Garden of Eatin': A Woody Creek couple’s edible landscape feeds the creative process

Ascend a long, winding road in Woody Creek, turn up a steep driveway and you’ll find yourself in front of a reclaimed-wood residence, surrounded by an oasis of flowers and trees. The 17-acre estate is owned by visual artist Isa Catto and her husband, Daniel Shaw, a writer and musician. The couple are philanthropists and creators, and their contributions to the arts community include turning their luscious property into an annual retreat for established and aspiring writers from all over the world.

From May through October, six scribes are awarded, through an intensely curated process, a month-long residency from the nonprofit literary organization Aspen Words. The lucky recipients are housed in a cozy renovated barn adjacent to the main house. For four weeks, they enjoy the gift of time and space to dig into their work, uninterrupted by the responsibilities of their daily lives. They write and sleep in a bucolic setting situated at 8,000 feet, with views of the highest peaks in Aspen.

In the barn, the refrigerator is pre-stocked with food, with one notable exception: produce. Rather, these literati literally get to handpick an array of fresh ingredients from the garden right outside their door.

The one-acre plot is planted and tended to by Catto. “It’s another way of welcoming people,” she says. “A garden says, ‘We care about you.’ It goes along with the gift of space; it’s a gift for the table.”

In spring and summer, Catto takes her talents outside and becomes a sculptress of the land, caring for the flowers that grow in terraced beds encircling her house, and cultivating two vegetable gardens that serve as living art. “I really like growing things. My garden is my outdoor studio and part of my creative practice,” she says. Her experiences digging into the earth and producing food aren’t dissimilar from what the writers are seeking and, hopefully, finding; a sense of being present in one’s own life, and with one’s art.

Catto doesn’t necessarily grow easy bounty and diversity is the basis of her vegetable garden, which she starts in hoop houses. She calls her Minnesota Midget Melons—an heirloom variety of cantaloupe—a triumph at this altitude, due to their preference for a hot climate and a long growing season. Romanesco forced her to deal with invading bugs (she eschews chemicals). Many of the varieties she grows read like carefully crafted descriptions from a novel: Howden pumpkins, Siberian kale, Chioggia beets, watermelon radishes. Tucked in between the rows are scarlet runner beans and nasturtiums.