James from Roots Down spent an afternoon with Daniel Mobley from Thyme to Party who is a member of the Grow, Don’t Mow Network, and a guitar player for Farmers Jam! We are excited to bring you a little short interview to get to know Daniel, one of our top-of-the-line landscapers in DeKalb County. For more information about Thyme To Party and to book a consultation, visit thymetoparty.com.
Roots Down: When did you decide to base your life around nature and edible landscaping?
Daniel: I don't think there's an exact moment, I've always kind of had a real connection with nature and being outside. When I was growing up, my grandparents had a huge garden, especially in the mind's eye of a child, so when I moved out of my parents' house, I built a garden, and I kind of really fell in love with it. Then I decided to pursue that in college and got a degree in agroecology and I've just been trying to figure it out ever since. The pandemic kind of forced my hand, prior to this I was a recreation director -- back when there was recreation -- and so when that all kind of came to a screeching halt and I wanted to pivot back into the food scene and back into agriculture and with everybody being cooped up inside and quarantining, gardening has just really taken off so all of a sudden we can share what I've been studying and share with my passion with the people that are getting into it.
Roots Down: I'm actually having a deja vu moment because I started interviewing a bunch of people in local food and you were working at the Ponce City Farmers Market, so I was wondering if you could just tell people a little about some of your other experiences working in local food.
Daniel: When I first moved to Atlanta, I interviewed for the operations director of Community Farmers Markets, I did not actually get that job but I hung around long enough to the point where they finally offered me a job as a Market Manager at the Ponce City Farmers Market and then I got to help out and co-manage the Grant Park Farmers Market with some awesome folks and I’m the lead guitar player for the Farmers Jam band. I love being able to be around all the growers and amazing people that are in the food scene and be able to play music with them. Atlanta is such a cool place there's a lot of really amazing stuff going on in the local food scene and it's just been awesome to be a part of it again.
Roots Down: Your business is called Thyme to Party, you do a lot of installations for people and a little bit of education, but what is your favorite part of the whole process? Is there any particular part that gets you super jazzed?
Daniel: I think just talking to the people that I'm like doing these landscape installs for. Seeing their passion and their excitement around growing food and hearing their stories about how they've had that epiphany of the importance of growing some of your own food and then working with them to create a design. I always try to put as much emphasis on making sure that it's as beautiful as it is delicious so I always love seeing a project come together and then turning it back over to the client and then watching them run with it. I think it's my favorite part.
Roots Down: Final question. Do you install thyme in every garden? Is that a requirement or do you have some leeway on that?
Daniel: There is some leeway with it! I've definitely stuck it in in a lot of gardens, I got a lot of it and in my garden and it's a beautiful plant, it has beautiful flowers, it's a great culinary herb, it's a great ground cover, but it is not a mandatory plant item to have if you get an installation from Thyme to Party.
Roots Down: All right good to know, all right well actually now for real the last question: where can people find you? How can they contact you if they need your services?
Daniel: I love helping people grow their own food! If you're interested, feel free to follow us on Instagram @thymetoparty and check out our website at thymetoparty.com. Those are usually the two main outlets we use. When things are back up and running, when we move past this pandemic you can definitely find me at one of the Farmer's Jam concerts. We're really excited about getting back and playing and sharing our love for music with people and sharing our love of growing food and connecting people. Hopefully, if you're watching this we get to meet soon. We're here to help!
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