Amy Stewart had a simple dream.
Each chapter includes helpful tips alongside the engaging Story of a young woman\'s determination to create a Garden in which the plants struggle to live up to the gardener\'s vision..
Along the way, she brings her quintessential California beach town to life--complete with harbor seals, monarch butterfly migrations, and an old-fashioned seaside amusement park just down the street.
Confessing her sins and delighting in small triumphs, she dishes the dirt for both the novice and the experienced gardener.
From planting seeds her great-grandmother sends to battling snails, gophers, and aphids, Stewart takes us on a tour of four seasons in her coastal garden.
From the Ground Up is Stewart\'s quirky, humorous chronicle of the blossoms and weeds in her First Garden and the lessons she\'s learned the hard way.
A good place to start.
It wasn\'t much--a twelve-hundred-square-foot patch of land with a couple of fruit trees, and a lot of dirt.
With little money in their pockets, they rented a modest seaside bungalow with a small backyard.
After she and her husband finished graduate school, they pulled up their Texas roots and headed west to Santa Cruz, California.
She yearned for a Garden filled with colorful jumbles of vegetables and flowers.
Amy Stewart had a simple dream
