The Expectant Gardener, a wise and fun guide to the adventure of backyard growing

by Simone Martel

In a horticultural journey that spans a decade, culminating with the birth of her son Leo, Simone Martle describes in colorful, richly textured detail her own growth as an organic gardener. Tracing her love of gardens back to her childhood, Martel reveals how she learned to create one without the use of chemicals, or the latest fashionable tool. Through her journal-like style, she invites us into her garden in the Berkeley flatlands, on her weed-pulling, snail-hunting forays or when she creates a pond or "womb chamber". Most of all, she shares with us how growing things can enrich our lives, connecting us to the larger natural world of which any garden, any gardener, and all of life is a part.About The AuthorSimone Martel used to supply San Francisco Bay Area restaurants with organically grown vegetables. Now she writes and gardens at home, and spends time with her husband and young son.

Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Simone Martel is the author of a novel, A Cat Came Back, a story collection, Exile's Garden, and a memoir, The Expectant Gardener. Her shorter nonfiction has appeared in Hip Mama, Horticulture, Antigonish and is forthcoming in Sycamore Review. She’s published stories in many journals including Fantastique Unfettered (Pushcart nominated), the Irish magazine, Crannog, the UK's Neon magazine, the Tishman Review (Pushcart nominated) and Arts & Letters (forthcoming). She had two pieces, a story and a memoir, in last winter's Ocotillo Review.

You can read--and comment on!--her stories online at Fresh.Ink and the new French-English quarterly Short Circuit.

After studying English at U.C. Berkeley, Simone operated an organic tomato farm near Stockton. She’s working on a new novel based on that experience. Simone lives with her family in Berkeley where she shares an urban garden with butterflies, dragonflies and the occasional deer.

Reviews

[Kyla · Rating 3 out of 5]

A modest little volume that traces the development and life of a garden and the one nice thing about it is it makes me think I don't have the tenacity and drive to make a beautiful garden. But the fact that it took her ten years to get it even vaguely where she wanted it did comfort me a little...

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Expectant Gardener: A Wise and Fun Guide to the Adventure of Backyard Growing by Simone Martel (Creative Arts Book Company 2000)(635). This is very much written from the Earth-mother organic gardening view (e.g. “creating a “womb chamber”), but it contains some useful insights. My rating: 6.5/10, finished 2004.