by germinatrix | August 11th, 2011
check out this PRIZE! who's gonna win? I'm so EXCITED!
HEY YOU GUYS!!!
It is time for me to do MY book giveaway! I’ll bet you were all thinking that I was never going to give away a copy of the book I wrote – HA! I fooled you! Not only are we giving away a copy of The Edible Front Yard, my lovely publisher, Timber Press, has generously added a copy of the Sugarsnaps and Strawberries (written by the amazing Andrea Bellamy of Heavy Petal) to the mix! And that isn’t ALL! The fabulous folks at GrowOrganic.com, the online home of Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply, have created a special custom seed collection inspired by the “Supermodels” of ornamental edibles that I list in my book! 20 packets of gorgeous, certified organic, non-GMO seeds were donated – thank you Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply (find them online at GrowOrganic.com)! The coolest, sexiest, warm AND cool season Supermodels Seeds will be sashaying their way around some lucky winner’s front yard – How awesome is THAT? And then there is a special present from me – a framed cartoon that I drew with my very own hands, depicting a few of the beauties that were making their presence known in my garden this year – before I ATE THEM!
an image of my garden from The Edible Front Yard - pretty pics in this book, if I do say so myself!
So here we go! Leave your comments and in one week, we will have a winner! Go crazy with your comments – woo me! The winner will be chosen randomly, but still – woo me! I like to be flattered and purred over, and I want to know how you plan on using this treasure chest of goodies should you win!
MEOW!
XOXO Your Germinatrix
look how happy I am harvesting herbs! this could be YOU! leave a comment to win!
What a great offering. Who wouldn’t want to win your wonderful book and all the “extras” you’re including Very Cool Contest.
I just wanted to add (because I was going to say it in my original response, but got too excited!) that our intention with the school garden is to get it going and then give back to our community. We live in a “poor” county in CA and it would be VERY helpful to our people!
Love it. I give a talk on Edible Landscape and would love to have your book to add to it. My “free range” buttercup squash has to be pulled off my rosebushes and dahlias every day at the moment. Mixing everything together has worked great for me and creates a lot of interest in my garden from passersby. Keep spreading the message – it’s a great one!
I love replacing grass and utilizing your space for edibles instead
Sounds like an excellent End Of Summer reading~full of goodness
I would cherish the items up for giveaway
I rev up my green thumb and give you a BIG THUMBS UP on having your book published
I’ve got a 2,400 sq ft veggie garden in my back yard and this year, I began on the front! I took down a useless boxwood and replanted with herbs and veggies. Also, this spring and summer I’ve added four berry-bearing shrubs, raspberries from freecycle and cherry trees which were my mother’s day gift. I’m thrilled to add to my growing space for edibles and to get rid of as much lawn as possible while doing so!
I just finished reading your book! I took notes and now have lots of idea for our front yard. I would love to take a look at the other book, use the seeds and give your book away.
I would love to win this wonderful collection I would share the items with two local Community gardens in my area they can always use the seeds and gardening books would be nice to share with them!
What an amazing collection of goodies! Would love to win and share with my friends and family.
I took out about 20% of my front grass this summer and aim to get rid of most, if not all, of the rest next year. I have only put some flowers and a few herbs in thus far. I have a LOT to learn, but raring to grow lots of my own food — and hopefully spread the bug to others! Seeing what happened to Julie Bass only made me doubly determined to utilize this space for practical as well as aesthetic purposes. But the aesthetic is important to me too, and your garden shows how fabulously possible it is to combine the two!
I would love to give my front yard a face lift with edible plants. What a great idea.
yes you do look happy! Beautiful pics!
Congratulations on your new book! It sounds really exciting, I love the cover!
I’m just about to start planning out a vegetable garden for my parents, this collection would be invaluable! 
I would love to add your book to my collection of gardening books, love everything you do and it’s never to late to learn something new and thank you for the lesson
FUN! Your front yard looks much tastier than mine, but I’m slowly but surely adding edibles to my space. I’ve only been in the house for a year, so it’s been trial and error, but I think I’m getting it! Since the growing season isn’t over here in NV for a while yet, the seeds in this giveaway would make a great addition to my fall line-up, and I can’t wait to read your book for inspiration!
What a nice prize for the winner! I’m always looking for new ways to work edibles into limited space. This year, we have squash growing among shrubs, tomatoes in barrels, herb patches, and are experimenting with vertical gardening. Some things work and some just don’t!
This would be an awesome win! I am already a huge fan of Peaceful Valley and I love to spend my winters reading gardening books. My goal is to have a totally organic edible landscape on my 3 acres(minus the space for the house and the trees which are a much needed windbreak). My two oldest are recent apt dwellers and Have asked momma to help them plant patio gardens….a new to me gardening challenge!
My ENTIRE front yard (1/4 acre) is grass free! We mulched it and are filling it up with plants! I would love to win these!
Ivette, thanks for this post. I have, of course, already purchased The Edible Front Yard from the estimable Timber Press, but would love any of the other prizes. by the way, your book and another from Timber Press, Revolutionary Yardscape, make great (and useful) coffee table books!
How great is this! I manage a apartment complex and we have a great space out front that would be perfect to do this in. I have a personal garden in the back and all the kids love helping me water and pick the ripe veggies. I feel that I’m inparting a little bit of wisdom and love of gardening in the kids here.
How on earth do you keep from getting tan? You must live in the Pacific Northwest!
I would love 2 win this….I love 2 garden..this would be an awesome way 2 garden….thanks
I’d love the books and the collection. I wish everyone would have an edible front yard – it would solve many of the world’s problems!
I love edible landscaping! Love that there is another author out there besides Rosalind Creasy, tho I dearly love her books too! so I suppose if I don’t win the prize I’m going to have to buy it! (My garden isn’t much this year but check out the earliest posts on my blog!) so happy to discover another blogging gardener.
Love your passion and excitement! Thank you for helping people understand you truly can have an oasis anywhere and provide yourself with home grown goodies for your own kitchen!
Dear Germinatrix, My garden would love to grow up to look just like yours. Do you think you could help mke this happen? This novice gardener in hot, dry Colorado surely hopes so. Happy harvesting!
I am replacing non-edibles in my yard with edibles. I have a demonstration garden and help with the school garden. I would use these items ni the giveaway as giveaways when I promote gardenig for all ages & abiliies through small gatherings in my area. Paying it forward. Love your site and blog.
I would love to see your tips for growing veges in the front yard, esp since you are in SoCal and gardening here is different.. the soil, the water, the weather. I have a lot to learn + nonGMO seeds!
I want to WOO you by saying what a great cartoon you drew.. so colorful.. and I have a perfect place for it in my kitchen.
Thanks!
Next year, I would love to turn my front yard into extra food growing space. I have the back yard garden but it is small. I feel the front yard is wasted. I definitely am going to get a mulberry and an apple tree and some blackberry bushes (also some evergreens for the birds). In the back yard I really don’t have room for the big spreaders, the zucchini, watermelon, pumpkins — those sorts of things. Also the lettuce needs raised beds, I think.
I do have the herbs in back but would like to keep the back yard for things that grow upright like the beans, cukes, peas and tomatoes. I do have one bed for strawberries which needs help as it is overgrown and I believe they need more light as they do not produce in the abundance they should. I do use up a lot of space for the native wild flowers and tall grasses in the back yard.
But my yard does not look beautiful as yours does. Some things grow years after I planted them like Michael the Archangel who suddenly appeared this year in an odd place. Been trying for Angelica for years and then suddenly here they were, unmistakable, towering majestic. Sometimes I pull out the mulleins mistaking them for weeds which breaks my heart for I love them the most. Most years what I expect does not grow at all. Only one chicory made it this year. Did I pull them out, thinking they were weeds? That is why I don’t like to weed the wildflowers. I never know. It is always a surprise but not very orderly and not planned carefully enough so that something is always blooming. I also have a lot of catnip for my companions.
I am a vegan in WI, so can you imagine how I feel when I bite into a crisp, sweet green pepper from the back yard which I did a few days ago and still remember the taste? I was late this year as I spent April in the hospital and May recovering and did not get the garden planted until late May. So here it is August and although I have many, many flowers on all the plants, I have only harvested the green peppers and a few cucumbers. I am watching the green tomatoes fiercely, like a wolf.
I am a little anxious because we have to harvest quickly. With fall comes the blight and mildew devils to take our harvest. Every day I go out to be with the crops and wild flowers and tall grasses with my cats and love it. I have special fencing so the cats cannot get out of the backyard but we can all be together when I go out there. Some cats are really into gardening.
I think the painting is especially wonderful, the design and the colors. It looks like you did the cover of your book also. I have been so jealous of some of the magnificent photos of yards I have seen on this site. I am looking for big fluffy fennel because I like that front yard with all those big fluffy plants along the walk. The colors look so good I know you planned that out.
The reason I did not use the front yard for food until now is that we have “Ordinances” and the most conservative, traditional, watchdog, lawn type people on the face of the earth. Rigid lawn pesticide thinking men with machines who mow twice a week and women with rules about how everyone should be and act and look.
However, none of them would be anything but happy with the way you do it. They will accept anything beautiful. Because the redeeming quality of the folks here is that they ALL garden. Yes, many use toxins but they ALL garden and that is the path on a journey straight toward environmentalism. They will love my front yard if I can make it beautiful. I already have a patch of wild prairie they are tolerating and it is not pretty. To most people it would look like weeds. But the butterflies and the bees love it. And the folks are giving me the benefit of the doubt.
So I would love to win the sweepstakes and get those organic seeds and your book, your book, the seeds, the painting, the seeds, your book, O.M.G. I would use them to inspire me to plan and be organized about producing what I eat. But whether I do win or not, I will be lurking here, lapping up your ideas and advice.
Thank you for this beautiful, inspiring, sensible blog.
I love lawnless yards of any kind, and if the vegies can be supermodels, even better. Life’s too short for lawns…
Your book looks beautiful. I would love a chance to win it and the seeds too. Thanks!!
I would LOVE to win this!! I actually just got really interested in herbs, I have been reading tons of books on them and have learned alot about different uses & also gifts you can make with them!!
I’ve been wanting to create a lovely edible garden in my front yard for some time now but need the motivation and inspiration. Your book could be that motivation and inspiration that I so desperately need! I also have a 7 month old grand-daughter and want to initiate her into the ways of diggin in the dirt and growing her own veggies! Your treasure chest would be the perfect beginning of a lifelong passion for her!
I would give it to my mom who usually has one of the most wonderful gardens in the world, but who’s yard is currently a mess because of a tornado ripping through the area. To top it all off she has so much interior damage that she hasn’t been able to get everything fixed on the inside let alone outside. I just know this prize would make her day, month, week, year. She would appreciate it fully!
I would give it to my mother-in-law who has given me so much, because I know with her gardening expertise it would be like the gift that keeps on giving. She would absolutely love it, and I would love to see the look on her face as she received it and experiences the happiness it would bring in years to come.
I would give it to a family friend who I know enjoys gardening greatly. She also makes the most wonderful meals out of her garden, but much like many areas this year, has gotten horrible weather and could use a set like these to get her back on track!
Beautiful prize, I hope I win it.
Oh my gosh, what a prize pack! This would do quite nicely for experiments in homesteading for me and lots of fodder for inspiration!
Who says homesteaders have to be frumpy? My girls had a glamour fashion shoot on my blog! http://homesteadcanada.com/2011/08/02/lettuce-peas-beets-oh-my/
“woo me” haha you crack me up! First of all, I would hang your framed cartoon on my garden wall which is a very special place. my other favorite piece says “leave room in your garden for angels to dance.” i think they were made for each other. As for Supermodel Seeds, I’d be the envy of the neighborhood and I can handle that! I’m hoping your book will answer a question for me and my friends. I bought “perilla” at a neighborhood park garden sale last summer. I had no idea what it was, that it would get so tall or spread so much! Research says it’s edible but I’m terrified to try it! so pick me as your winner and i will WOO YOU and ME! thank you for providing such lovely winnings. WOO YOU!
Oh, how my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the snap pea twirls.
I have a very small area, but my seed saver friends have generously given me envelopes of “unknown” seeds to grow each summer. It’s a joke to see what I will do with the seeds and what my yard looks like on the last day of each month from June-September! Even with the bad weather, my friends admire “their plants” as they watch them develop!
It would be SO nice to know what I was planting – sigh.
I’ve got four kids! The more I can grow, the better they eat!
I enter very few giveaways, but the chance to win both your and Andrea’s books (and a boatload of goodies!) Is too good to pass up. Crossing my fingers and toes.
would love to win – thanks for the chance. I may not have a front yard, but someday!!!
Hi
For a number of years I’ve been working towards an edible yard, selecting only organic heirloom, or locally gathered wild roots and shoots of plants that can be used as food or medicine, though I know I’ve got a long way to go. I look forward to reading more about you and your techniques and seeing the wonderful pics.
I’d love to win that book and whatever else you’re giving away, what an honor it would be. But if not, I still look forward to hearing more about you. Many blessing to you and all you do!
Sandra
Shameless pandering starts…You’re da bomb for all of us out there growing edibles where ever we can find the space. But in all seriousness, you are an inspiration, (ok…just a bit more pandering). We can never have too much inspiration and I love to get ideas and motivation from such positive sources. Growing our own is so fullfilling and down right tasty to boot. Keeps me on my toes and in the clouds at the same time!
Keep it up!
I would love a copy of your book.
Oh, let the pandering ROLL in! I LOVE it! How can I not? I am crossing my fingers, toes, eyes, hair, and eyes for everyone! This is so FUN I can hardly stand it!!!
XOXOXO!!!
This is a wonderfulf collection and would love to win it. Love all gardening and and your site is great!
Happy Gardening!
My wife would LOVE this.
Hi there! I am a landscape designer in Santa Cruz/Monterey, CA. I recently flipped through a friend’s copy of your book and I ADORED it! I would love a copy to show my clients that planting edibles in the front yard can yield gorgeous results. I was absolutely appalled that a woman was almost jailed for doing just that. Keep up the beautiful work! Those of us out in the trenches really appreciate you!