She thrives on obsessive canning disorder

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The kids grew up with dirty nails as they picked, canned, baked, dried, and froze everything by hand. Years later, Dean was “hooked” by all this food and now Sophie can’t get rid of him, she laughs. “It must have been those hot onions and the dirt under my nails.”

It was only a matter of time before Sophie’s Original Choice was established, starting with pickled asparagus. From that point on, all of her chemical-free products were “packed with love and memories of my mom,” she says.

With customers from all over the world, Sophie could never produce enough; she was always running out of product. “They aren’t looking to cure my condition (OCD) because it keeps me alive.” It also gets kids eating vegetables that their parents thought they never would.

While Dean doesn’t have a green thumb like Sophie, he was experimenting one day and came up with his garden tower idea. These towers are made of big plastic barrels with slots to grow vegetables.

“Dean is so obsessed with his tower that he installed a solar night light at the top pointing down into his tomatoes in case he sees bugs from the deck,” Sophie chuckles. Seriously, she sees these towers as a solution to address the world’s food security issues.

“There has to be billions of these barrels around and they can be recycled into these amazing garden towers. Can you imagine these barrels lined up on an acre of land with 40 growing slots in each barrel?”

Sophie says she can see these barrels feeding a lot of hungry people in Ukraine.

In the end, it’s really up to Mother Nature, she points out, noting that nothing is guaranteed anymore. “I think it’s something we have to live with. We have to go back to make, bake and grow and not depend on others.”

Sophie truly believes that change is needed to nurse the planet back to health, but it’s going to take a concerted effort from politicians, corporations and private citizens to make a difference.

“Our farmers can grow the best tasting produce in the world. It doesn’t ripen in a box, it ripens in their hands.”

As the sun sets after bargaining with the wind, rain and heat, she looks back at her other careers with great fondness – working with people with special needs and school children blossoming into mature adults. Now it’s time to open up a new chapter in her life. She’d love to work with seniors to make their later years more comforting. But don’t worry, she’ll still be in a pickle.