Gardening the Organic Way

Dr. Merrill was raised in rural southern Humboldt County in Northern California. He graduated from the University of California–Berkeley with a degree in physiology in 1959 and received his MD degree from the University of Southern California in 1963. After completing a urology residency and an NIH Special Fellowship in urology at the University of Minnesota Health Sciences in Minneapolis, he returned to Northern California in 1973 and completed his career as chief of urology at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Martinez, California. Dr. Merrill has written extensively on nonmedical as well as medical subjects. His latest book, Gardening the Organic Way, is a reflection of his lifelong interest in sustainable gardening utilizing only inexpensive, readily available, chemical-free fertilizers, many of which are derived, in part, from the castings of earthworms. Dr. Merrill and his wife, Tina, live in Martinez's Alhambra Valley in the San Francisco East Bay. They have two daughters, Amelia and Ann. Dr. Merrill's hobbies include writing, gardening, worm farming, winemaking, and fly-fishing.