Last month, I was in New York and I stopped by my publisher’s office to have a chat with my editor. While we were talking, my editor’s boss walked in and told me that she would be in Northern California in September. I asked her if she would like to stop by while she was […]
Amy Stewart
Posted inLife + Outdoors
The Road to Digging Dog
A couple of weeks ago, I took the long way home from the Bay Area and drove through Mendocino. Before I left, I made an appointment to visit Digging Dog Nursery, source of all good things in the universe. Well, my universe, anyway. I have been a Digging Dog junkie for years. I keep their […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Bye-bye kitty
The guy in front of me at airport security in Arcata wasn’t sure what to do with his cat. “Do I put her through?” he asked, eyeing the x-ray machine nervously. “No,” the TSA representative said. “Wait until the last possible minute, then take her out of the carrier. Walk through the metal detector with […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Green team — How backyard gardeners can transform a neighborhood
Last Friday, I got a plane and flew to Buffalo, N.Y., to meet a group of women I met on the Internet. We’ve all been blogging together (at www.GardenRant.com) for over a year, but this was our first time to meet in person. I’m the only West Coast gardener in the group. One of us […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Mid-year resolutions — Or, a summer checklist for fall fabulosity
The year is half-gone. The summer solstice is past; the days are getting shorter already. It’s irritating the way time moves inexorably on, especially in a garden. I went on vacation for one lousy week and everything went to seed. It’s time to whack a path through the undergrowth, take stock of the situation and […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Let them get stung! Plus: Herbs and herbicides, marital discord resolved
Judging from the tone of your e-mails, you people are busy this summer. I’ve had a flurry of questions from people who are undertaking some large, impressive garden project or another. If you’ve got questions about your garden, send them to me, and at some point in the not too distant future you might open […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Write more righter: Hone skillz with the masters on the banks of the Mattole
I’ve been taking a painting class for several years now. I didn’t think I’d like oil painting, but the process is surprisingly similar to writing and I’m drawn to it for that reason. A writer has to put boundaries around a story, to figure out where it begins and ends. The painter has to do […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Flower filchers, redux — What drives the strange and scurrilous garden thief?
A few years ago, I wrote a tirade on the subject of flower theft. My front yard is full of flowers, and I understand what a temptation this can pose to people walking down the sidewalk. But some of the thieves in my neighborhood were particularly conniving, walking right up to my front door and […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Ten gardens
The annual HBGF Tour makes a stop in Ferndale The Humboldt Botanical Garden Foundation’s annual garden tour is set for Sunday, June 24 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Ten gardens in Ferndale, Fortuna and Eureka will be open for the day, and you’ll also be able to visit the botanical garden site itself at […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against the Chinese
Late on the night of February 6, 1885, a gallows was built on Fourth Street between E and F Streets on the edge of Chinatown, in Eureka, a foggy lumber town on California’s North Coast." When Jean Pfaelzer’s new book arrived in the mail, it opened to that page and I almost dropped it. A […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Photographing the garden
This spring, a group of garden bloggers got the idea to post a photograph on the 15th of every month showing what’s blooming in their garden. (If you’d like to check it out, just Google "garden bloggers bloom day" and you’ll see what I mean.) It’s a great idea to use a garden blog to […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Grass au Naturel
A couple of weeks ago, a friend was complaining to me about the number of chemicals that an ordinary person can get exposed to in a typical day. "And then the weed and feed guys come by," she said, "and who knows what gets tracked into the house from the lawn?" It sounded as if […]