contact me: qsogirl (at) yahoo.com
view my YouTube channel
instagram: @natalie.strand
Hi, I’m Natalie Strand (or “gardengeekette”; also known as “qsogirl”** on some scrapbooking and sewing community sites). I praise God that by Jesus’ righteousness, I am blessed to be called His child.
I finished my PhD in astrophysics** in Summer 2009, and after that, I worked for a year as a postdoctoral researcher in the field of physics education. I now am a homemaker- my dream job! In my spare time I sew, scrapbook, and garden (of course! why else would my blog be called “Vegetablog”? 😉 ).
So, the story behind this blog…
Growing up, I always wanted to have a garden. When I started grad school at a large Midwestern university, I moved into a place with a balcony that faces north (and a tiny bit west). The summer after we got married, Husband and I decided that we would try to have a garden out there, even though the conditions aren’t ideal.
When I got my plants for my first garden, my husband and I talked to a woman named Dr. B at Prairie Gardens. She told me that she would suggest a good book on the subject of container vegetable gardening, and when she emailed me, she also suggested that I begin a journal about the garden. This way, I could write down what I try and how it turns out… So, instead of keeping a physical journal, I started this blog.
So this blog, which began in the spring/summer 2007, started partly as a journal of my experiences growing a garden. For the first few summers, the garden was in containers on our mostly northern-facing 4th-story balcony in the Midwest. Husband and I moved into our first house in central New York in the summer of 2010. I tried a small in-ground garden in our somewhat shady yard for the first time in spring 2011! We now live in Maryland, where we have a much sunnier garden plot that I am still learning to cultivate. I dream of having a huge garden and canning, jamming, and preserving my bountiful harvests…
Now there is a lot of other stuff thrown into this blog besides just gardening!– usually about my sewing and craft endeavors (especially in the winter, when outdoor gardens in the Northern Hemisphere aren’t known for their growth and productivity). I love sharing my crafty pursuits and hope that you enjoy them, too.
If you have any gardening, scrapbooking, or other crafting interest or expertise, or just want to say “hi,” I would love to have your comments!
Enjoy the blog! 🙂
Note: Occasionally, my links are affiliate links (namely Amazon Associates and Blank Slate Patterns). I identify the affiliate links in my posts. You will not pay anything extra by using them, but they provide me with a tiny commission should you purchase something from those sites using my link!
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For some random fun facts about me circa winter 2008, see this post. 🙂
** QSO is an acronym standing for quasi-stellar object (the term is many times used interchangeably with quasar, which is a combination of the words “quasi-stellar radio source”). They are the extremely active centers of certain galaxies– they are so bright across the electromagnetic spectrum that they can be seen to very high redshifts. My dissertation research was to study the local galaxy environments of QSOs.
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