I’m Gayla Trail-Risk, an artist and writer with an education and background in fine art, cultural criticism, and ecology. I started writing about my life as an urban garden in early 2000 at YouGrowGirl.com and eventually left a career as a graphic designer to work full-time as a writer and photographer. Over the years, I have contributed words and photographs to many publications as well as travelled around Canada and the US speaking and conducting workshops on gardening, preserving, garden to table cooking, writing, and art-making. I have written, photographed, and designed several best-selling garden books including You Grow Girl: The Groundbreaking Guide to Gardening, Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces, Easy Growing: Organic Herbs and Edible Flowers from Small Spaces, Drinking the Summer Garden: Homegrown Thirst Quenchers, Concoctions, Sips, and Nibbles, Grow Curious: Creative Activities to Cultivate Joy, Wonder, and Discovery in Your Garden, and Grow Curious: A Journal to Cultivate Wonder in Your Garden.
For nearly 30 years I lived in Toronto, Canada, with my partner Davin, tending gardens anywhere I could: a rooftop, a community garden, Guerrilla street garden, yard share, and finally a backyard rental that I made into a flourishing ecosystem. I have always been a renter, and in 2021, we were pushed out when the owner decided to sell, an experience shared by many in recent years. We now live in the Niagara Region in a small town on Lake Erie with nearly a half-acre yard!
What will you find here?
As a life-long urbanite, it’s thrilling to find myself living alongside so much natural space and wildlife. Follow along as my partner and I convert this massive into a thriving tallgrass meadow, wetland, and Carolinian zone ecosystem. We also want to build a natural pond, expand the garden beds to grow more food, herbs, and plants for natural dyes and art-making, and so much more.
I write about my experiences growing food, creating habitat, and foraging for edible plants, medicinal herbs and natural art supplies. Expect to also find recipes, preserving, making paper from plants, dyeing, weaving, and basketry. Despite the space, I’m still growing in pots and have decades of experience growing in containers, raised beds, as well as in the ground. Sometimes I share my observations on the nature I experience here in the garden and in wild spaces beyond. I believe that gardening is political and I explore the intersections between the garden and the social world as well as write personal stories about my experiences as a gardener with chronic illness. The garden has taught me countless lessons about life. I don’t plan to ever stop learning.
