Melinda R. Cordell has worked in many gardening jobs around the area. She's done work in greenhouses, retail, landscape labor, as an independant contractor. She worked as six years as horticulturist, as a staff of one, for a parks and recreation department with little help and little budget. As a result, her lower back is shot and she no longer can skip rope with the kids. It's pretty tragic.

So now she writes, which gives her carpal tunnel, but not as badly as pulling weeds did. Her articles have been published in BackHome, Practical Gardener, GrowerTalks, Digger, Capper's, Grit, Garden Compass, Kansas City Gardener, Digger, and The 2006 Almanac for Farmers and City Folk.

Her latest article will appear in the Aug./Sept. issue of Organic Gardening.

She's been working on several proposals for nonfiction gardening books. One is about earthworms and the important role they play in the garden, one is on building a good, nourishing garden soil, and one is about gardening for young adults and the career options available to them.

Here's a link to this week's gardening column, which runs every other Thursday in the St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press.

And these are her gardening column archives (there's not many, but soon there will be more).

Or check out her resume to see what other writing and gardening work she's done.

And here's a list of published articles in gardening magazines. (Those with an asterisk are available for reprint.)