Not much to see, is there? Three raised beds, two of them 4x8, the other 3x16, and the blue tubs in the middle, where a few tomatoes will live this fall--if I'm lucky. The beds are built of a mix of sand and humusy soil dug out of the spot where we've been dumping grass clippings and such for the last 10 years. Our native soil--what's left of it here--is an alkaline gumbo. It used to be much more fertile, before the cotton farmers denuded the topsoil and the cotton plants sucked up all the good nutrients. Not the most promising soil for a garden, which is why we put the extra work into bed-building. Everything you see here is recycled. The timbers around the beds used to be a corral fence, the chicken wire kept my chickens in, and the tubs came from a dumpster diving adventure. I won't be planting much until I get back from New Mexico in early September, but I'll keep you posted on the progress.
Oh, and that door in the top left that looks like it goes to a fruit cellar? That's Archie Bunker, where we hole up when tornados threaten. We had it installed after the F5 hit Jarrell, about 35 miles from here. It seemed like a very good idea, although we've only had to use it a couple of times. Archie could also serve as a fruit cellar, if the need (or desire) arises.
Are you keeping an eye on Dolly? Probably not--you've got better things to do, unless you live between Corpus and Brownsville. But we are, not because we want a hurricane smashing into the coast and causing lots of people lots of grief, but because we're desperate, desperate, simply desperate for rain. This time of year, systems like Dolly are about the only way we're going to get it. The way things look now, she might come in too far south to do us much good, but we'll be hoping, right up to the very last minute.
Reading note. Gardening . . . tutors us in nature's ways, fostering an ethic of give and take with respect to the land. Gardens instruct us in the particulars of place. They lessen our dependence on distant sources of energy, technology, food . . . --Michael Pollan