I discovered Rows Garden puzzles in the Wall St. Journal probably around 2012. The creator of this puzzle type, Patrick Berry, still publishes there and you can find his puzzles at http://blogs.wsj.com/puzzle/ and also at his personal site, http://aframegames.com/store/. I also learned about Andrew Ries, the first person to start making these puzzles in large numbers, which was good for me, because I couldn’t get enough. Andrew’s puzzles can found at http://www.ariespuzzles.com/. I later learned about Outside the Box Puzzles, at http://www.joonpahk.com/blog/. I am a paid subscriber to both: I’m a solver, too!
In 2014, at an informal lunch gathering of crossword constructors in San Francisco, Myles Callum announced, “I made a Rows Garden.” “You did not!” I said. But then he produced his puzzle, and hey, it was pretty good. I asked him how he did it, and he showed me. I started making Rows Gardens right about then. Myles and I continue to be beta testers for one another’s puzzles.