I can’t wait to kick off February by changing my desktop calendar to this adorable pink confection from Anne Bryant!

To sweeten the deal Anne also designed the cutest printable cupcake toppers. Pop on over to her website to download the free PDF. Just beware, printing them produces an unstoppable urge to bake!

Anne designed 12 desktop calendars for DigginFood and I will be posting a new one every month of this year. To put the calendar on your computer’s desktop, all you need to do is choose the size that best fits your monitor and then click on the link below—the file will automatically download to your computer and then you can set it up as your background image:

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I am in the process of finishing my book, which means I spend pretty much all my time either thinking or writing about growing vegetables. Today my mind kept wandering back to a lovely formal kitchen garden in Marin County that I had the opportunity to tour when I spoke at a symposium sponsored by the Garden Conservancy last summer. Located at the back of a large, tree-lined lot, the fenced kitchen garden artfully combined formal kitchen garden design with whimsical plant supports and plantings.

Boxwood parterres and decomposed granite pathways divided the garden into quadrants, with narrower beds ringing the perimeter. To help keep the family’s chickens and ducks out of the beds, they installed unobtrusive chicken wire fences behind the parterres.

I loved all of the homemade trellises in this garden. The rustic tuteurs, which provided support for sweet peas and cucumbers, were constructed of grapevines scavenged from local vineyards. Weathered 1 x 1 posts looped with wire housed tomatoes and created a scaffold for beans. Roses and clematis twined through the split rail fence that enclosed the garden.

The garden featured tons of architectural plants, including tall stands of blooming fennel, spiky artichokes, Tuscan black kale, flowering onions, pruned boxwood and rosemary, and trellised vegetables.

My favorite detail was this cute little frog perched on a post!

Our new house doesn’t have nearly enough sun—or space—to create a kitchen garden like this. But a girl can dream, right?

(Image via Bloom Town)

A couple of summers ago I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to visit Portland-based garden designer, Darcy Daniels‘, beautiful garden. Darcy transformed a basic, boring yard into a thriving garden when she bought her home. The coolest part of the garden is the side yard, which instead of the usual driveway or weedy grass, features tall zig zagging raised beds and a pretty crushed gravel pathway.

Darcy manages to pack a lot into a narrow area by utilizing the vertical growing space. The beds back into a fence that screens out the neighboring yard and does double duty as a trellis for climbing crops, including tomatoes, squash, and fruit trees. Such an inspiring use of what often becomes a throwaway space in most yards!