Carole Rubin was born in Aurora, Ontario on September 20, 1951. A self-ascribed activist, writer, speaker, grandmother and gardener, Rubin grew up in small town Ontario "playing in Mom's organic flower and vegetable garden". She received a Fine Arts degree from York University in 1974, and was Associate Curator of Issacs Gallery in Toronto from 1976 to 1980.

Rubin moved to the Sunshine Coast in 1980 as an 'environmental refugee' from Toronto. After encountering a helicopter spraying 2,4-D in a tree farm near her home, she started work on alternatives to pesticides in forestry, agriculture and home use in 1982. She was Director of the West Coast Environmental Law Association, 1983-1993; Director of the B.C. Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, 1982-1993; Director of the Canadian Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, 1983-1993; and Director of the Pesticide Action Network North America, 1987-1992.

Her 1989 book How to Get Your Lawn and Garden Off Drugs (Harbour) sold over 20,000 copies. Her work has appeared in Harrowsmith, Canadian Living and Lawn Care for Dummies, as well as a newspaper series on responsible living. She is also the author of How to Get Your Lawn off Grass: A North American Guide to Turning Off the Water Tap and Going Native (Harbour, 2002).

BOOKS:

How to Get Your Lawn and Garden off Drugs: A Basic Guide to Pesticed-Free Gardening in North America. Foreward by Robert Bateman. (Harbour, 2003)

How to Get Your Lawn off Grass: A North American Guide to Turning off the Water Tap and Going Native (Harbour, 2002)

[BCBW 2004] "Gardening"