Stacy Grow

This weekend we traveled to the Bay Area in an attempt to enjoy at least one real day of summer. We started our trip at Berkeley Bowl, the most amazing grocery store I have ever seen in my life. By the end of our exploration, we were jok...

I am freaking out, people. Freaking. Out. My yard is starting to show signs that it will be feeding me this year, and I am, as usual, inordinately ecstatic about it.Remember that scraggly orange tree that had never produced fruit when we bought our hou...

June means school is out and it’s time for summer reading again. Last summer’s reading list got truncated quite a bit by a little something called “moving into a house that needs a lot of work”. While I still have lots of house projects to work...

Something exciting happened at my house in the past week: my first harvest from the garden. I got lots of snap peas and English peas, plus buttercrunch lettuce and Nantes carrots (shown above). These are a French heirloom carrot that do well in heavier...

 Last year, I read a delightful memoir called Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression. The author, Mildred Armstrong Kalish, relates lots of wonderful stories and makes you feel like you're sitting ...

Yesterday I went out with my basket and dug up the first half of my potatoes. Next year, I will use much more compost for a greater yield, but the first harvest wasn't too shabby for container potato plants. There were Purple Majesty, Banana Fingerling...

Have you ever been drawn to a place and then fallen head over heels with it once you finally made it there? New Orleans was like that for me. A huge romantic, for me this city seemed to have everything that could be desired in a place: gorgeous archite...

My last post was all about Biba's famous lasagna. Today I wanted to talk about lasagna gardening. Maybe you have heard of lasagna gardening before. It's called that because it consists of creating layers of organic material. Last fall, we purchased thr...

If you are ever in Sacramento and love authentic Italian cooking, or need an elegant place to enjoy a meal, you may want to check out Biba. The owner, Biba Caggiano, has written cookbooks on Italian cooking and is a local food celebrity. Her restaurant...

Welcome to the experiment of my backyard garden, where I am growing a series of new plants just to see what will grow well where I live.Exhibit #1: Potatoes gone wild!See all of those containers? Every one of them contains potatoes! These have been gro...