With her characteristic warmth and good humor, Celestine Sibley invites us into her garden at Sweet Apple, the 1848 log cabin that her readers grew to know through Sibley’s many columns and books about her life there.

While sharing her experiences with gardening, she weaves rich images of friends and loved ones into the narrative of her adventures in learning about the land and nature. Her subjects are commonplace and timeless—the experience of beginning a garden and the work it involves; the joys of growing your own vegetables; the challenges of the compost pile and a bewildering variety of garden insects; and the endless delights of flower arranging.

Sibley does not prescribe guidelines on gardening so much as she describes in amusing detail the trails and frustrations as well as the enormous satisfaction of gardening. As Sibley says, “It’s not what you grow that makes you a rich and successful gardener…. The doing is the thing.” Likewise, it’s not the subjects that make this book so endearing—it’s Celestine’s observations on them.

This is a collection of personal essays on gardening for readers who love to garden, no matter how fruitful—or fruitless—their efforts.