My story

I spent most of my life living in apartments, either in small cities or crowded suburbs, and never truly with any space that I could call my own. I don't know that I ever considered growing food on my own a real possibility although there were many young, innovative people already engaging in urban gardening initiatives around me in my early 20's. But sometimes seeing really is believing.

I remember the first garden I tended for a weekend that was not my own. My downstairs neighbor kept a garden in the tiny back lot of our apartment building in the middle of New Haven. She asked me to water it while she was away on a trip and said I was welcome to the blackberries in the bush along the fence. I had no idea what I was doing.

I was too scared to pick the blackberries from the bush, buzzing with bees.

Cicadas whirred around my head as I fumbled with the hose around rows of tomatoes wrapped  with twine, nervously padding through the hay mulch and doing my best to water everything (how much? no clue.) before rushing back inside.

For the rest of the summer, I watched her in the garden and admired her bravery from my third floor window. Sadly, she and her partner moved out at the end of that year and the building was bought by a young couple that took the backyard for themselves and did not garden.

From there, I landed an apartment with a balcony that my landlord said I could use and keep my own plants on. Despite the terror I felt in my neighbor's garden, something had taken hold in my mind. I dragged my partner to the nearest Home Depot and bought those ugly orange 5 gallon buckets, a few bags of soil, and a few packs of seeds to begin my very own container garden. I grew leggy, little seedlings in moldy compostable pots on my windowsill and had regular disputes with my birds about who they belonged to. I supplemented those seeds with a starts as well.

It took a little while for the bees to find my plants so high up, but they did. I grew more lettuce than I ever actually eat, so many summer squash (until I had my first run in with vine borers), a pepper plant (no actual peppers), and a single perfect tomato... with blossom end rot. I knew nothing about fertilizing, pest control, or drainage but I had fresh herbs and a few veggies and I was in love. From then on, I have kept a small garden and each year have seen growth on all sides.

And now, 10 years later, I have my own yard with space to do whatever I want.

So I built a greenhouse.

With the help of some incredibly patient friends, of course.

But I built it to grow vegetable and herb starter plants from seed. An essential but often less accessible part of growing your own food.

Over the years, I have met and connected with so many incredible people through gardening and I see this venture as an opportunity to share what I've learned and show the gardening-curious that they can do it too!