about this blog

Growing up in Michigan, upstate New York, and (mostly) New England, my parents always gardened. We had a huge veggie garden in Michigan with corn, squashes, cantaloupes, beans, peas, radishes, carrots, watermelon, spinach, zucchini, lettuces, broccoli (ick), cauliflower, and I don't even remember what all else. They were all started from seed, under fluorescent lights in the basement. At our house in Massachusetts, one of my chores was to pick the strawberries, which I hated because the bugs creeped me out. Boy, I sure was a stupid kid, eh?

Later, after college, I lived in Arlington, Virginia with my then boyfriend/fiancé (now husband) in a series of apartments and then a condo in an area called Colonial Village. That's when I started gardening a little on my own. Mostly flowers in existing beds, some things I regretted leaving when we moved — the perils of gardening land that's not yours.

Now I live in Santa Fe, where my husband and I own our first, real, live, actual, un-attached, suburban house. With a yard. To garden any way we want. Or have energy/time/money to do.

This is the high desert (Google Maps puts our house at just shy of 7000 feet above sea level), with an average yearly rainfall of 14 inches. Last frost is usually early- to mid-May, first frost mid-October. It's hardly ever cloudy, which makes for sunny days, but also cool nights (twenty degree temperature swings between day and night are common). And the altitude means cold winters — it's like New England, but with less water. Cactus and pine. Agave and roses. It's not what I'm used to.

2007, Santa Fe, NM