Lifescapes

Felon Melon

We had some fun on Facebook the other day. I've been babying this melon all summer--produced by a volunteer vine that popped up in a tub full of lettuce, beside the garden fence. It flowered well, but the weather got hot too quickly and only one fruit "set": this one, which was so heavy (3.5 lbs) that I tied it up in a sling to keep it from breaking its stem. Since I have no idea where the melon came from, I posted the photo on Facebook and invited people to submit names. There were some truly creative suggestions: Lettuce Eat Melon, Magical Mystery Melon, Cinder-melon ("at night, it turns back into lettuce"). The winners: Felon Melon (contributed by Taffy Hill, who gave it that name because I'm a crime writer); and Dolly Parton (contributed by Lindy Barnes). Why Dolly? Round. Ripe. Really.

A couple of days later, the Felon Melon (aka Dolly Parton) appeared on my menu. Delish--and even better after a couple of days in the fridge, where the plant sugars got sweeter and the flavor intensified. I've saved seeds. Too late for the fall garden, but we'll see if Felon Melon can offer an encore in the Spring 2011 garden.

More garden stuff. August is planting time, and I've been busy. Pole beans, bush beans, cantaloupe, cucumbers, kale, okra, zucchini, dill, tomatoes. Also pre-sprouting fall potatoes, although I don't hold out much hope of making a crop. I'm trying to be more faithful in keeping a garden journal, so I will have better records for later comparisons. My friend Dolly Knox gave me a pound of fresh lady peas (wonderful, delicate southern peas). Somehow, I forgot to plant them last spring, so I'm glad to have these. Some will go into a salad with my last two tomatoes and some sliced green bells. The peppers are producing very well this summer, and I've put quite a few in the freezer.

Book report. I know I'm sounding like a broken record here (I do lead a boring life!). But the book--The Tale of Castle Cottage--is going well: about half finished with it, aiming for early October. There's a kind of bittersweet quality to it for me, since it's the last book in the series. I'm saying goodbye to characters I've learned to love over the nine years I've known them. Beatrix and Will, of course. But also the villagers, and especially the children--Jeremy, Deirdre, and Caroline, who are beginning to grow up and enter their adult lives. I'm also aware that the book is set in 1913, only a year away from the beginning of the Great War, which irrevocably changed all their lives. When the book comes out, I think I'll put up a page or two online, with some thoughts about what might have happened to all these wonderful people.

Reading report. Lots of interesting stuff this week. I bought an iPad, installed both Kindle and iBook apps, and am using it as an ebook reader, mostly. I like it very much--although it wasn't the easy set-up I expected. Not Apple's fault: I had an old copy of iTunes on my computer, and the update didn't install correctly. Just started James Speth, The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability. Long title, challenging read. I also have a biography of Abigail Adams--looking forward to it.

Print reading: I just finished Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World, by Stan Cox. Really NOT a comfortable read, since (like lots of other people, particularly in the southern tier of states) I am addicted to A/C. But after this book, I can tell you that it will never be "invisible" to me again, and I will use it much more carefully and deliberately. Read this book only if you are a serious enquirer into our energy predicament.

I also ordered Carol Deppe's Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties, as a garden reference. Browsing through it with excitement. I see veggie experiments in my future.

Reading note. When the crisis occurs, the actions taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, and to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.--Milton Friedman, quoted by James Speth in The Bridge at the Edge of the World

Golden Jenny

In my 2009 garden, I raised several Golden Jennys, a melon was developed by Illinois grower Merlyn Niedens. The seed came from Baker Creek, in Mansfield MO, one of my favorite seed providers, along with Southern Exposure. (Mansfield also happens to be the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder, as you may remember.) The Jennys did well, although they had their share of pill bug attacks. Everything in my 2009 garden had to fend off pill bugs last year, I think because it was so hot and dry that the bugs flocked to the garden, the only half-way damp spot for miles around.

I saved some Jenny seed, planted it this spring, and am now finishing up the harvest. This one (pictured) is only about a pound--or was, before I ate a slice. Most weigh in around two pounds. All are sweet and delicious. I've saved seed from the largest and am trying for a fall crop--doubtful that they'll make before frost but it won't hurt to try.

Also planted this week: Hubbard baby green squash, McCaslan pole beans, Blue Lake bush beans--all "heritage" seeds, meaning that they're not hybrids. Okra is up and thriving, bell peppers are producing well, in spite of the heat. I'm always looking for open pollinated varieties that do well in heat/humidity.

Book report. Moving along with The Tale of Castle Cottage--not quite halfway through. Rats are the animal arch-villains in this book, and there's a dragon. I'm having a little trouble with organization, though. Everything has to get wrapped up in this last book of the series. Seriously. It is. When it's finished (maybe by early October?), I can take a little break. Up next: another Pecan Springs book, this one featuring Sheila Dawson--as well as China and Ruby, of course. But that book isn't due until the end of March, so I'll have some time to catch my breath. And clean house. The dust and dog-fur bunnies are about to overtake us.

Peggy has posted the September/October calendar--three Texas book events, in Houston, Lake Travis, and Elgin. If you're in the neighborhood, make a note of the times/places. Because of the heavy writing schedule this year, I've cut back on travel. But I'll be doing a blog tour in September, to celebrate the launch of The Tale of Oat Cake Crag. There's a chapter on the book page--take a look. And watch for the announcement of the blog tour, coming in another couple of weeks. We'll have prizes, naturally. Hope you'll ride along for the full tour.

My second memoir, An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days, will be out in mid-September, as well. You can read an excerpt on the book page.

What I'm reading. I've reviewed Empires of Food: Feast, Famine, and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations. If you're interested in the future of our industrial agriculture, you'll want to read this book (and then get serious about turning your lawn into a garden). I'm now reading The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World Without Ice, by Peter Ward, a paleontologist who has studied ocean levels and mass extinctions during the earth's long history. When he says we face a dramatic increase in sea levels, he knows what he's talking about.

Earth Matters. The Flooded Earth takes on an added urgency because of what happened to the Petermann Glacier in Greenland last week. Did you read about the enormous chunk that broke off? The rise in ocean levels concerns all of us, everywhere, whether we live along the coast or not. On Facebook the other day, someone wrote that "humans will adapt, just as they always have." Indeed, humans did adapt to rising sea levels at the end of the last Ice Age. But we don't live in huts and villages that we can pack up and tote inland, as our ancestors did, to escape the rising waters. Every country on earth has invested enormous amounts of money in coastal cities and their infrastructures, and their inundation will be an incalculable loss--of life and property. If you'd like to join the fight against the human causes of global warming, check out 350.org for ways you can help.

Reading note.  We must go through a natural revolution if we are to survive on earth. We need to change people's perceptions. If there's no environment, there's no human race. We are in a state of global denial.--Ted Turner

Hotter than hell

Garden report. I know, I know. It's just as hot here as it is in your garden (maybe hotter: 102 yesterday). But the Travis County Ag Extension planting calendar (my bible, so helpful) suggests that it's time to get the fall garden started.

So the spring garden plants are now in the compost--except for the sweet potatoes (lower right), green peppers, a few zukes, and melons. I've pruned the tomatoes back to give them a second lease on life, and am pinching back any blossoms: too hot for to set fruit. Turned the beds, added compost and "new" dirt from my dirt/cow manure pile, and seeded some beans, okra, eggplant (probably too late), and tomatoes (maybe not too late, but nearly). I'm sprouting seed potatoes that I held over from the spring crop, which I dug in May.

This fall, I'm focusing on seed saving. I've always done a little of this but want to learn/do more. So everything I'm sowing is open-pollinated, not hybrid. If these are new terms for you, here's a good explanation. My goal for the 2011 spring garden: at least 50% of it grown from seeds saved from this fall. I have no idea whether this is feasible. Some plants don't set seed until very late in their cycle (carrots, for instance), so I won't have that seed. But I have to shoot for something, so there it is.

Book report. I'm working on the final book in the Cottage Tales series, The Tale of Castle Cottage. This is the house that Beatrix and Willie Heelis lived in during the 30 years of their marriage (1913-1943), and where Beatrix died. I've never deliberately written a "final" book in a series (Bill and I decided to end the Robin Paige series after we wrote Death on the Lizard), and I'm finding it quite a challenge. There are lots of loose plot ends that need to be tied up, and plenty of characters who have to be accounted for, one way or another. You've probably heard me say this, but I think of a novel series as one long novel, broken into chapters (each book a chapter). Writing the last chapter brings up a host of interesting problems for me. Do remember that The Tale of Oat Cake Crag will be out in just a few weeks. Signed copies are available from my website, with proceeds going to Story Circle, as usual.

More book news: The Dahlias are gathering up good reviews of their first book. Honestly, you'd think they hung the moon, the way they're carrying on about it! Here's another one, just popped up today. Watch the website, Twitter, and Facebook for news about upcoming book drawings.

Speaking of drawings, congratulations to Patt Tate, who won the copy of Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, a giveaway from my publisher, Penguin, which celebrated its 75th anniversary last week.

Reading right now. People ask, so here's what I'm reading this weekend: Empires of Food, by Evan Frasier and Andrew Rimas (very, very good) and Anya, by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer (for SCN Reading Circle on Monday). Recently reviewed: Real Life Journals, by Glen Diehn, and Diet for a Hot Planet, by Anna Lappe.

Earth matters. If you haven't read Bill McKibben's Huffington Post article, "We're Hot as Hell and We're Not Going to Take It Anymore," please do. "The task at hand," McKibben says, "is keeping the planet from melting. We need everyone -- beginning with the president -- to start explaining that basic fact at every turn."

So read his article, then sit for a moment and think how you can start explaining that "basic fact" to people you know. Then leave a comment and share what you're doing and how people are responding. If we join hands and raise our voices together, our message will be stronger. Maybe we can even get the president to stop thinking politics and start thinking about the planet.

I take this task--doing whatever I can, no matter how small, to keep the climate as stable as possible--to be the most urgent business of my lifetime. I hope you'll take it to be yours.

Reading note. Mostly, we need to tell the truth, resolutely and constantly. Fossil fuel is wrecking the one earth we’ve got. It’s not going to go away because we ask politely. If we want a world that works, we’re going to have to raise our voices.--Bill McKibben