If it weren't for the patch of blue overhead, you might not realize you were sitting in Mary Tramelli’s garden and not her home. Colors, textures and ambience flow so perfectly from the inside to the outside, it’s hard to tell the difference.

It was the stucco walls, tile roof and Mediterranean feeling of the residence that drew Mary and her husband, Dan, to their Richmond Heights home 30 years ago.  Through the years they’ve added on and raised three sons within the walls, all the while keeping the rustic, Italian ambience of the home intact.

“The tomato nicknamed 'love-apple' becomes reality with the heartbreaker tomato, a cherry tomato with heart-shaped fruit. Heartbreaker has excellent vigor and produces rich-tasting hearts. The skin is soft, plus the fruit is juicy with the perfect sweet/sour content. Heartbreaker can be used as a snack, for cooking and salads or to decorate your dish for a fun and unique look.” ~ Ann Lapides, Sugar Creek Gardens.
 

Many of us are likely already mulching our gardens and landscaping with wood chips, grass clippings and leaves, spreading them on top of the soil for insulation and to save water, reduce weeds and prevent erosion. While a huge help above ground, mulching doesn’t address the nutritional needs of the soil underneath the surface.

Milagros Figuero has long been the heart of her family. As a young woman in the 1960s, she was at her husband’s side helping to run the family farm on a plateau along Spain’s Duero River in the now-famous Ribera del Duero region, where the main crop is the Tempranillo grape.   

Novus International, St. Charles, MO. 
Photography by SWT Design and Jim Diaz, Suite D Studio

Whatever you do, don’t call Tom and Tricia Reay’s inspiring post-and-beam river residence a log cabin – “It’s a house,” says Tom of the 45-by-50-foot barn he and his wife deconstructed, then rebuilt on a vacant three-acre plot just 200 feet from a meandering bend in the mighty Missouri River.