with her father in his real estate business, serving as the director of the real estate school, but after several years decided a desk job didn’t fit the lifestyle she wanted. Now she works at Trader Joe’s, where you will find her in charge of the flower department, a job she enjoys both because of the flowers and her co-workers. Rachel also enjoys hiking in the Warner Parks and indoor climbing in her free time.

As a gardener, Rachel has learned to be more patient and trust mother nature in the natural process of growing plants. One winter she successfully grew broccoli in the winter which was a gardening win, but has struggled with planting spinach at the right time. Squash has also been difficult because of the amount of bugs her plants have attracted, and she was excited about the MG guest speaker on insects. She chooses vegetables based on whether she likes to eat them and would love to grow around 50% of her own food in the future. Along with gardening, she has an interest in learning to preserve the food she grows as she is concerned about the amount of food that is wasted on a regular basis. Flowers are also a part of her garden and she wants to add more in the future. Some of her goals are to plant more companion plants, attract pollinators,  and get better at “coexisting with nature.” Her plants are all grown in containers for now due to the many moles in her yard and her dog Pepper who also loves to dig in the dirt but in an unhelpful way. Rachel has volunteered in the garden at Belle Meade, which is close to her home, and hopes to explore other sites also as her work schedule allows.