The more typical summer flower-fare, available at farmers markets – still, very nice and very August.

I love the summer squash variety called ‘Zephyr’, it’s the one with the blossom-end tips which look as if they were dipped in green tea.

Early harvest of Ginger Crisp Apples. I had to get some of these.

OF course, the omnipresent Heirloom Tomatoes.

So what to make for dinner? With the purchase of some organic grass-fed ground beef, some Vermont Chedder, Goat Cheese, Sweet Corn, Baby White Turnips, and a fresh Ciabatta bread – I just opted on the carb-overload, since it was the weekend, and I could not decide which item should be refrigerated! Here, a simple wood-grilled burger with chedder cheese, a cup of buttered baby white turnips , some sweet corn with French Sea Salt, goat cheese and butter, and a few Russian Fingerlings, all waxy and roased in virgin olive oil, an heirloom red garlic, and served with some fresh, chopped mint from the garden.

The post Trip to the Organic Farmers Market- Amherst, MA appeared first on Growing With Plants.

OK, it’s not about plants, but it is about design. I thought I would share that my book is out, globally now, I think. BEYOND TREND – How To Innovate In An Over-Designed World by Matt Mattus hit’s the shelves in bookstores and your fav. online book stores from Borders to Amazon to Barnes and Noble in the States, to Kinokuniya in Japan, and Asia, David and Charles in the UK, and, well, it seems most major retailers from Wal Mart to Target. ( eeek ).

I guess it’s great, and it sure feels nice to have a summer with some free weekends! Although, I am starting my gardening book, which I want to be unique, modern and different, so it’s not like I actually have all of this free time!

A little about BEYOND TREND.

I was asked by the publishers of ID magazine, HOW magazine and PRINT magazine, F & W Publications ( also the publishers of HORTICULTURE now, strangely enough!) to write a book about design trends and the future of design, something that I speak about at design conferences, and what I do, at Hasbro, as a Visual Brand Strategist.

The result, this little hardcover book with over 200 color images of everything from Sir Norman Foster’s architecture to Zaha Hadid’s renderings for the 2012 Olympics to Hand bag designer Kate Spade and everything in between. Visual design today is becoming boring, as is gardening, I must say. We live in a world where we are obsessed with the idea of ‘New’, and trends seem to come and go faster than ever before. As a trend hunter, I was being asked, “what is next?”, and after traveling the world, I had to say ” not much”. But that was not the entire story.

I love design, I love designing, and I was still, creating new. I was still finding some hope, but how could this be?

BEYOND TREND examines my journey through this realization of discovery. As I edited the visual sameness searching for the next, hot color. What I discovered surprised me. Maybe you will find the read and the visual ride exciting too.

Maybe you won’t even care, but there is an amazing link between Biology, Philosophy, and design. It’s what we humans, do.

So forgive me for pitching my book on this gardening blog, but I just thought that some of you might be interested. After all, plants are pretty visual, too!

Thanks for reading Growing With Plants, its; always nice to read your comments, even though I rarely can figure out how to reply with my Mac! I do read everything you say, and appreciate the growth in readership.

People are saying some nice things about my book, like Julia Rothman, and Jessica Gonacha.

The post Sweet-My First Book is Out – BEYOND TREND appeared first on Growing With Plants.