garden

Some Bits Make A Post

| chrysoula

I’ll be at Norwescon this year, as a member. No table or pamphlets or panels or anything. I should be spending part of the time in the bar and part of the time attending panels and part of the time huddled over my laptop trying to get some pages of GREEN WILD revised. And I’ll be paying attention to my phone so, hey, let me know if you’re around and want to say hi!

The Renton community garden opened on Saturday and I spent about five hours there this past weekend. It turns out I really don’t like dirt. Compost & potting soil? Those things are fine. Sunbaked tractor-plowed clod-filled dirt? Ergh. I flailed at my plot for a while and put out all of the spring starts I’ve been cultivating at home. I was so overwhelmed by the hard clods of dirt that that I was really lazy on how I set out the seeds and plants. We’ll see if any of them survive. I hope it rains today, and I should probably check in tomorrow to see if anything has withered already.

I also up-potted my tomato seedlings, putting them in their third container so far. I handled them kind of roughly but I think that’s the point: stress them so they grow up strong. They look really good; far better than the seedlings I’ve been getting from Territorial Seed the past couple of years. I’m still planning on buying some grafted tomatoes from Costco if they show up again but I have (hopefully) 10 seedlings already, far more tomatoes than I’ve ever tried growing before.

GREEN WILD, sequel to CITADEL OF THE SKY, which is due from Harlequin Digital First…. someday… goes along well. I was convinced a month ago it was the worst thing I’ve ever written. I’m no longer as certain. But I’m looking forward to getting it into submission-shape because then I’m going to move on to more SENYAZA short stories. I’ve been working on a long list of ideas about events that occur post INFINITY KEY. I should maybe make a dedicated post about this, but I’ve found that the keystone of turning an ‘idea’ into a ‘story’ is figuring out the point of view– not first or third or whatever but simply who the story is happening to and what their relationship is with the events. Once I have that, I still have to do the work of creating a story but I’m no longer flailing in the dark.

Speaking of SENYAZA, I hope to have news soon regarding WOLF INTERVAL, the third book in that series… I will say that if GREEN WILD felt like my worst book for a while, WOLF INTERVAL currently feels like my best. I may be calling in every connection I have to get it noticed by a broader audience.

That’s enough for now, I guess 🙂

I have a garden!

| chrysoula

I have a garden!

It's two plots. One was at the house when we arrived and is really awkwardly shaped: 8×9 feet or so. I used to grow pumpkins and squash in it but this year my husband asked me very nicely to skip the pumpkins. I was okay with this because last year I expanded my repertoire from tomatoes/pumpkins/zucchini to snow peas and beans and broccoli and I wanted to expand on last year's successes.

I'm also usually a container gardener. I have a lot of largish containers (5-8 gallons, I think) and I usually grow tomatoes in them. But this year instead of having a container we turned last year's auxiliary bed (which hosted the cauliflower/broccoli experiments) into an intensive 4×8 raised bed. So far all my containers are empty. We'll see if this lasts.

I also have a pallet I, uh, found in a parking lot unattended. I have some herbs and lettuce in that.

So this is what I have and plan to have: 1.5 8 foot rows of snow peas. Several teepees of pole beans. A couple square feet of bush beans. 3 cauliflower and cabbage plants (grown from starts because I planted too late last year). Various forms of lettuce. Radishes. Carrots (I forgot, some carrots are in a pot, but that's for my son.) Zucchini and summer squash. I have 3 tomato plants, and an eggplant coming from Territorial Seed. And I have a fair amount of basil and other herbs planted here and there, in the pallet and the cement blocks edging the raised bed. (Lemon verbena, 5 kinds of basil, marjoram, dill, chives, French tarragon, thyme, green onions, if you're curious.)

I'm very excited and I'm hoping to have a great harvest this year.

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