Beginnings and Ends
Sep. 15th, 2011 08:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clarentineWith Tocara off to my agent, I’m freed to begin working on the next book. I have in mind something involving coal mines and railroads, Serpents and dragons, and the folklore of the southern Appalachians. I have a very tentative outline to help frame the research and an even more uncertain setting: the mining community of Switchback, WV. So: working title, Switchback. I’m sure that will change once I figure out what the story’s really about.
The research itself is off to a good start. I have three books waiting for me via InterLibrary Loan, to be picked up on Friday, and two more on my table at home. All are pretty much cultural grounding; as I told the librarians helping me round the books up, I need to understand what’s already there before I change it. I need to do justice to the stories already on that ground and to the people whose stories they are.
Time to break in a new research notebook.
***
My radish and collard and kale seedlings are coming up very nicely, but something seems to think the beets taste good already. I’ll have to plant more seeds and this time put a barrier up over the seedbed.
The seed garlic arrived in the mail yesterday! I’d ordered from Filaree Farm (http://www.filareefarm.com/) years ago and been very satisfied with the quality of the product. The garden I’d been planting them in finally got too shady, however, and I’ve been resorting to store-bought garlic for the better part of a decade. Now I have space and sunshine, and next year I’ll have my own garlic crop again!
This weekend I have a lot more planting in mind. Beets, maybe carrots, the garlic. Prep for the new raspberry bushes my dad will be bringing our way in October. Spinach, as much as I can fit in the two rows which are not going to be reworked this fall. Up by the house, I have mint in pots which need to be sunk into the ground, pots and all, so I don’t have to worry about them this winter (or water them next year).
***
I got the most lovely surprise harvest this week: braconid wasp cocoons on three of the massive tomato/tobacco hornworms I’ve been noticing lately on my tomatoes! Take that, Monsanto; I don’t need your help eliminating pests in my garden. The cosmos planted in the garden and the wild Queen Anne’s Lace at the wood’s edges have done their work, drawing and feeding the adult wasps which parasitize the hornworms. Next year, there will be more hornworms...and even more wasps. Huzzah!
(This is a great site talking about the war between worm and wasp: http://www.gardengrapevine.com/TomatoWorm.html. Great photos.)
The research itself is off to a good start. I have three books waiting for me via InterLibrary Loan, to be picked up on Friday, and two more on my table at home. All are pretty much cultural grounding; as I told the librarians helping me round the books up, I need to understand what’s already there before I change it. I need to do justice to the stories already on that ground and to the people whose stories they are.
Time to break in a new research notebook.
***
My radish and collard and kale seedlings are coming up very nicely, but something seems to think the beets taste good already. I’ll have to plant more seeds and this time put a barrier up over the seedbed.
The seed garlic arrived in the mail yesterday! I’d ordered from Filaree Farm (http://www.filareefarm.com/) years ago and been very satisfied with the quality of the product. The garden I’d been planting them in finally got too shady, however, and I’ve been resorting to store-bought garlic for the better part of a decade. Now I have space and sunshine, and next year I’ll have my own garlic crop again!
This weekend I have a lot more planting in mind. Beets, maybe carrots, the garlic. Prep for the new raspberry bushes my dad will be bringing our way in October. Spinach, as much as I can fit in the two rows which are not going to be reworked this fall. Up by the house, I have mint in pots which need to be sunk into the ground, pots and all, so I don’t have to worry about them this winter (or water them next year).
***
I got the most lovely surprise harvest this week: braconid wasp cocoons on three of the massive tomato/tobacco hornworms I’ve been noticing lately on my tomatoes! Take that, Monsanto; I don’t need your help eliminating pests in my garden. The cosmos planted in the garden and the wild Queen Anne’s Lace at the wood’s edges have done their work, drawing and feeding the adult wasps which parasitize the hornworms. Next year, there will be more hornworms...and even more wasps. Huzzah!
(This is a great site talking about the war between worm and wasp: http://www.gardengrapevine.com/TomatoWorm.html. Great photos.)
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LOC
Date: 2011-09-15 08:37 pm (UTC)Re: LOC
Date: 2011-09-15 10:46 pm (UTC)