Melanie Camellia takes on garden leader role

Melanie Camellia has joined the McFarland Community Garden leadership team as our administrative coordinator. For 2026, Melanie will take over general garden administration and communications. Bill Stoneman, our former interim garden coordinator, will continue with us as our grounds and materials coordinator.

Melanie grew up in McFarland and studied journalism and mass communication at the University of Minnesota before making several moves around the country. Immediately prior to her return to Wisconsin in 2023, she spent the better part of eight years in Washington D.C. where she was a community garden member and urban farm volunteer, among professional roles in business administration, communications, and yoga education.

Melanie joined the garden for the 2025 season and is looking forward to expanding her growing space, trying some new crop and flower varieties, and engaging more deeply with not only garden administration, but with the MCG community in 2026.

Forever a student, Melanie is currently enrolled in the Master Gardener Program through the UW-Madison Division of Extension. In her spare time, she is enjoying learning more about seed saving and culinary mushroom cultivation. She loves to talk about gardening and is always happy to share information or help troubleshoot garden issues.

In addition to her work for the garden, Melanie is also a volunteer teaching assistant at the Textile Arts Center of Madison and a seed trial volunteer for Seed Savers Exchange, test-growing different crop varieties and contributing crop performance data to nation-wide trials. Melanie lives in McFarland with her wife and two cat companions, Matcha and Chai.