While out and about today in Cincinnati I stopped by a local store called Half Price Books. The name pretty much says it all. They sell new and used books and when I get over to that part of town I like to stop by and check out their latest stock. Today I got lucky and found a gardening book I had been after for a while. “How to Grow More Vegetables: And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine” by John Jeavons. It goes into biointensive methods, planting in blocks vs rows, building the soil etc. It has LOTS of info on plant specifics, root depth, needs etc. I picked it up new for under $5. The entire trip was worth that book. I looked for “Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long” by Eliot Coleman but they didn’t have that one. They had another by the same author. Its one of those places where you have to check back often as the stock is never the same twice.
Every time I go to the garden I take my little digital camera with me just in case. Unfortunately (or fortunately perhaps) it seems like there just isn’t a lot going on right now. So hot and muggy. Yesterday it was in the 90s and so humid that a puddle of water that was spilled on the front (cement) porch hadn’t evaporated or soaked in 6 hours later. Tonight all I found interesting were these future raspberries. I stopped counting a 100 raspberries on a single cane.
Garden life fascinates me and I never know when something worth ‘shooting’ will show up. Things that a lot of people would consider gross just fascinate me to no end. Insects (even the pests), spiders, snakes, frogs etc. arouse a sense of awe and wonder in me. I’m like a little kid when I discover something new. I’m considering putting in a small pond in hopes of luring more wildlife. I would love to have tadpoles in the spring. On a farm where I used to live the frogs would lay eggs in any little puddle of water. The kids would then go about ‘rescuing’ them when their puddle was in danger of drying up. More than once we had frogs hopping through the house.