About us
Two gardens, one old house, and a lot of notes
Our Quest Begins started because the advice we kept finding online was either written for a climate nobody lives in or padded out to four thousand words before it answered anything. We wanted the version with the answer in it.
What this site is
Two subjects, covered properly: growing things, and living with the result. Gardening guides that account for frost dates, light and the size of your space. Decorating guides that account for a budget, a rental agreement and a room that is the wrong shape. They overlap more than people expect — the plant on the shelf is both.
Everything here is written by one of the two people below. Guides are updated when something changes or when we get it wrong — the date on each post tells you when it was last looked at.
The team
Who writes what
Claire Bennett
Gardening Editor
Claire Bennett writes the gardening side of Our Quest Begins. She learned to grow food in her grandmother’s Ohio vegetable patch, spent four seasons working weekends at a community garden, and now keeps a 400-square-foot kitchen garden and far too many houseplants in Asheville, North Carolina (Zone 7a). She writes the guides she wanted when she started: what to plant, when to plant it, and what to do when it goes sideways in July.
Writes about
- Vegetable gardening
- Container & balcony growing
- Houseplants
- Soil, compost & pests
Wyatt Nolan
Home & DIY Editor
Wyatt Nolan covers home decor and the build-it-yourself half of the site. He spent six years in a cabinet shop before he started writing, and has renovated two older houses room by room — including one kitchen he would do very differently a second time. He writes about layout, colour and lighting for rooms on a budget, and about the weekend projects that are genuinely worth the Saturday.
Writes about
- Room layout & lighting
- Small-space decorating
- Furniture & thrift flips
- Weekend builds
How we work
The rules we hold ourselves to
Short version: if we have not done it, we do not tell you how to do it.
We grow it first
Plant guides come from plants we have actually put in the ground, in a stated zone, in a stated season.
We build it first
Project guides list the real materials, the real cost and the step that took twice as long as expected.
We say when we are unsure
If something depends on your climate, your light or your landlord, we say so instead of pretending there is one answer.
Questions, corrections, or a plant you cannot identify
Write to us at hello@ourquestbegins.com — or use the contact page. We read everything.