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Hi, I’m Beth: The Grubby Garden Girl.

My fascination with gardening started at a very young age. I grew up on the typical Atascadero oak covered hillside excavated property that didn't lend itself to vegetable gardening. With research, determination and an open mind, I found work-arounds.

I discovered Earthboxes over a decade later, and started organic container gardening when my father was diagnosed with cancer. I learned about Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Gardening method the same year. This tried and true method resulted in great success when I built shallow deer-proof raised beds and terraced them into the front hill of my family home.

My first in-ground garden was also the same year, next to my mini raised beds, under the giant spar of our recently fallen oak tree. I chose acid loving plants, used $5 of steer manure, hand-made gopher baskets, late season leftover seedlings and free bark mulch from a local arborist. My hill garden was a green jewel on a former weed patch, and a huge success for a novice.

The following few years living in a small city in Central America taught me the importance of using whatever space I had (a rooftop patio with containers) and the ingeniousness of propagation/cloning at my favorite local nursery. I marveled at how the locals used every bit of their mountainous land outside of town to grow full crops. They truly taught me to appreciate what I could grow with the space I had, wherever I lived.

Then I headed back to California, to my family home once again to grow two more summer gardens for my mama as she battled cancer. This time I added fabric grow bags from my gardening enthusiast oldest brother.

Gardening is the best therapy, and keeps me in constant awe of creation. It’s a way of remembering my parents and my farming, ranching and gardening heritage going back generations. There is nothing more relaxing than soaking up the sun, watching green things pop up daily, and then enjoying the results of my hard work. Every time I eat garden produce it reminds me of my mama’s words “food just doesn’t taste like it used to!” … unless of course it’s homegrown!