About Me

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I am a mother, a teacher, and a nature lover. I grew up on a mountain we called Owls' Knob in the Ozarks of Arkansas. The first seven years of my life were spent living in a log cabin, far from a store or streetlight, without electricity or running water and after twenty years of travel, I returned to the abondoned homestead. Now I live on a hill by a small lake and work at a public garden. These are stories about nature written from a women deeply influenced by place.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Bad Gardener

I have been a bad gardener lately, a bad writer too! I have been too busy to do either! Recently life has been calming down a little so I hope to write a little more. Maybe by next spring I can get my garden to be bursting again.

While I wasn't watering my garden through the heat of summer, a tomato sprouted in my greenhouse! Tomatos are sometimes hard to grow even when you are trying, so this surprised me. It had sprouted among some grass in pure clay soil! I didn't have much faith in the little sprout. I had already given my garden up to nature and the plants would have to rely on rain to survive. In the greenhouse, where rain doesn't fall and the temperatures get even higher than outside, I figured to tomato would need a lot of water. So I did not encourage it's growth because I want to feel responsible for making sure it survived the summer. 

I had peaked in on the sprout from time to time and noticed it wasn't dying. In fact it was thriving! 

As fall set in and we dogdged a hard freeze, I began picking red ripe cherry tomatoes from this hardy, little plant! 



Nature amazes me every day! It thrives in spite of all odds and often rebels when we try to control it. I don't think nature will ever stop surprising me! 


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