Pardon me while I open the Department of Shameless Promotion. Did you know that Grocery Gardening is on not one…not two…but THREE Amazon best seller lists? The reviews (not all of them from my friends) have also been positive. (My mother is so proud!)
Leave me a comment to this post on or before Friday, March 5, and you’ll be entered into the drawing. When you leave your comment, please answer one of these questions:
- How, if at all, do you read other comments on blog posts? Do you read them before responding? Never read them? Something else?
- After commenting, do you subscribe to the follow-up comments on that post?
- Do you return to a blog post after commenting to see what other people have had to say?
Your responses will be most helpful in helping me to deal with the comments all the very kind people leave here at Bumblebee. I always read every comment and love them. I go through phases when I respond. Then I think “No one is looking at my responses” so I stop. But then I feel guilty and start responding again. So, help me out, okay? It’ll give me more time for grocery gardening!
It is a season of changes. Not only is the weather cooling, life is changing here.
Benjamin, my only child (my baby!), has gone off to college at The Citadel. He is the third generation on his dad’s side to attend college there. When he graduates, he will wear “The Ring” with his dad, uncles, great uncles and cousins. He knew what to expect going there. He is well-prepared for the challenge. And he seems to thrive on the manly camaraderie of the place.
That still didn’t stop me from crying for pretty much the first week while he was gone. The tears were drawn from a combination of missing him, worrying about him and being disoriented by the new direction of my life as an empty-nester.
Sweet autumn clematis blooms over the garden gate in September
I have stopped crying now, but am still trying to navigate a life with a 50% reduction in the number of men I need to take care of on a daily basis.
In other changes, Harry has left private practice and gone back to work for the government. The book I was co-writing this summer, Grocery Gardening, is finally off my desk. The six new baby chicks will be laying in about another month–leaving us with 10 – 12 eggs a day to dispose of. And I have major new work and writing assignments to keep me busy.
Oh, the garden?
Garlic chives and pineapple sage duke it out in the herb bed
I can’t say this has been my most productive or meticulous garden year. There were so many distractions and challenges that kept me out of the garden. Still, Mother Nature was forgiving for just this year. The work from past years has paid off, as perennials continued to bloom, flowers to re-seed and the overall bones of the raised beds, fences and arbor to hold it all together. I don’t think I can continue this type of neglect next year and still hold my head up as a gardener though.
The hakuro nashiki willow standard needs a haircut--but then it ALWAYS seems to need a haircut. The tuteur is covered with malabar spinach and scarlet runner beans.
Now, as weather cools and all these darned changes slow down just long enough for me to catch my breath, I am enjoying being out in the garden, putting in fall vegetables and tidying up for the winter to come.
I just broadcast a mix of lettuce seeds for this pretty little bed. What a treat to pick our salads each night.
I’m actually looking forward to winter now. I have a fancy new cold frame to put together this weekend. I’m setting up the light garden in the basement to grow microgreens. Cooking projects, sewing projects, writing projects and, of course, visits to The Citadel and Ben’s visits home are going to keep me busy.
That's amaranthe leaning against the tuteur where the henryi clematis grows.
Overall, I’m still living the good life. It’s a life of transitions, but it’s a good life.
(You can click on an image for a larger version of the photo.)
I’m going to call my next book Why Bad Things Happen to Good Gardeners.***
The first chapter will be entitled “Sh*t Happens and Mother Nature is on Vacation.” It will be an indignant rant about how disease, pestilence, drought, flood and other natural disasters inevitably happen to every gardener sooner or later.
I will use my own experiences as examples. I will discuss how my tomatoes have fursarium wilt—for the second year in a row, despite rotating them to an entirely new location where tomatoes have never gone before. I will describe how a legion of leaf-footed bugs decimated my tomatillos and sweet autumn clematis last year and how I haven’t seen a single one this year. I will show photos of my monarda blooming with powdery mildew.
And let’s not forget the roses, otherwise known as black spot on a stick.
The title of the second chapter is currently up in the air, but I’m considering something such as “Plants Have Loved and Lost” or “Emergency Rooms I Have Seen, Courtesy of My Fiskars Pruners.”
*big sigh*
As I was watering for hours and hours today (see chapter on drought), I was wondering to myself, “What would I do if I didn’t garden?’
Being fairly obsessed with productivity and in love with checks in little boxes on a to-do list, I would probably do something useful. But what?
I’m not considering giving up gardening. This is more like an intellectual exercise I do when I get frustrated. What would you do?
***Why do I say “next book?” Because, yes, I am writing a book. To be precise, I’m co-authoring a book currently called Grocery Gardening. You’ll be hearing more about it in coming months, but you can reserve your copy now by ordering here.
It was nearly 100 degrees while I was working outside today. I have a sliver of wood in my big toe, poison ivy and am covered in bug bites. Sometimes I think I need an easier hobby.
Holy moly, it’s hot. I was just outside providing drought assistance to the suffering greenery. Now excuse me while I cower here in the air conditioning for a bit before making dinner.
It has been such a busy work week. I have been chained to the desk. I can’t wait until the weekend. I have tomatoes to stake, flowers to plant, garlic to harvest, strawberries to keep in control, some clipping and pruning and, who can forget, weeding!
My friend Helen Yoest, from Gardening With Confidence, will be here in about 10 days. I plan to pick her brain and get advice about some real problem areas here. I was hoping for more time to prepare for an esteemed guest, but that’s just not to be. She’ll have to take me as I am.
You can’t pick up the newspaper or turn on the television without hearing more about the Gulf Coast oil disaster.
The wildlife population will be devastated for years, perhaps decades, to come. You can help with the conservation, monitoring and aid to the birds by donating to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This is the top school and science center for birds in the U.S. and sponsor of many, many programs, including citizen scientist-type programs. If you cannot afford to donate, it’s a great place to just be informed or to get involved through volunteer activities you can do in your own back yard.
Over dinner we were talking about blast-from-the-past music and then blast-from-the-past comedy. Harry and I explained how we would play stacks of 45s on the turntable to my 19-year-old son. And I remembered my parents’ Dick Newhart album and “Driving Instructor.” And while we were talking about old comedy, who can forget, George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words?” Ah, the things I am teaching my 19-year-old son! Yes, I taught him about seven dirty words!
I am also grateful that the chickens had walkabout time without destroying my garden this afternoon.
And I am grateful for that arms and shoulders P90X workout, although I will be sore again tomorrow.
