This is the pretty side of the garden, with the bean towers, the corn (this is flour corn, not "eating" corn), the zukes, and a few tomatoes and beans in the foreground--and a nice shot of the open meadow on the other side of the lane. These are the raised beds I built last year; the whole thing is fenced to keep the deer and bunnies from feasting on the veggies. It will be expanded this fall by another five beds. Lots of growing going on here, some of it productive. (The zukes seem to put out a great many more leaves than squash, but maybe things will change when the temps cool down a little here in the Hill Country.)
This is the working side of the garden (you can click on the photo and see a larger view). This is where the action is, where most of the real work goes on. What happens on this side of the fence makes the plants grow on the other side of the fence. From front to back, you can see grass mulch, leaf litter from the woods, dried cow manure, grass clippings, and one of the two compost bins. This is my "soil factory," where I mix up all the "extras" that give the veggies something to grow on. Our soil here is very alkaline, with clay. So the more compost I can dig into it, the happier the plants will be. I'm not a believer in buying a truckload of soil for the garden (anyway, it wouldn't be any better than what we have, likely), and I'm lucky to have three manure producers working away at manure production in the next pasture to the north (two cows and a sheep). I won't run out of soil amendments any time soon.
Today's the day that Rhys Bowen and I are having our conversation over at Helen Ginger's blog. Rhys is a Sister in Crime and a mystery author buddy. Both of us write British mysteries, and our conversation is about some of the things that have come up for us when we're working on our series. Join us at Helen's, leave a comment or a question, and I'll try to get back to you. Rhys is off on tour today, but she'll do her best to pop in. Thanks, Helen, for hosting us!
I'll have some more nice news about a writing project in another day or two, so check in and see what's going on.
Reading note. Nothing can grow unless it taps into the soil.--William Carlos Williams
