about

Nan Sterman grew up in Southern California's San Fernando Valley in the days when the valley was full of horse stables, chicken ranches, and citrus groves. Among her earliest memories are the tomatoes that her grandfather planted behind her family's garage every spring. "The plants were so tall - or I was so short -" Nan says, "that I remember them towering over my head like a forest. "More than that," she continues, "I remember the musty smell of the tomato leaves. That smell has never left me."

In her early childhood, Nan tried her hand at growing radishes and carrots but with limited success. It wasn't until college that Nan re-discovered a love of all things green.

Nan studied botany at Duke University. In the summers, she worked in the fledgling sustainability movement, though it wasn't called that at the time. She interned at the Farallones Institute's Integral Urban House in Berkeley, California where she was in charge of organic, raised-bed vegetable gardens, compost, chickens, and rabbits. Another summer she spent in Washington, D.C. working for a non-profit that focused on issues surrounding food justice.

After Duke, Nan earned her first graduate degree in the Biology department at UC Santa Barbara. In the early 90s, Nan and her husband Curt Wittenberg, moved to San Diego. The couple bought their first home and right away, as with every other home Nan has lived in as an adult, she planted a garden.

After a second graduate degree, this one in training and education development, Nan spent a decade consulting to Fortune 500 companies, non-profits, school districts, museums, zoos, aquaria, and botanical gardens. Then came the day that she was asked to review the first generation of garden design software for a national gardening magazine.

That article lead to another, then another and before long, Nan was garden editor for San Diego Home Garden Lifestyle Magazine. Today, Nan writes award-winning articles for the Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union Tribune, Sunset Magazine, Organic Gardening Magazine and others. She contributed to the 2008 edition of Sunset Western Gardens as well as other books on gardening.

In 2007, Nan published her first solo effort, California Gardener's Guide vII (Cool Springs Press) which is about gardening in California's Mediterranean climate. That means, gardening with low water, climate appropriate plants that grow with little maintenance, little fertilizer, but give lots of reward.

In 2005, Nan and her business partner Marianne Gerdes produced the first episode of A Growing Passion, a television show about ordinary people who happen to be extraordinary gardeners. The show's emphasis on low water, "green" gardens was one of the first. Today, A Growing Passion, is in production to air on cable television.

At the same time, Nan has become co-editor of the Home and Garden section of San Diego News Network. This fabulous website offers her a long-sought platform to promote plants and gardening methods that are perfect for an arid region.

In the meantime, Nan is a regular guest on These Days, the morning talk show on public radio in San Diego. She has been a guest on several national television shows as well.

Nan is a popular speaker at garden shows, botanical gardens, to garden clubs and botanical societies throughout the State. She consults to thegarden.org The Water Conservation Garden in El Cajon, California, creating and teaching the very popular"Bye Bye Grass" class. She is also on the garden's Blue Ribbon Committee.

Nan serves on a voluntary committee for the San Diego County Water authority, and is chair person of the Encinitas Garden Festival, is on the board of the Garden Writers' Association, manages a 5,000 square foot school garden, and is involved in many other volunteer activities.

A few years ago, Nan added garden design to her bag of tricks. She specializes in colorful and beautiful low water gardens that are also low maintenance and environmentally friendly.