Soil gives joy, purpose to Sahuarita gardener

Her eyes light up when she introduces them to you.

“I talk to them every day,” says Su VanValen, whose journey with her plants would rival that of most botanists who made them their life’s work.

On their magnificent property at Madera Highlands, Su has tamed the Sonoran Desert climate, building an impressive collection of extraordinary edible gifts from the soil.

“If I’m asked, ‘Are you going to clean house or dig a hole in the garden today?’ I’m going to go out and dig a hole,” declared the retired Korean American born about a half hour south of Seoul. VanValen looks 10 years younger than she is and says it’s the connection with her garden that does it.

“That’s therapy for me,” she puts it.

“Some days she can be out there all day long,” says her husband, Jim. He’s no longer surprised at her dedication and perseverance in keeping it all going, not unlike the way she’s done everything all her life, he says.

“It all comes from the heart, no matter what she does,” said the retired actuary and Air Force veteran who married her when he was stationed at Suwon in South Korea in the early ’70s.

Su went to night school to learn English while raising their three boys in New Jersey, immersing herself in their school’s booster club, cooking for hundreds at fund-raisers and cheering her oldest boy’s football and basketball exploits.

“I didn’t even know what it (the game of football) was,” she remembers, but she eventually became a rabid Buffalo Bills and Duke basketball fan.

“I miss that part,” she admits — the busy working mom watching her family grow, which is perhaps one of the reasons she loves to watch her garden grow.

“Every place we’ve lived, she’s had some kind of garden,” Jim said.

Not just a garden, though.

Her landscaping skills are close to professional. “She’s landscaped every property we’ve had,” he added.

Her mom’s side of her large, close-knit family passed along their farming experience, and she picked up the pride and perseverance from the military background on her father’s side.

Her brother was in charge of the South Korean Air Force.

Her family was central in her life, and growing up in the shadows of day-to-day struggles just to survive in post-Korea War days produced a tough, tenacious and resourceful young woman who kept her large family fed.

“She was the strongest one. She was the worker,” Jim said.

Cooking from scratch over charcoal was common practice, so she was amazed at her modern American kitchen, although today she reflects on how Americanization has changed her homeland.

“I don’t like what happened to Korea,” she explained, describing her countrymen’s fascination with embracing all that is American over the years — everything a lot faster, especially the food.

“I sometimes feel like a foreigner in my own country.”

Although she misses her children and grandchildren, she and Jim decided to retire in the hills between the city and the Santa Ritas last fall, where she keeps busy tending to an oasis of green that includes everything from avocados to watermelons.

There are raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, concord grapes, pomegranate, cantaloupe, cucumbers, zucchini, figs, peppers, turnips, onions, kiwi, lemon, eggplant, lettuce, chard, spinach, kale, cabbage, carrots, squash, and lots of flowers and herbs, and her bonzai plants will eventually add a Japanese garden look.

What she doesn’t cook with, she gives to friends and neighbors.

She does take time out to feed some of her other creative talents, though — needlepoint, gourmet Asian cooking, sewing, decorating, landscaping, teaching mah jong, singing traditional Korean songs, and managing their Florida rental properties.

Told she couldn’t grow most of her selections in the heat here, Su nevertheless lovingly touches their leaves as she points out the progress of each, fussing and feeling around in the rich soil, nurtured with the nuances she picked up from her ancestors — no chemicals here.

Finding that Starbucks coffee enriches the soil, she gets horse manure from a local rancher, creates her own compost, and protects her “babies” from the blistering sun with a homemade cover.

Everything is meticulously laid out and cared for as though they were a part of her. Jim thinks maybe they are.

“These plants have become her children,” he said.

Mike Touzeau is a freelance writer living in Green Valley.