From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden

From Booklist

Stewart, a young Texan, creates her first garden from scratch in the beach town of Santa Cruz, California. Although the rental bungalow she shares with her husband, Scott, is close enough to the town's boardwalk for its amusement-park aromas and roller-coaster cries to infiltrate the not-so-private space of their house and yard, she rolls up her sleeves anyway and sets about beautifying the neighborhood. Accompanied by her feline pals, Stewart pursues a commendable path, one taken by a flourishing society of green thumbs bent on eradicating weeds and cultivating the soil so that flowers will grow and vegetables will prosper. In an episodic style, she writes of her progress from a novice with little know-how to a developing and altogether enthusiastic gardener intent on enriching a small plot of land. At the close of each chapter, Stewart offers recipes and tips to help ease the way for readers unfamiliar with garden basics. In a first book filled with promise, Stewart tellingly recounts the making of a garden and the essential life lessons the act of gardening so often teaches. Alice Joyce
Copyright © American Library Association.

From Library Journal

How-to gardening books abound; how-not-to gardening memoirs are rarer. When Stewart and her husband bought their first home in California, she was eager to grow the bountiful, colorful garden she had so long envisioned. With much enthusiasm and little knowledge, she began her weekly trek to the local nursery to stock up on all varieties of seedlings. Why, she wondered, did they not flourish after being planted in the bare backyard? Only after many mistakes, much expense, and worrisome encounters.

Spotlight Reviews

Reviewer: Joann Sonenstein from Las Vegas, NV USA
For those who enjoy digging in the dirt or simply admiring gardens, Amy Stewart's From the Ground Up is a charming read. The book offers many practical tips but its appeal is more than a "how to" manual. The reader shares Ms. Stewart's excitement in planting her first flowers and veggies in the ocean climate of Santa Cruz, CA, discovering the hard way what really works. The author shops for soil amendments and ladybugs the way some women revel in a Saks Fifth Avenue sale. Recipes using garden bounty pepper the narrative. The mood is like a cozy chat between friends. All this unfolds against a backdrop of a roller coaster next door, tourists stealing plants and cats gamboling in the greenery. Curl up in a comfy chair in a pleasant spot and enjoy the gardening expoeriences of Ms. Stewart from dreamer to doer.

Reviewer: Robert Salisbury from Lexington, MA USA
As I read From the Ground Up I felt torn between the desire to rush out and start gardening and the equally compelling desire to stay in my chair and continue reading.

Amy Stewart makes gardening come alive and she makes reading about gardening fun, both for real gardeners, and non-gardners, like me. I was reminded of Calvin Trillen's, Alice Lets Eat. Trillen made me yearn to join him in the search for the perfect fish boil. Stewart makes you want to be down in the dirt with her digging, laughing and learning.

I would highly recommned the book to anyone who enjoys clever and skilled writing. The fact that the book is crammed with gardening information becomes the icing on the cake. The cake is the writing and the world it lets you enter.

Customer Reviews

Reviewer: twinkiequeen from Ferrum, VA United States
Amy Stewart writes the story of her experience with her garden. It is easy to read and reality-based as she shares the joys and frustrations of creating her garden. I can't wait until her next book appears!

Reviewer: A reader from Shushan, NY USA
Amy Stewart is my kind of gardener--one who plunges ahead without fear of failing and doesn't care if her hands get a little dirty. The book, which reminds me of a diary, was well-written and very entertaining. I can hardly wait to read her next book.

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