A Writer’s Garden–Making Garden Memories by Becky Van Vleet

Tags

A Writer's Garden, Becky Van Vleet, Children's Picture Book, garden memories, Talitha the Traveling Skirt

Welcome to A Writer’s Garden where writers who are gardeners or just love gardens will be sharing their garden and flower stories, as well as a bit about their writing.

Today’s writer/gardener guest is Becky Van Vleet, a gardner who loves to create memories. Welcome, Becky!

 

There are so many aspects to my gardening that I love. The sweet fragrance of my flowers. The amazing fact that my perennials know when it’s time to pop their heads up each year. Working my hands in the rich dirt in my vegetable garden and sometimes feeling a worm. Harvesting my herbs and veggies every summer for my family to enjoy. In fact, I would have to say that working in my flower and vegetable gardens is very therapeutic for me. I reap the pleasures and joys of gardening as I also deal with destructive hail and drought. (Note hail covering!)

Every spring I look forward to setting out my hummingbird feeder in anticipation of the hummers who will put on a sweet show for my husband and I to enjoy.

 

A few years ago, I started painting rocks with my grandchildren’s names to display in my front yard. My little Grands get excited when they come to visit and walk right past this visual of their special garden markers. When I’m tending to this section of my flower beds, I think about the stone markers in the Old Testament we read about in Joshua 4:5-7, and then I pray for my grandchildren.

 

 

 

In addition to my love of gardening, I especially enjoy creating and preserving family memories for the next generations. I have endearing memories of picking green beans in my grandmother’s garden in southern Indiana back in the 1960s. After we had a couple of sacksful, we would sit on her back porch and break the beans in preparation for cooking. We would converse about all kinds of things as we snapped away. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my grandmother was imparting life lessons to me—love your family, work hard, read your Bible, honor God, don’t cheat, be kind, and much more. We had no background music. We simply had the tranquility of the farm house, fresh air, and birds singing. Sweet memories!

So now this grandma likes to have my own grandchildren break green beans with me every summer as we snap and talk. I hope I am preserving my own memory and creating a new one for them!

 

 

 

About the Writer/Gardener

Becky Van Vleet is a retired teacher and principal. She and her husband make their home in Colorado Springs where Becky enjoys oil painting, hiking and biking, as well as gardening. Becky’s children’s picture book, Talitha, the Traveling Skirt, was inspired by a true family story to preserve a treasured family memory. Her first book has already won two awards and her second children’s book, also inspired by a true family story, is due to be released the end of the summer. Becky enjoys writing projects to preserve family memories.

Connect with Becky on her social media sites  Website:  Facebook: Instagram

 

Talitha, the Traveling Skirt

by Becky Van Vleet

Meet Talitha, a little plaid skirt that likes to travel. Through the years, she visits many two-year-old girls in a special family who wear her to get their pictures taken. But Talitha encounters problems when she least expects them. Filled with colorful and detailed illustrations, young children will delight in this heartwarming story about a little skirt’s adventures.

Want to read more about the traveling skirt or purchase it for the little girls in your family? You can find Talitha’s story at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Writer’s Garden–Me and My Garden, The Dearest of Friends by Tema Banner

Tags

A Writer's Garden, Garden blog, roses, Tema Banner

Welcome to A Writer’s Garden where writers who are gardeners or just love gardens will be sharing their garden and flower stories, as well as a bit about their writing.

Today’s writer/gardener guest is Tema Banner who is talking about embracing her garden spirit Welcome, Tema!

 

Me and My Garden, the Dearest of Friends

by Tema Banner

Herb Garden

You could say gardening is in my genes, but as a child, I tried to weed it out. My parents were organic before organic was cool. They refused to use insecticides, instead they ordered ladybugs from California to put on our fruit trees and their four children, of which I am number two, picked the beetles off the green beans.

I remember the exact moment when I crossed over from trying to weed gardening out of my life to embracing everything it represented: memories of my childhood, the deliciousness of homegrown food, the peace and comfort of being in the garden. I was still young at eighteen and had the opportunity to pick green beans with a friend’s mother. With the sun beating down on my head and the smell of earth wafting up my nose, I did a 180 and knew that garden was as deep in my soul as some of those weeds that seemed to go to China. Since that day I have loved it!

My garden is not on the same grand scale as my parents, we have raised garden beds for veggies, which are great because they are easier on your back and cut down on those pesky weeds. My parents didn’t plant flowers, there simply wasn’t time, they were focused on gardening for the purpose of supplementing our food stock; we canned or froze everything and years after I was out of my parent’s home, there were still cans of homemade applesauce on the shelf. While I love having the fresh veggies and have done some canning, it has been more a novelty than a necessity – with the COVID-19 event I am rethinking this strategy. Everywhere I have moved, I have tried to have some spot to garden whether it is a small herb garden, strawberries along the side of a patio, or pots filled with flowers.

Rose Garden

When my husband and I purchased the house where we now live, we finally had space for larger plots to plant veggies and a palate to design using flowers and shrubs. I knew the raised bed at the head of our driveway was destined to be a rose garden. I am still learning roses, but oh how lovely their scent, and their beauty – nothing like the artistry of our Creator! I hope when I get to heaven, the Master Gardener allows me to tend His garden. How about you? How did you become a gardener and what are some of your favorite garden memories?

 

About the Writer/Gardener:

Outside of writing, gardening is my greatest pleasure. Planting, watching the metamorphosis of the plants from seed to fruit, it is a wonderful picture of how God works in our lives. I write Biblical and historical romance and am currently working on a Biblical fiction series, Daughters of the King. My website is www.temabannerauthor.com and I may be followed at https://www.facebook.com/temabannerauthor/or https://www.instagram.com/temabanner/.

A Writer’s Garden–Pandemic Gardening by Rachel Sharpe

Tags

A Writer's Garden, Rachel Sharpe, raised bed gardens, Simple Misconception, vegetables

Welcome to A Writer’s Garden where writers who are gardeners or just love gardens will be sharing their garden and flower stories, as well as a bit about their writing.

Today’s writer/gardener guest is Rachel Sharpe, talking about the upside of Coronavirus on her garden. Welcome, Rachel!

 

A global pandemic. The very phrase elicits anxiety, panic, stress. People are furloughed. Schools are closed. A once fast-paced world has been stopped in its tracks.

I don’t think anyone was prepared for what would happen or what may come next when the dreaded Coronavirus made its way to the United States. I am doing my best to keep a positive attitude, stay safe, and make lemonade out of lemons. If not for myself, for my children.

One of my father’s favorite sayings is “Look for the good.” In everything in life, there is some good, no matter how hard it may be to find. Over the past few weeks, I have spent more uninterrupted time with my family than ever before. And it’s good. We are outside for most of the day. And it’s good. We have had video chats and game nights with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. And it’s good. Today, we began making preparations to finally start the vegetable garden we’ve always wanted. And it’s good.

As I type this, I see my son in his dad’s cowboy hat holding the tape measure as his dad lays the foundation for the garden and beside me, my daughter busily chatters about the vegetables she wants to plant.

“Maybe we can even plant some fruit trees?” she asks, a hopeful smile upon her sweet little face.

“Yes,” I agree. “That all sounds really good.”

 

About the Gardener/Writer

Rachel Sharpe is the author of Cold Ambition, Lost Distinction, Bitter Retribution, and Simple Misconception, all part of the Jordan James, PI series, a mystery series with sweet romance. Although born and raised in the South, “Yankee” relatives first led Rachel to historic New England, which she has come to consider her second home and is the setting for the series.

Rachel currently resides with her husband and children in the Greater New Orleans area where she and her children work together to maintain a simple garden.

Check Out Rachel’s Sites to Keep Up with Jordan James!!!

Twitter: twitter.com/RachelCSharpe

Simple Misconception

by Rachel Sharpe

When private investigator Jordan James returns home to New Orleans for Christmas, she never imagined her holiday could end with kidnapping and death. As she begins to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a childhood friend, she unwittingly stumbles upon a dangerous, international syndicate. With lives at risk and time running short, Jordan must find a connection between these seemingly unrelated events if she ever hopes to find her friend.

SIMPLE MISCONCEPTION, Available Now on Amazon

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Writer’s Garden–Building Foundations by Kathy Bryson

Tags

A Writer's Garden, Fantasy, Giovanni Haunts the Hospital, inside-out-gardening, Kathy Bryson, retention gardening, Texas Gardening

Welcome to A Writer’s Garden where writers who are gardeners or just love gardens will be sharing their garden and flower stories, as well as a bit about their writing. Today’s writer/gardener guest is Kathy Bryson, who is talking about gardening inside out for Texas. Welcome, Kathy!

 

Building Foundations

by Kathy Bryson

Life had been particularly challenging for everyone lately. Compared to many, yet another move on my part in the past year was no big deal. But when I ended up working from home at the onset of the pandemic, I had to take steps to settle in and settle down! Naturally I turned to the garden.

When you discuss gardening in the Hill Country of Texas, you hear a lot about drainage. Vigorous thunderstorms roll by between days of ninety degree weather and the soil is compacted clay. Water puddles, so houses are built on elevated lots and foundation issues are not uncommon.

Rain gardens then are the perfect solution. They go by different names – bioretention, mound planting, hugelkulter – but the basic idea is a sort-of inside out garden bed. Instead of filling a raised bed with dirt and topping it with mulch, you put mulch or even gravel down first, then layer in dirt. This creates a sort of pocket where water can collect ac act as a reservoir for plants. Considering that Texas temperatures don’t get below ninety from May through Oct, this opens up opportunity for a much wider range of plants, as long as they don’t mind wet feet.

So I started with the damp spot near the front door. Pulling back the grass was easy.

 

Someone had laid out a flower bed there earlier and the St. Augustine grass has simple put out runners over it. It hadn’t even rooted through the plastic weed barrier.

Laying out the bricks, mulch, then dirt was harder but only because those things aren’t light.

Vinca or periwinkles added the final touch of charm.

I suspect the backyard beds won’t be as easy. There’s a bit of a slope there to contend with. But I can’t wait to get in and start digging!

 

About the Writer / Gardener:

Kathy Bryson is an award-winning author of tongue-in-cheek fantasy. She’d like to say she’s climbed tall mountains, rappelled off cliffs, and saved small children, but actually she tends to curl up and read, is a life-long advocate of Ben & Jerry’s, and caters to 2 spoiled cats. She works regularly with student writing, so she can claim to have saved a few term papers.

Her most recent release is the 5^th installment in the adventures of a hapless med student caught between the twisted worlds of the supernatural and medical science.

In Giovanni Haunts the Hospital, Giovanni accidentally calls up Prohibition-era gangster ghosts trying to locate his elderly missing patient. Can he survive rotations and graduate, or will they take him for a little ride?

Book link –

 

Connect with Kathy at: Facebook  Twitter – website –

 

 

A Writer’s Garden—Finding #Peace in Mother Nature during #COVID-19 by Carole Ann Moleti

Tags

A Writer's Garden, Carole Ann Moleti, COVID-19 Garden, Fantasy, flowers, Garden blog, Nature, paranormal, Unfinished Business Series

Welcome to A Writer’s Garden where writers who are gardeners or just love gardens will be sharing their garden and flower stories, as well as a bit about their writing. Today’s writer/gardener guest is Carole Ann Moleti, who is talking about how her garden helped get her through her COVID-19 experiences this year.

Welcome, Carole, and thank you for your front-line service during this global pandemic.

This past winter was more like an endless spring of damp, dreary days with flooding rains. The camellia bloomed, blood red, during the final days of March.

Camelia

That was right about the time those of us in health care raced in blindfolded, with one hand tied behind our backs battle to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

In those early days, adrenaline pumping, I’d return home from what was supposed to be an 8-hour shift that lasted 10-12 hours. I’d pull into my driveway, and Mother Nature would welcome me home to my garden.

The world was silent to human ears, with New York City on PAUSE and battling a killer virus. But, like before we dominated the Earth, the flora and fauna breathed deeply of the fresh air and thrived.

By March 27, the chirping robins had returned, and were building their nests in the trees. The camellia was fading but I cut a bumper crop of daffodils and made nosegays with the grape hyacinths, which brightened my mood.

Daffodils and forsythia (upper right)

 

 

grape hyacinths and heuecera

 

 

 

 

My tulips did not fare well, with only four pale purple blooms, but the forsythia was a wall of bright yellow. Squirrels darted about. And there was not a single human sound, other than my waterproof clogs tapping the slate before I left them at the back door.

The streets were deserted, but nature didn’t care. There was no traffic, less smog, more parking and the sunrises and sunsets over the South Brooklyn waterfront conveyed peace and serenity moments before I entered the chaos that loomed beyond the door I was about to scan myself through.

May was soon gone, lost amongst 60-hour workweeks, and I never realized that Memorial Day weekend had passed. By June, the azaleas and irises were spent, and the mountain laurel, rhododendrons, and peonies were finally blooming.

peonies

The hydrangeas are in leaf. Who knows when their blossoms will emerge in this crazy year? I finally planted my vegetable garden.

hydrangea

The most amazing gift was the frog. We have lived in this house for thirty years. My young son had once hoped for a frog or toad, just like the ones in the legendary books by Arnold Lobel. We even had a toad house in hopes of attracting one, or both, but had no success.

Frog

As if it was waiting for curfew and COVID 19 restrictions to be lifted on June 8, as I walked past the pond, a frog leaped across my path. I thought it might be my imagination, but later I spied it on a rock. The next day, its eyes peeped out of the murky water, then disappeared. Hopefully it is here to stay. We all need health and peace and happiness.

Mother Nature has issued a stern rebuke. Human habits are driving many species to extinction, and we might be next unless we pay attention to the environment and take meaningful action to avert climate change.

We learned a lot about COVID 19 this spring, and about the best and the worst of human spirit. We’ll be better prepared for the next round, but hopefully the Earth can recover and we can avert another viral pandemic and violence epidemic.

Mother Nature spoke to me loud and clear this year, without saying a word. I just had to PAUSE to open my eyes and my heart to hear the message through the silence.

 

About the Writer/Gardener

Carole Ann Moleti lives and works as a nurse-midwife in New York City, thus explaining her fascination with all things paranormal, urban fantasy, and space opera. Her nonfiction focuses on health care, politics, and women’s issues. But her first love is writing science fiction and fantasy because walking through walls is less painful than running into them.

Excerpts of Carole’s memoir, Someday I’m Going to Write a Book: Diary of an Urban Missionary range from the sweet and inspirational in A Quilt of Holidays to the edgy and irreverent in Not Your Mother’s Book: On Being a Woman. She has a essay in the acclaimed Shifts anthology, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CB4XEIM/

and one in the forthcoming Impact: Personal Portraits of Activism due out September 2020.

Carole’s work has appeared in a variety of literary and speculative fiction venues. Short stories set in the world of her novels are featured in several of the Ten Tales anthologies. The Unfinished Business Series, a three volume paranormal romance, was published by Soulmate.

 

 

Social Media Links

Amazon:  Twitter @petitemeetstree  Website: Facebook

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#Nature #flowers  Unfinished Business Series #fantasy# paranormal

A Writer’s Garden–When a Garden Resembles a Manuscript by Gail Kittleson

Tags

A Writer's Garden, flowers, Gail Kittleson, Garden blog, Spring Garden, Until Then clean romance, World WAr II Fiction

Welcome to A Writer’s Garden where writers who are gardeners or just love gardens will be sharing their garden and flower stories, as well as a bit about their writing. Today’s writer/gardener guest is Gail Kittleson, who is sharing her North Iowa spring garden.

Welcome, Gail!

 

 

Right now, our North Iowa garden resembles a manuscript that’s underway but certainly not near completion. That’s the way of gardens—nothing is ever truly static. The good thing is, every day offers beauty, even if the plants or the weather take peculiar turns.

In May, the lilacs took precedence. Everything else remained brown most of the month, and looked pretty bleak. But the enticing scent of lilacs in bloom broke in, and their blossoms won our winter-weary hearts as they do every spring.

When we moved here fourteen years ago, the house had sat empty, and the previous occupants paid no attention to making this place pleasant to the eye. One of the first buildings in our town (1873, pretty old for Northern Iowa), the house was more of an eyesore.

An addition, a fence, and some planting created a courtyard. There, honeysuckle flowers’ sweet aroma attracts birds and bees right now.

A long narrow area along the south side has now evolved into a space that makes us smile. For the first few years here, this low area held puddles and weeds.

I honestly never foresaw making a path here, but the growing lilacs and spreading ground cover narrowed the space, and our trips back and forth to the garage created a natural one. Then a friend about an hour away showed me her lovely back yard, with limestone steppingstones. I brought the idea home and a couple of years later, voila!

Still a work in progress, and the secondary story of this manuscript is being written by the birds. They’ve taken over this new habitat and offer raucous cheer at five a.m., plus robins’ nests to watch.

Ever changing, beauty in every corner…that’s our garden in early June.

 

 

About the Writer/Gardener:

 

Gardening “grew” on Gail Kittleson, who writes World War II fiction. She’s always dabbled, but having lived long enough to see the consequences of planting a sprout or seedling, now spends more time thinking through her gardening decisions. Since victory gardens became so vital during the Forties, they play a role in several of Gail’s novels. She awaits the release of her first WWII non-fiction book, “The Food That Held The World Together.”

Connect with Gail at:

http://amazon.com/author/gailkittleson

www.twitter.com/GailGkittleson @GailGkittleson

@gailkittlesonauthor (Instagram)

While you wait on Gail’s newest release, check out her other books. Until Then is her last release.

Buy Link

 

 

A Writer’s Garden–Discovering the Garden with Mom by Virginia Davidson

Tags

A Writer's Garden, Anchored and Secure Devotional, flowers, Garden blog, Virginia Davidson

Welcome to A Writer’s Garden where writers who are gardeners or just love gardens will be sharing their garden and flower stories, as well as a bit about their writing. Today’s writer/gardener guest is Virginia Davidson, who be sharing about gardening with her mom and the love of gardening she passed on to her daughter.

Welcome, Virginia!

 

The rusty mailbox door creaks open as I reach my 5-year-old grubby hand in to grab the salt shaker. I run quickly to my mom who is bent over pulling weeds, and study her as she wipes a tomato on her pants before tasting. I follow suit by polishing my tomato on my favorite baseball shirt, take a bite, and shake some salt before diving back in for another. Memories of gardening with my mom are full of tattered strings, old beat-up jeans, dirty faces, giggles, and wheelbarrows full of produce.

I wish I could say I kept up gardening through the years. Somehow I stopped going out to join her. As a teenager, I would rather do dishes and watch her care for the plants than sit in the dirt weeding in the hot sun. I saw it as a miserable chore rather than special moments together reaping food and beauty through the season.

Thankfully she didn’t stop. My mother never gave up on passing the love of cultivating beauty every summer. Five years ago she began stopping by my home, pulling out weeds and turning forgotten sections of my yard to places of rest and loveliness/blooms.

I watched from the kitchen window with a kid on my hip and dinner on the stove until one day I joined her. She handed me a spade and began reintroducing me to the charm of gardening.

Today I tread lightly through the garden not only remembering the plant names, but the flowers that will come, and the moments they were planted, side by side with my mom.

Two creaky turquoise chairs sit in my perennial garden near the road where my mom and I rest our bodies.

 

 

 

 

The kids play dolls, ride bikes, and dribble the basketball next to us as we pull unwelcome visitors, and prune the returning blooms. Now it’s my turn to grow special memories with my children. And maybe this summer I’ll plant some tomatoes, find a rusty mailbox and salt shaker, and patiently pass on the beauty of planting to them.

 

About the Writer/Gardener:

Virginia Davidson is an author, speaker, and Wholly Loved Ministries’ team member who loves watching the green sprout forth in the spring through the dark and desolate ground. She enjoys the confident expectation of the blooms to come, and time spent with my family in the garden. Find her on Instagram at @ginnydavidsonspeaks – IG and online at http://virginiadavidson.com/.

 

Anchored and Secure: Thanks to Christ’s death and resurrection, we don’t have to stress, strive, or perform. We simply need to rest in what Christ has already done. That is when we begin to come; to live as He intended. That’s when we discover true and lasting freedom. This sixty-day devotional helps women reflect on God’s grace and the freedom of living deeply anchored in Him.

You can find Anchored and Secure: 60 Days of Resting in Grace devotional at Amazon

A Writer’s Garden–A Historic Peony Support from Catherine Castle

Tags

A Writer's Garden, Catherine Castle, flowers, peony stakes, romantic uspense, The Nun and the Narc

Welcome to A Writer’s Garden where writers who are gardeners or just love gardens will be sharing their garden and flower stories, as well as a bit about their writing. Today’s writer/gardener guest is Catherine Castle. She’ll be showing off the first peony blooms in her garden this year.

Hi, gardeners!

Earlier this year I showed you a picture of my peonies as they emerged from the ground. Knowing I had to stake them, I was on the search for staking methods. Most of the peony supports I found, that seemed strong enough to support the flowers, were very expensive. Then I came up the The Hildene Star method, using wooden stakes and twine. I was taken by the star that this method formed as a support. Since I had some four-foot high wooden stakes, and the hubby had some jute twine he was willing to contribute, we set out to stake my peonies. I guessed how long the stakes needed to be, and we cut them at two foot, since the plants are young and very short. Unfortunately, the stakes ended up much lower than I’d intended since they sank into the ground deeper than I’d anticipated. I should have cut them at three feet.

In the picture below you can see the star pattern woven in between the peony leaves and buds.

You can find out how to create this support at http://oldhousegardens.com/SupportingPeonies

The Hildene star is an historic method that is used at the Manchester, Vermont summer estate of President Lincoln’s son. I haven’t been to these gardens, but now that I’ve discovered them, I’d love to take trip some May or June to see 175-plus, herbaceous, mostly heirloom peonies.

I have three different kinds of peonies in this row of tiered beds. Two white Duchesse de Nemours, planted at the top and the bottom tiers, and two red peonies—Scarlet O’Hara and Karl Rosenfeld, which are planted in the two center beds.

The Scarlet O’Hara blooms in early spring. The Karl Rosenfeld blooms midspring and the white Duchesse de Nemours blooms late spring to summer. I planned the flowers to have blooms all season long.

The Scarlet O’Hara isn’t the typical peony you think about when you think peony. This bloom looks like a bright red poppy.

It rained 4 inches worth this past week and although the peony drooped during the rainstorms, it sprang back up, unlike the heavy-headed blooms of traditional peonies.

I can’t wait to see how the Hildene star works for my peonies. I ended up staking the last peony with a four foot stakes, after I saw how short the other stakes were. The four-footer stands up over the bush a bit, but it will be a good test of how high I really needed to make the stakes.

Do any of you grow peonies? How do you stake them?

 

About the Writer/Gardener:

Multi-award winning author Catherine Castle loves writing. Before beginning her career as a romance writer she worked part-time as a freelance writer. She has over 600 articles and photographs to her credit, under her real name, in the Christian and secular market. She also lays claim to over 300 internet articles written on a variety of subjects and several hundred poems. In addition to writing she loves reading, traveling, singing, theatre, quilting and gardening. She’s a passionate gardener whose garden won a “Best Hillside Garden” award from the local gardening club. She writes sweet and inspirational romances. You can find her award-winning Soul Mate books The Nun and the Narc and A Groom for Mama, on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Follow her on Twitter @AuthorCCastle, FB or her blog.

The heroine of Catherine’s inspirational romantic suspense, The Nun and the Narc, also loves gardening. It’s one of the jobs she does at the convent. Check out the book blurb below.

The Nun and the Narc

By Catherine Castle

 

Where novice Sister Margaret Mary goes, trouble follows. When she barges into a drug deal the local Mexican drug lord captures her. To escape she must depend on undercover DEA agent Jed Bond. Jed’s attitude toward her is exasperating, but when she finds herself inexplicable attracted to him he becomes more dangerous than the men who have captured them, because he is making her doubt her decision to take her final vows. Escape back to the nunnery is imperative, but life at the convent, if she can still take her final vows, will never be the same.

Nuns shouldn’t look, talk, act, or kiss like Sister Margaret Mary O’Connor—at least that’s what Jed Bond thinks. She hampers his escape plans with her compulsiveness and compassion and in the process makes Jed question his own beliefs. After years of walling up his emotions in an attempt to become the best agent possible, Sister Margaret is crumbling Jed’s defenses and opening his heart. To lure her away from the church would be unforgivable—to lose her unbearable.

 

Available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Writer’s Garden–Off to the Races by Christa MacDonald

Tags

A Writer's Garden, Christa MacDonald, Christian romance, clean romance, contemporary romance, Garden blog, seedlings, The Redemption Road, tomatoes

Welcome to A Writer’s Garden where writers who are gardeners or just love gardens will be sharing their garden and flower stories, as well as a bit about their writing. Today’s writer/gardener guest is Christa MacDonald who will be showing off this year’s seedlings.

Welcome, Christa!

 

Off to the Races

by Christa MacDonald

As much as the early part of the year seems to drag along garden-wise, it truly accelerates once spring gets here. All winter long I dream and plan for the next year’s garden. Whether seed catalogues, gardening vlogs, or actual TV shows, I absorb every bit of information that I can find. From perusing plant varieties and buying seeds to counting off square feet in back yard, I plot and plan in happy anticipation. This is the phase of gardening that makes the long winters here in New England bearable. When the seeds start arriving after January I line up the packets in rows by plant date and count down the days until it’s time to get my fingers in dirt.

This year I lost my mind and started six varieties of tomato from seed.

I have almost fifty tomato plants, and this is after I thinned them out twice while potting them from tray to pot to bigger pot. It’s insane, since I have room for just about twenty at a push. It’s nice to have the extras to give to family and friends. Along with the bevy of tomatoes, I’ve also got melons, chilies, and a few flowers growing. Everything else will be direct sow. The radishes and peas that I had planted outside have had a brush or two with the lingering cold. After our last frost date it will be everybody in the pool.

Once June hits and everything is up and running, it will be all go, go, go; weeding, harvesting, etc. The pace is steady in summer. You really can’t skip a day or you’ll be overrun. It actually reminds me of when I am working on a series in my writing life. I’ll be working on book two while still promoting book one and plotting book three. It’s hectic and demanding, but ultimately rewarding. I love that time in late summer where you can sit in the garden and appreciate the beauty. There’s less work at the end, more enjoyment. That’s true in the literary world as well. After my trilogy was completed in 2018 I began work on a new project, but there wasn’t a deadline looming, and so none of the pressure.

In gardening there are definitely deadlines. Ask anyone who missed the window on sowing peas or starting tomatoes. The deadlines are changeable as well. Have a mild winter and suddenly everything is two weeks ahead. A late spring holds everything back, freezing off buds and killing the seedlings of impatient early gardeners. In the garden you’re at the mercy of nature. In writing you’re at the mercy of your own nature. Without an editor prodding you along you have to find a way to keep yourself motivated and on task. For some it’s second nature; for me… I find a million reasons not to write and they’re all sensible. I’m so good at talking myself out of getting a thing done. I wish I could steal some of my garden-motivation, but it simply doesn’t translate.

The world is still on lockdown and existential angst is usually just a news story away, but my tomatoes are gorgeous. Joy fills my heart when I look at these beauties.

There’s just nothing like taking something from seed to harvest. It’s that ‘creator joy’. I wonder if God feels it when He looks at His creation. I was recently reading through my first book to look for quotes to use for a promo and I had one of those blissful moments where I read a line and asked myself, “I wrote this?” I don’t know which feeling is better, that or watching something that was grown from seed finally bloom. I’m hoping that after all my seedlings are in the ground I’ll have the motivation to write a few more of those. Happy gardening and writing, friends.

 

About the Writer/Gardener:

Christa MacDonald is a lifelong gardener and writer living in New England despite its terribly short growing season. She’s the author of the Sweet River Redemption contemporary Christian romance series. The final book in the series, The Redemption Road, is now available.

Social media link: Website

 

The Redemption Road

by Christa MacDonald

It’s redemption that he needs, and she’ll pay any price to help him find it.

As the new game warden in Sweet River, Alex Moretti is focused on enforcing Maine’s wildlife laws and little else. Moving from tragedy to a fresh start, all he wants is a way to fix his life in the tranquility of the north woods. Until he meets Annie Caldwell at Coffee by the Book. But his own bitter, dark life is a threat to Annie’s sweetness and light. It’s better for him to stay away.

Annie doesn’t know how to label her relationship with Alex, but she is determined to figure it out. After a few false starts and a kiss under the Christmas lights, their romance goes from fiction to fact. Annie has fallen hard. Then trouble shows up. Someone is stalking Alex, seeking to punish him for a mistake which ended in deadly consequences. When Annie becomes a target, he tries to push her away, but she won’t abandon him. Alex is desperate to keep Annie safe while he attempts to reconcile the past, but what he really needs is redemption. And she will risk her life to help him find it.

A Writer’s Garden–Gardening Starts in the Window by Pegg Thomas

Tags

A Writer's Garden, Christian fiction, Christian short stories, clean romance, hostorical romance, Pegg Thomas, planting, seedlings, Sweet romance, The Blacksmilth Brides

Gardening Starts in the Window

When you live in the far northern reaches of the U.S., you have to adapt your gardening techniques to accommodate the late spring. We generally have snow on the ground well into April. It’s a rare year that we can get into the garden before Mother’s Day, and usually we don’t transplant the seedlings out until after Memorial Day. I know! Half of you are almost done gardening by then! But we soldier on.

My planting schedule looks like this:

1^st Wed. in March – plant the sweet peppers and cayenne peppers

3^rd Wed. in March – plant tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussel’s Sprouts, and celery

2^nd Wed. in April – plant the cucumbers, pickles, zucchini, and winter squash

1^st Wed. in May – plant the pole beans and dill

 I start the plants in my living room bow window which—thankfully—faces south. As soon as most of the snow clears and it’s staying above freezing during the days, I set up my portable greenhouse with a heat lamp inside and move the plants out. I run the heat lamp on a timer to come on at dusk and turn off a couple of hours past dawn.

 I will transplant my tomatoes and peppers at least twice in this time period, moving them into larger pots and strengthening their root bases. I’ll transplant the cabbages, other brassicas, and celery once. The rest I start in their individual pods because they don’t like their roots messed with.

Rattlesnake beans

 By the time I move my plants into the garden, the tomatoes are usually in blossom, the pole beans are sending out their shoots, the vine crops are ready to trellis, and the cabbages and other brassicas are well into their 4^th or 5^th sets of leaves.

Cauliflower

I come from a long line of farmers—not my parents, but my grandparents on both sides—and I think gardening is in my blood. I can’t imagine not spending those hours with my fingers in the dirt, coaxing little plants into rows of canning jars or layers of freezer bags come fall.

About the Writer/Gardener:

Pegg Thomas lives on a hobby farm in Northern Michigan with Michael, her husband of *mumble* years. They raise sheep and chickens, plus keep a few barn cats and Murphy the spoiled rotten dog. A life-long history geek, she writes “History with a Touch of Humor.” Pegg is published in five Barbour inspirational historical romance collections, won the 2019 FHL Reader’s Choice Award, was a double-finalist for the 2019 ACFW Carol Award for novellas, and a finalist for the 2019 ACFW Editor of the Year. Pegg also works as the managing editor of Smitten Historical Romance, an imprint LPC with Iron Stream Media. When not working or writing, Pegg can be found in her barn, her garden, her kitchen, or sitting at her spinning wheel creating yarn to turn into her signature wool shawls.

https://PeggThomas.com

https://www.facebook.com/pegg.thomas

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/pegg-thomas

 

The Blacksmith Brides: 4 Historical Stories

Hearts Are Forged by the Flames of Gentle Love in 4 Historical Stories

Worth Fighting For (1774—Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) by Pegg Thomas
Talk of war has surrounded Meg McCracken, including her father and four brothers. Alexander Ogilvie doesn’t care about the coming war; his plans are to head west. When Meg comes to his smithy, sparks fly off more than the forge. But can they build anything during unstable times?

 

 

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