The last (and only) vegetable garden I had was in Colorado, in the late 70s. I grew the world's best (and smallest) cantaloupe and learned to love baby lima beans - fresh off the plant and steamed with a little butter. We had beefsteak tomatoes that were the size of baseballs and effectively spoiled me forever.

We had some amazing flower beds in Michigan in the 80s and even grew cherry tomatoes outside the kitchen window of our townhouse. Moving out of a house and into apartments didn't slow me down. Granted, I couldn't have tomatoes, cantaloupe, and leaf lettuce, but I could (and did) have anything that could tolerate limited light and the confines of a pot or terrarium.

At one point - I kid you not - there were 120+ pots, 'window' boxes, and terrariums, growing madly and filling every spare inch of my Waterford apartment. I became a macrame maniac, creating 2- and 3-level hangers, just to get everything as close to the windows as possible. Watering days were a marathon event and I really should have gotten one of those contraptions that hooks up to the sink, has a mile and a half of hose, and let's you wander from pot to pot without refilling a can.

Many of the plants, and all of the terrariums, required regular misting / higher humidity. (Just what you need in Michigan - more humidity!) The muscles in my forearms would have made a body-builder proud! But my 'babies' were amazing, and worth the work. (Apparently, my cat agreed - he regularly ate all of the new growth on my Sago Palm.)

A lot of what I grew were succulents and cacti, which is rather an odd choice for an east-facing apartment with trees blocking the windows. But they are really low maintenance - preferring to be left alone for a good part of the year. I'm sure that has to do with the fact that they really aren't 'designed' to be kept in a four-season environment.

Our bedrooms and den had the best exposures, so that's where the light-loving plants clustered. My aforementioned Sago Palm, several small barrel- or globe-type cacti (one of which bloomed faithfully twice a year), Haworthia, Opuntia, and many more whose names I no longer remember. The Sansevieria preferred filtered light, so it stayed in the living room.

I still remember the first time I saw a native version of one of my little house plants, here in Arizona. You cannot imagine the shock when confronted with a 4-foot-tall (or taller) version of the little 3-inch baby that sat in a pot on the windowsill. Mother Nature's little reminder that not everything belongs in a container in one's living room.

This time of year makes my green-thumb a little twitchy, and I do miss puttering and pruning. But, seeing how nature grows her 'babies' out here - I think I'll leave it to the expert. Now - where's my camera!?