The Little Book That Could

It’s been a month since my new book, “Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces” hit stores and a whole heck of a lot has happened during that time. I won’t go over everything — I just want to mention a few highlights for longevity.

The first big news is that the book has gone into two reprints since launching! It is available in all major bookstores within the US and Canada and lots of small bookstores including garden centres, art stores and comic book stores that I really admire and respect, and has also been picked up by major retailers including Crate and Barrel and Anthropologie. Anthropologie, guys! I actually jumped up and down and squeed a little when I heard the news and I am usually so cautious about these sorts of things… I never do that.

Even more thrilling, I recently found out that it is the current #1 selling gardening book in Canada! “Grow Great Grub” is the little book that could!

Several bloggers wrote glowing reviews of the book. Thank you so much. I have to tell you that one of the scariest things about making a book is releasing it into the world. I can’t speak for anyone else but I am scared and nervous when I sit down to write the first words. I get REALLY scared the week I am due to hand in the manuscript. I get INSANELY scared the week it is due on store shelves. Only I know what I went through in the process of making the book. I know what I originally wrote but had to cut for length, what the publisher wanted to change, or how that one picture is not the better one that I really wanted to use but couldn’t. Only I know the book that I set out to make and whether or not this book is THAT book. Those experiences are such a big part of how I feel about it that it is difficult, almost impossible, to separate myself and have an opinion or judgment about the final product as it is. But all that matters once it goes out there is whether you, the reader, can read it, want to read it, and whether or not you find it useful.

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I wrote an article on growing exciting and out of the ordinary cool season greens for a brand new garden magazine called “Garden Making.” Remember that over-ambitious bloody dock plant I wrote about last year? It’s in there along with a few other greens that made my top 5 list last year. Pretty exciting that a new gardening magazine is giving it a go when so many others are folding. I really respect founder Beckie Fox for taking the risk and going about it in a fair and conscientious manner to boot. I’ll be at their booth this coming Saturday, March 20 at Canada Blooms signing copies of “Grow Great Grub” between 10:30 and noon. Come out and say hi if you’re there.

I was on the Steven and Chris show a few weeks back taping a segment on growing vegetables in pots and in the ground. Everyone in the studio audience received a copy of the book courtesy of Clarkson Potter. I also brought remaining seeds and buttons from the launch party to giveaway. The best part was chatting with famous Canadian sex educator Sue Johanson in the green room! Unfortunately, I was too shy to ask for a photo.

And then there was this: About mid-Feb there was an article in O Magazine. I knew it was coming but I understood it to be an article about growing herbs. I was as shocked as anyone to discover they’d also written a little bit about my background and even mentioned my grandmother’s balcony potatoes. I didn’t think being featured in O Magazine would be a big deal on a personal level, and was surprised by my trembling hands and tearing eyes while I read the article out on the street minutes after purchasing a copy of the magazine at a newsstand. What took over in that moment was my child self, a little girl who never imagined that people like Scylla and I could be featured in such a mainstream and widely circulated publication.

I’m kind of proud of us.

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Your Questions Answered: Watermelon Radish

Photo by Gayla Trail  All Rights Reserved

Question: I am in South Mississippi and my Mother wants to know where you get the pink watermelon radish seed and how she can get some? – Betty

Hi Betty,

Watermelon radish are a fairly unknown winter radish that are beginning to gain popularity. The seeds themselves aren’t particularly easy to find; however, the radishes have begun to show up in farmers’ markets. Look for them in the fall.

While chances are slim that you’ll be able to buy seeds at your local garden shop, they are readily available online. Search for them by one of their many names, including: Red Meat radish, Beauty Heart, Chinese Red Meat, Asian Red Meat, Watermelon radish, Rose Heart, Misato radish, Xin Li Mei (心里美), Shinrimei, or Roseheart.

I found my pack of seeds back in the spring at a local seed sale. The company I purchased them from, Greta’s Organic Gardens is Canadian and located in the Ottawa area. I’m pretty sure they ship to the U.S.

A few other online sellers include:

Back in the spring, I mentioned in an interview that I would be growing these radishes for the first time this year. What the interview doesn’t include is that ‘Watermelon’ is a large, winter radish that does not fair well in the spring. The best time to start them is in the late summer/early fall as the days grow cooler. There’s still lots of time to order seeds and get on growing a crop this year!

Oh, and if you’re wondering how to eat them, the flesh inside is deceptively sweet and tender. We eat them raw, just like a regular radish, but chop the harder skin off first. We also grate or slice it thinly on top of salads, and they also taste yummy pickled.

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Welcome and Seeds of Diversity 25th Anniversary

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Hello fellow gardeners. If you’re coming from today’s Globe and Mail article, the full story about the tobacco gardener is here. If you’d like seeds, I’ve got loads (I’m not going to grow them) and am happy to pass them on in the spirit they were given to me. Please send a self addressed stamped envelop to my P.O. Box and I’ll mail a few to you. Sorry everyone. I meant the tobacco seeds only. Have been inundated with seed requests (of all sorts) and have no more left to give.

If you’d like a peek at my gardens, there are a few more recent images and stories here.

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Tomorrow is the Seeds of Diversity 25th Anniversary Celebration. Seeds of Diversity is Canada’s national heritage seed conservation effort, specifically focused on preserving and promoting non-hybrid plants of significance to this vast country. I am extremely proud (and consequently a little nervous) to be speaking as the keynote in front of a group of gardeners I hold in very high regard. The event will also include seed buying tables (last call for seed starting season!) and lunch is included in the fee. I believe tickets are still available.

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EYE Magazine – October 18, 2008

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“Green Thumbs Up: The Surprisingly Soothing Results of Ground-level Activism”

The full article can be seen on the EYE website.

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Taste T.O. Interview

“What that kind of attitude and approach is saying over and over again is that gardening is not for you; you don’t belong here.”

I met up with Teresa Cheng a few weeks ago for lunch at my favourite long-time local eatery, Cafe Bernate for an in-person interview to talk about urban gardening, growing food, and sustainability. We popped back to my place after the interview to take some quick snaps and of course I sent her off with some extra tomato and anise-hyssop seedlings I had kicking around. I have a tendency to unload plants or herbs onto visitors. I may be a terrible sales person but I know how to “sell” a plant.

The result of that conversation can be found on the Taste T.O site, Talking the Green Revolution with Gayla Trail.

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