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!)
If you don’t yet have a copy of this book I wrote with my gardening friends Jean Ann Van Krevelen, Amanda Thomsen and Teresa O’Connor, here’s your chance to get one for FREE.
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!
Got Grocery Gardening?
UPDATE
Dawn at Owl Hollow News is the winner of the Grocery Gardening drawing. Congratulations, Dawn!
Robin
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.)
Robin
