Chris McLaughlin is a California garden writer and author who has been gardening for over 35 years and became a Master Gardener in 2000. She is the home agriculture editor for From Scratch magazine, a staff columnist at Vegetable Gardener.com, and the Homesteading Guide at About.com. Chris' work can also be found in Urban Farm, Hobby Farm Home, The Heirloom Gardener, The Herb Companion, and Fine Gardening magazines. She is the author of "Vertical Vegetable Gardening", "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Small-Space Gardening", "Hobby Farms: Small-Scale Rabbit Keeping", "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Heirloom Vegetables", and "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Composting"; and her latest: "A Garden to Dye For". Chris and her family live in the foothills of Northern California's gold country, where they share their hobby farm with more critters than she'll admit to; including a handful of fiber animals and a rather large assortment of natural dye plants. When she's not writing, gardening, dyeing, hand-spinning, feeding critters, or chasing grandbabies, she's touching base at her community project, The Mother Lode Seed Library in Placerville, California. You can catch her blogging about modern homesteading and crafts at www.home-ag.com.