Had a very westcoastbestcoast kind of weekend skiing with old and new friends!

Last spring I went to Nashville with some friends. My flight got in earlier than everyone else so I decide to buy some snacks at this cute little food co-op near our Airbnb. They had a rack of @botanical_interests seeds by the checkout and I couldn’t resist buying a packet of ‘Sugar Magnolia’ snap peas! Best snap (pea) decision ever! I mean LOOK at these peas. Purple pods! Pink blossoms! Tender edible greens! Tasty bright green peas. I was totally obsessed with them all spring and am literally counting the days (March 1st is circled in my calendar) before I can plant them again! What peas will you be planting this year? . . . #sugarsnap #sugarsnappeas #peas #peasplease #vegetables #vegetablegardening #vegetablegarden #potager #kitchengarden #kitchengardening #growcookeat

One of my favorite things about gardening is that there’s always next year. I had planned to cut my lemon verbena back and make verbena infused sugar to give away as hostess gifts this winter. But, alas, I got busy and Jack Frost sugared the leaves before I did. I planted the verbena in a pot with bacopa on my front porch. It’s pretty sheltered and I’m crossing my fingers it makes it through the winter so I can *hopefully* make the sugar next year!

I have BIG news! My book, Grow Cook Eat: A Food Lover’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening has a new edition coming out on February 4th! It has a beautiful new cover photographed by @jimhenkens and is packaged up in a new (very cute!) square format. I am so, so excited that my book gets to continue being out in the world helping people grow delicious food. Publishing a book is always a big deal, but this edition coming out feels especially important to me because I never thought it would happen. Grow Cook Eat first published in 2012 and it has continued to sell well all this time. In 2013, I had a contract for two more books on the table…but then I had a baby. His birth was hard and I was completely caught off guard by intense postpartum anxiety that made it very hard for me to function those first few months, and frankly, for a couple of years afterwards. Instead of asking for help, I panicked and turned down the opportunity to write the books and told myself that my writing career was over because I couldn’t handle it. Every time I thought about starting to write again, I shut myself down. I told myself that I chose to pass up my chance to write more books and wouldn’t get another one. You know that saying the stories we tell ourselves are powerful? Well it’s true, and I really believed this story. But, thankfully, a little whisper in the back of my head kept telling me that I loved to garden and that I still wanted to write. It kept whispering until one day I gave these whispers a voice and told my husband I really wanted to figure out how to start writing again. And literally the next day (!!) my agent, Joy Tutela, called and said @sasquatchbooks wanted to do a second edition of Grow Cook Eat. Was I interested? (Answer: Hell, yeah, I am interested!). Fast forward to now. Grow Cook Eat is coming out in February and this summer I wrote a cookbook that will publish in Fall 2025. So folks, I’m here to tell you, that if a little voice in your head is nudging you towards something you love, listen to it. You never know what might happen when you stop telling yourself a false story about what you can’t have and instead start telling yourself what you can.

Saving some seeds for next year!

The last of my summer blooms! I had so much fun growing flowers this year! A visit to my friend @debraprinzing garden last spring inspired me to grow more flowers at home. I bought a tiny greenhouse/cold frame, started seeds of old fashioned cut flowers and grew them in my front yards. The flowers truly brought so much joy into my life these past few months and I’m already plotting to grow more next summer!

Makes me want to be Cinderella.

You better believe we had BLTs for dinner last night. I found this beauty hiding in the foliage of a big—but thus far not very productive—tomato plant. Somehow this giant’s growth eluded me all season, but luckily I spotted a hint of orange as I was walking by, stopped to investigate, and was rewarded with the most perfect ‘German Johnson’ tomato ever. I first grew this variety as an intern in the test garden of Organic Gardening magazine way back in the summer of 2002. I love growing new varieties but there’s also something to be said about growing the same ones year after year, I’m in a very different season than the girl who grew this tomato over twenty years ago, but its nice to be reminded of her and that some things stay the same.

‘Jaune Flamme’ has been my very favorite tomato for a very long time. I love its vivid orange color, its sweet but slightly smoky flavor and that it cheerfully produces tomatoes for months. The tomatoes are palm sized—perfect for slow roasting, slicing into salads and eating right off the vine.