“Grow Great Grub” (Or Being Thankful for Rain)

One week to the day after Alt Design Summit in Salt Lake City, I’ve devoured gardener/blogger Gayla Trail’s upcoming “Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces.” Her sophomore book explores ways to grow and prepare fruits and vegetables in places where space is limited, and the result is a beautiful set of images and solutions to gardening challenges (should you find yourself with “legions of hot peppers” with no home or slightly shady windows to plant near, for example).

It was interesting to hear Trail talk about making time for writing as YouGrowGirl and her own outdoor projects during our “Growing Your Small Business” panel last week (pun unintended). Reading her statistic that up to 80 percent of Havana’s fresh produce is grown in urban gardens gives hope to we San Franciscans, of whom she says “know all too well that edibles like nasturtiums, blackberries, and fennel will thrive in fallow lots and fields in their city without a scrap of human intervention.” If only the same could be said of Jerusalem artichokes.