A Writer’s Garden–Pandemic Gardening by Rachel Sharpe

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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–In the Garden with Author Larynn Ford

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A Place to Belong, A Writer's Garden, Larynn Ford, raised bed gardens

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 gardens—aka their books.

Today’s guest is Larynn Ford. Welcome, Larynn!

 

Hey Catherine! Thanks for having me on your gardening blog today. Spring is finally here, and gardening is in the air so I’m putting the writing aside for a few hours to get some dirt under my fingernails.

A couple of years ago, I decided a raised bed filled with nice, rich top soil would be easier than begging someone to till or plow up a garden spot for me. I did a little research into materials to outline my bed and went with cement blocks. They were easier to handle one at a time than the cross ties I had used years ago and more durable. Now, forty blocks and about fifty-five bags of topsoil later, I’ve had some success with a few veggies.

On March 25, my mama turned 85 years old but is nowhere near ready to settle down in a rocking chair on the porch. She wants to do a little gardening herself and got an idea using wooden shipping pallets filled with soil for her vegetable garden. It turns out the pallets are not so easy to find so I suggested as a birthday present, I would put together a bed like mine.

She had a stack of unused blocks, so we went to work. Her bed turned out to be about 4’x13’ but my guess-timent of twenty bags of topsoil to fill the space fell a bit short. As you can see, we didn’t let that stop us. Adjustments were made.

 

So far, she has a bell pepper and three tomato plants with plans to put a few yellow squash and cucumber seed in the ground next week. I have my fingers crossed we’ll be enjoying a skillet of her stewed squash and onions real soon.

Meanwhile, it’s back to writing and promoting for me. Here’s my latest release, A Place to Belong.

 

 

 

He’s focusing on the future. She’s searching for her past. While dodging her would-be captors, they find they are purr-fect for each other.

Look for A Place to Belong at Amazon

 

 

 

 

About the Writer/Gardener

Larynn Ford began reading romance in her early teens and became interested in writing in high school. She’s a daydreamer and a romantic who is intrigued by the paranormal and loves to let her mind wander, always searching for a happily ever after ending to her dreams.

She’d love to hear about your gardening adventures. You can find her here:

Facebook: Website: Twitter: @LarynnFord

Happy gardening and reading.

Larynn

A Writer’s Garden–Catherine Castle’s Spectacular Raised Beds

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A Writer's Garden, Catherine Castle, Garden blog, garden pictures, raised bed gardens, The Nun and the Narc

 

Spectacular Raised Beds

Disney Epcot Flower and Garden Show Urban Gardening raised bed display

This past May I went to Disney World in Orlando Florida. Epcot was having their annual garden show and I saw some pretty neat displays. Every year they have a different focus and this year a lot of their special displays focused on Urban Gardening. Raised beds were a part of the urban gardens. Raised beds allow you to choose the best soil possible, provide excellent drainage and are easier on your back.

I’m not new to the concept of raised beds. In two of the homes I’ve owned I’ve employed raised beds. The first house where I used the raised bed method, I even towered the beds on top of each other.

First my husband built a 4×8 foot bed. Then we built two 4×4 foot beds and stacked them on top of the 4×8 foot bed at an angle so that smaller triangular beds were created at the ends and center of the larger bed. Not satisfied with the height, I had him build two more squares to fit on top of the 4×4 beds. We laid these squares on the diagonal, creating four more small triangular beds at the corners of each section. I have a picture of the beds somewhere, but haven’t been able to find them, so I substituted this diagram of what the stacked beds looked like from the top.

To help you see the layers, I filled the first layer of the bed with purple flowers, the second tier with pink flowers, and the top tier with a yellow flower. The bottom corner sections were large enough to hold a tomato plant or several flowers or smaller veggies.

I knew my knees were going due to arthritis, so in my current home, which is all hillside, we tried to circumvent the issue by building raised beds around the entire house at a height I could sit on and reach into the beds. We chose to create them from stone blocks so they would be more durable and would look nicer. Double bonus: the year we put them in both my husband and I had some pretty nifty biceps from lifting all that rock.

south patio raised bed

West tiered beds at front of house

 

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north raised beds

There are only a few spots in my garden where I cannot sit and garden: the hillside, the deck beds, and a few places on the beds on south side of the yard.

north deck beds

 

 

 

 

 

 

In hindsight we should have terraced those 12 years ago, but for some crazy reason I thought my body would last forever. Silly girl. Now the back is going and I have to figure out a new way to garden. But I’ll talk more about how I’m solving that problem in a later post.

In the meantime, I urge you to try some raised garden beds. Not only are they easier to work in, they’re easier to keep out the weeds, because if you construct them right (no wider than 4 foot) you can work from the sides. You never have to compact the soil by walking on it. That makes pulling those pesky weeds much easier.

 

Have you ever used raised beds to garden?

About the Author:

Catherine Castle an award-winning author whose book The Nun and the Narc won two awards. Catherine not only loves to write, but is passionate about gardening quilting, singing, and composing music. Her garden won the Shaker Farms Garden Club’s Best Hillside Garden award in 2009. Her book Nowadays she spends a lot of time fighting weeds.