The East End's Green Guerilla

Jeff Frank, a leading expert and pioneer on organics, has a favorite greeting. It's YUA-TAH-HEY,  Navajo for “Walk in Beauty.”

Frank founded The Nature Lyceum, a Westhampton-based school for organic and biodynamic horticulture, in 1993. 

Frank was raised in Freeport and moved to the Hamptons in the 1960s to open , a bar in Hampton Bays. This jack-of-all trades also spent time as the owner of a landscaping business, working for a garage door company and as a certified plumber, and coaching lacrosse.

His dedication to organics started during a sojourn in Arizona, where he worked as the director of a botanical garden. Learning about the implementation of organics, however, proved to be difficult.

He would have to teach himself.

Frank returned to the Hamptons in 1986 and was the first person in the region to distribute organic fertilizer. But in order to sell his product, he had to teach its importance and on his way found a new calling: education.

The Nature Lyceum was born in 1998.  So far, the nonprofit has thrived using only word of mouth to draw students from around the globe. Tuition for the introductory class, which dubs its graduates Green Guerillas, is on a sliding scale with free spots for high school students and senior citizens.

Along the way Frank has produced four books; his first, The Little Green Book was written in 1989 and is now used as a text in his school.

Currently, Frank and Lyceum instructors volunteer give lectures twice a week at the Northville Grange Hall on Sound Avenue in Riverhead to fund-raise for the hall's maintenance. The school's classes held at the grange, an historic building that was once the gathering place for the area farmers.

Frank said the increased awareness of and appreciation for organics is evidenced by the proliferation of stores like Whole Foods. And the reason many are switching to organics, he said, is not only the taste and increased nutritional value of organic food, but because of poisons in the air, water and food, which he believes play a part in increased cancer cases.

In addition to learning about organics, Frank said the most important thing is to save organic heirloom seeds and grow your own food. 

As stated on the Nature Lyceum’s website, Frank believes "It is not just organics for the soil, but organics for the soul."

The man with a favored greeting, also has a favored parting phrase: vaya con dios, go with God.