Welcome to the new YouGrowGirl.com homepage! Please clear your cache or it may look a bit crazy.

Back when we launched the site with a new design, one of our longterm goals was to eventually roll out a format that allowed relevant seasonal content to come back up to the front page where you can find it. You’ll notice that we’ve added three boxes at the top of the page. These will be updated regularly with posts that I think you’ll want to know about for the season. Since seed starting season is underway in some parts of the continent, you can expect lots of that as well as write-ups on food and flower varieties that I’ve tried and recommend. All of the newest posts appear below.

You’ll also notice that category pages have been updated with a similar format: smaller image on the left, text blurb on the right. I hope this makes it easier for you to assess content at-a-glance as you browse the archives.

Newsletter Anniversary

It was exactly one year ago today that I sent out the first newsletter after a 5-year hiatus. I’ve made a special effort to ensure that’s it not just a rehashing of the site, but offers something more either with stories, recipes, or a few words of encouragement. I hope you’ve enjoyed it so far. Thanks so much for reading. I especially like that a few of you have replied with your own personal anecdotes. It’s turned into a nice way to communicate with you. Keep it coming!

As a thank you, I’m giving away, to one randomly chosen newsletter subscriber: one copy of my book, Easy Growing: Herbs and Edible Flowers from Small Spaces and 3 packs of tomato seed saved from my own garden. The varieties I have chosen are: ‘Rose Quartz,’ ‘Goldilox’ dwarf, and ‘Constoluto Fiorentino.’ All 3 varieties performed well in my garden last year and I think you’ll like them, especially the dwarf.

You’re already entered into the draw if you’re subscribed to the list! If not, there is still time to sign up. I will announce the winner in next Monday’s newsletter. More giveaways are coming soon as February will be YouGrowGirl.com’s 14th birthday!!

Grow Great Grub in original English, Croatian, German, and Portuguese.

Grow Great Grub in Portuguese

Just as I was writing this post the FedEX truck rolled up with copies of my book, Grow Great Grub translated into Portuguese (available here). I found a review here and even found a Facebook photo album created by the publisher. It’s equally strange and wonderful to see my books in other languages. It feels really great knowing that people in parts of the world I have never been to (and may never see) can read my words in their native tongue. It’s also a little unnerving because I can’t read them and have no idea how the translations compare. That said, I am especially excited about this translation as I now live in a predominantly Italian/Portuguese neighbourhood. I gave an English version of the book to my Portuguese former neighbour (they moved) and her response was, “Do you have it in Portuguese?” I do now! The above photo shows all translations of that book to date. Easy Growing will be available soon in German.

SUPERfantastico

If you like following along with my non-garden thrift store/flea market finds, or happen to be into design, art, rusty junk, old stuff, hand-painted signage, weird ephemera, off-registration printing, and threadbare fabrics then I think you’ll like my newest collaboration with my spouse Davin Risk. We’re describing SUPERfanstastico.com as “a library of curious visual gleanings.” It has its own weekly newsletter.