Victory Gardener Jim Wilson dies in Missouri

Jim Wilson, one of my favorite gardeners, educators and communicators died in his sleep at age 85 on Aug. 1 at his home in Columbia, Mo.

One of the early hosts of PBS’ The Victory Garden, Jim was one of the first celebrity gardeners I interviewed for this column in the early 1990s.

A southern gentleman who always wore a wide-brim hat, Jim greeted everyone with “Hello, friend,” and quickly turned the conversation to how our gardens were growing.

He was the author of about two dozen books, including Homegrown Vegetables, Fruits and Herbs: A Bountiful, Healthful Garden for Lean Times, published earlier this year and reviewed here.

In many ways, his speeches, activities and books reflected his own stages in life. In his 50s and 60s, he was a pioneer on public television, encouraging his baby-boomer audience to dig in the soil and plant a garden. He was the national spokesman for Plant a Row for the Hungry, a program of the Garden Writers Association. A longtime member of GWA, Jim was named a Fellow in 1988 and elected to the Garden Writers Hall of Fame in 1995.

In an interview upon publication of Gardening Through Your Golden Years in 2003, Jim said “as we age, we are reluctant to admit we are getting older and slowing down. I’ve slowed down myself, a little. I started analyzing what was happening to me physically and what happened to gardening and how your perspective changes year to year.”

His longtime companion, Janie Mandel said that just about every day, he worked in the vegetable garden she designed for his 80^th birthday, planting, weeding, harvesting and frequently cooking the food he grew.

“There’s a common thread of optimism among gardeners,” Jim said in our 2003 interview. “There’s always the hope that next year’s garden will be better than last year’s garden.”

Thank you, Jim. Rest in peace.