Colleen Vanderlinden

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Location
Michigan
School
Wayne State University, University Of Detroit Mercy
Expertise
Organic Gardening, Vegetable Gardening, DIY Home Repair
  • Colleen has been obsessed with gardening for over 25 years. She's gardened in everything from a borrowed plot to containers under lights to her current 10-acre piece of sandy soil in northern Michigan.
  • Currently, she has a sprawling vegetable and herb garden, a berry patch, several large perennial borders in her yard, and, of course, many houseplants.
  • She and her husband bought a fixer-upper of a home in northern Michigan, and much of her DIY knowledge has come from rehabbing that older home to make it more modern and comfortable. It's been a family project, and her four kids have learned quite a bit about home improvement along the way as well.

Experience

Colleen is the author of two books about gardening ("Edible Gardening for the Midwest" and "Vegetable Gardening for the Midwest," published by Lone Pine) and articles for national and regional outlets. In addition to writing and editing about home and garden topics, she works full-time in marketing. As an avid gardener, Colleen primarily shares what she's learned and teaches others to do the same. She focuses on gardening in an environmentally friendly way and doing so on a budget. Coleen knows that time and money are often the two things that keep people from having the garden of their dreams and loves helping people figure out how to make it work. On any given weekend, she's busy with garden DIY projects, reuse/recycling/repurposing, or propagating plants (so she can have more plants for less money!).

Education

Colleen studied English and education at Wayne State University in Detroit. She's fused those two loves into a career helping people make the homes and gardens of their dreams.

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Stories By Colleen Vanderlinden