Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 A garden is a place where you can be alone and feel safe. It is where you can first grow something, and it is where you can experience the rush of discovery.

#2 My father was a Bronx boy who had been swept to the suburbs in the postwar migration. He was not much of a gardener, and the yard behind our house was a mess. My mother's father, who lived nearby, was constantly annoyed by the condition of our yard.

#3 Grandpa loved land, and he loved to spend his time and money on it. He would send his Italian laborers to replace our soil with his own, and he would constantly check on the condition of our house.

#4 Grandpa, who started out in the teens wholesaling produce in Suffolk County, managed to make money straight through the Depression. He then bought farmland at Depression prices and built a middle-class utopia in the suburbs.