This year, for the first time, we put in a raised "square foot" garden. The idea is to make a grid on a raised bed of deeply dug, loose, enriched soil, then to put different plants within each grid square. Most plants get one square. Things like beans get nine to a square, while really big plants like watermelons get two squares.
The plants fit deceptively well when they were first sprouting. Then they grew. And grew and grew! Now that it's mid-summer, every bit of available space is crammed full of (fortunately, thriving) plants. With the beds being raised, there are minimal weeds and the plants (which purely love the lack of weeds!) are easy to tend.
All of a sudden, the garden is producing enough food to impact the budget. Woohoo! The tomatoes are ripening with a vengeance, we have basil galore, and for the first time ever, I have successfully grown zucchini! (Yeah, yeah, everyone can grow zucchini. NOT! I've killed more zucchini plants than I can count! But this year, finally, I'm getting 2-3 fingerling zucchini each day.) I'm getting eggplant, several kinds of peppers, heat-resistant strawberries, and a huge variety of herbs. The stuff in the other parts of the garden is growing as well: fennel, grapes, butternut squash, and more tomatoes and peppers.
Because our watering is restricted here (Zone 10 -- re-claimed desert), it's taken me a while to work out a schedule that lets me keep the garden sufficiently hydrated. I can't do my usual "ignore the housework during writing hours" pattern because unlike the laundry, sometimes the garden can't wait. I've had to reschuffle things so I have enough time to tend The Crops, cook from scratch (without heating the house to sweltering), and still have enough time to write. Some days, the schedule works better than others. I'm working on getting the balance right.
In the meanwhile, for some reason, a lot of the stories I'm writing are centered around gardening. And cooking. Olive oil is a very versatile ingredient.
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