by Holly Schaffer, Communications Specialist
The trek from Elgin, where she lives, to Sahuarita Library takes Julie Jimenez about an hour, but as she says, “It’s well worth the drive just to see the library. It’s a state-of-the-art building, welcoming in design, the staff, the variety of materials.”
Upon her first visit when the library opened at its new location in 2021, it was the Seed Library display that caught her attention. Having lived in Minnesota, New York, Florida, Texas and most recently, Queen Creek, AZ, she has dabbled in gardening in a variety of zones but hadn’t yet tried it in Elgin. “When you relocate,” she remarks, “you start over with a new learning curve.”
Julie says, “I call myself a stumbling beginner, a seed sower. If I tell people that I’m a gardener, it makes it sound like I know what I’m doing. I just plant all the seeds in the packet and give them a shot to grow.”
Since that first visit to Sahuarita Library, gardening has become central in Julie’s life. In addition to nine horses, numerous chickens, compost, and curious and pesky desert critters, her ranch is chock full of pots, a circle garden and pony walls, and a greenhouse.
“Gardening has become a family affair,” she says. Her son, daughter-in-law, and two granddaughters, ages 3 and 5, live on the property. She tells me, “The girls came from rural Minnesota to a ranch. I bought them their own little rakes and shovels. Squash, pumpkins, and watermelons have large seeds… they’re great for little hands.”
Side note… Julie received the Blue Ribbon for her squash and pumpkins at the Santa Cruz County Fair!
“The kids look at the seeds every day. ‘Grandma, look! It got bigger!’” Julie recalls watching their brains start sparking. “Sure,” she says, “they’ve seen tomatoes at the store, but here, they get to watch them grow in real time, outside.”
Laughing, Julie says, “BORED! We don’t say the B-word at Grandma’s house. There’s not enough time in the day to do all the things we love, especially in the garden.”
In total, Julie has five grown children and ten grandchildren ranging in age from 3 to 30 years old. “Other than the three- and five-year-old, my grandkids live in urban areas,” she says. “How cool that I get to share this knowledge and love of growing with them when they visit.”
The fun doesn’t stop outside, though. It carries all the way through to the meals they cook and enjoy. Julie says, “My daughter in law is German and an adventurous cook. I’m Puerto Rican. My husband is Italian. We look up recipes together and integrate stuff from the garden. She is a wonderful cook. One woman growing, one woman cooking. We are very independent, very strong.” One of her daughters, a fantastic cook, also appreciates the garden goodies.
Her seed sowing extends beyond the kitchen to her beloved community. She sows and shares so many seed transplants that her neighbors often bring back plants grown from her seeds. “Isn’t that nice? I get to pair something I love doing and share it with others,” she observes.
Be it broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, tomatoes, beets, carrots, spinach, or kale, everything is given away or used and enjoyed. She smiles as she tells me, “If you have 5,000 tomatoes, make a spaghetti sauce. If you have 27 pumpkins, puree them. Nothing should go to waste.”
Julie spent ten years as an equine therapist and thirty years as a children’s therapist and compares her career to her gardening. She tells m
