The Garden of Life

Replanting Roots to Our Ancestors

The Garden of Life promotes the reconnection with our Yavapai-Apache Nation land, traditions, and cultural ways of life.

Donate to the Garden of Life:

Meet the garden founder

Dago’tee, hello, my name is Angel Martinez and I am an enrolled citizen of the Yavapai-Apache Nation (YAN). As an indigenous person the reconnection with our land, traditional/cultural foods and medicine is deeply urgently needed during these times.

Replanting our Indigenous roots is crucial for the Yavapai-Apache Nation and as the YAN Food Sovereignty Coordinator I take on the responsibilities to incorporate our traditional and cultural morals and values into our daily lives, passing down these traditions is very important for our younger generations.

Areas Where the Garden of Life makes a broader impact

Food sovereignty and Food security

As an Indigenous woman and a community member of the Yavapai-Apache Nation (YAN), my goals are to deepen my relationship within my communities:

To help strengthen and secure food sources, growing and donating towards individual families, and or our YAN food bank; to venture out and listen to my fellow tribal members and their voices when it comes to concerns on food security, hunger and how to rebuild our food system; to learn from the land itself and how it brings foods plus medicine to strengthen our bodies, mind and souls.

The Garden of Life demonstrates and shares these goals in the community and works to broaden awareness of the gift of local foods. Some examples of our initiatives and involvement:

Native American Week 2023: Montessori Children’s House, apache giant squash donation.
Garlic Harvest 2023 donation towards Yavapai-Apache Nation Food Bank.
Shared our work with the Seeds of Resilience in The Sonoran Desert: A Photovoice project.
Food Sovereignty Gathering event. This Gathering focused on different ways to be sustainable, bringing different resources to the Yavapai-Apache Nation people and youth.
Southwest Indigenous Seed-keepers Network, Seed & Soil: Foundations for Our Future – Southwest Food Sovereignty Gathering 2025.

Community outreach and Involvement

To continue building bridges from the outside communities’ resources with their knowledge and helpfulness when it comes to supporting Indigenous communities but also how to save hunger from happening. Securing homestead/off grid living, that comes with self-sufficiency and sustainability.

Round table presenter at the Native American Women’s Conference (2022 & 2023)
Presenter at Indigenous People’s Day Event held at the Elks Lodge offered by the City of Flagstaff Az (Matriarchal voice and Leadership 2023)
Guest Speaker, Fall Harvest Festival; Slow Food Prescott 2023
Guest Speaker, Seed Mania; Slow Food Prescott March 2023

Personal development and life-long learning to build knowledge and traditions

To further my goal as a community leader in healthy food traditions, natural healing, and sustainability I am continuing my education and training.

Certificate of Completion 2023 Home Horticulture Virtual Class (U Of A)
Native Food for Life Online: Plant-based cooking & nutrition to prevent and treat type 2 diabetes (2023)
Chacruna Institute: Roots of Psychedelic Therapy: Shamanism, Ritual and Traditional uses of sacred plants (2023)
Seed to Supper (U Of A) 2023
Honor Your Heart, under Native Americans for Community Action (NACA) 2024
Academy of Oracle Arts – Earth Wisdom 1-3 (Vibrational Plant Medicine) 2021- Ongoing Website: (https://www.academyoforaclearts.com)
Tohono O’dham Community College
- Introduction into Psychology (2023)
- Introduction into Human Anatomy (2024)

Additional Community Outreach and on-going Education

Year 2021

April 2021 – Received certificates for Reiki Master

Year 2024

March 2024 – Speaker at Seed Mania

Year 2025

March 2025 – Seed Mania Table Host

April 2025 – YAN Earth Day, Table host

April 2025 – Home & Garden Spring 2025 edition newspaper “Gardening the Native Way”

April 2025 – Presented at a Sustainable Food Choices Workshop for the Town of Sedona

August 2025 – Started my online The Herbal Academy School

September 2025 – Yavapai-Apache Nation Montessori Prickly Pear Presentation

September 2025 – Received Sacred Community Birth Worker Training Certificate of Completion

Year 2026

April 2026 – YAN Earth Day, table host

April 2026 – Wild Mushroom Presentation, YAN Montessori (For Earth Day Celebration)

August 2026 – Presenter at the Rural Policy Forum, Kingman AZ

August 2026 – Enrolled and attending Yavapai College full time to receive my Horticulture Certification and Associates Degree in Agriculture Technology Management

October 2026 – “Roots That Heal” event – Indigenous Farmers Market and Farm to Table Event