Garden Woes

I do not have a green thumb. That's why I'm thrilled my daughter and husband wanted to grow some veggies this summer. We planted late, due to the tornadoes and endless downpours. While they dug and seeded the ground, I tried one of those upside down hanging tomato planters. I bought a nice healthy plant, the more expensive soil, and fertilizer as the instructions suggested. My DH agreed to let me hang it on the birdfeeder pole, which he had to reinforce so it wouldn't fall over. But it started to bend anyway. eeks So I bought a special hook for the back fence, which put the plant in the sun all day. Then the weather turned deadly hot--in the high 90s for a week (which turned into high 90s most of summer--except when we hit the low 100s), and it had to be watered twice a day (although, I admit, my daughter did it 98% of the time). In three days it was paper dry and shriveled anyway.

I have a grape tomato plant in a bucket on my porch. I call him Gilbert. (It's okay if you don't think that's funny, but it makes me laugh.) He's been cossetted like an only child--watered twice daily, talked to, moved around to protect him from getting too hot. He had some pretty yellow flowers which turned into lovely nuggets.

My husband's tomatoes and lettuce fared better, although we haven't picked many tomatoes yet. One Roma, two grape. :( But the lettuce was delicious. He served it wilted (which I find amusing), but it was terrific.

Squirrels and chipmunks are enjoying my daughter's plantings. The baby bunny is plump now with a beautiful coat. I haven't seen a zucchini yet, nor a squash, but my daughter's been shooing out the critters. We have had green beans at least, which start as pretty purple flowers.

A new visitor arrived last week, this praying mantis. He's (well, I don't know if it's a boy) cute and harmless, so we left him alone. I hope he eats bugs and scares away the bigger critters, but I'm not holding out much hope for that last bit. (I don't begrudge the animals their meals, but they could have left me one of Gilbert's tomatoes.)

This is why we rely on the farmers and their local produce. Last week, we went to Wisconsin and had amazing fresh corn off a stand that was replenished from the field several times a day. Funnily enough, the white peaches everyone raved over were from southern Illinois, not far from St. Louis. I made sure to find some when I returned--they're sweet as candy.

So although our small garden is suffering, we're blessed with the farmers in the nation who keep food on our table. Have you grown anything this year? Do you have any tips to share for next year's garden? I need all the help you can offer.

Megan Kelly
Stand-In Mom, Sept

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New friends and a bit of humility

If you read my last post, you saw that I’m learning Photoshop to create covers for the Regency romances, mysteries and other
out-of-print novels I’m reissuing in digital format for e-book readers like Kindle and Nook.

I also announced that I’m running around taking pictures of flowers and beach scenes, seeing the world in a new light. My plan was and is
to use them for my covers.

Well, I’m learning a lot. Some of that includes how difficult it is to create exactly the right cover images. And how much work is
involved in fixing photos, moving images around, and so on.

Then a fellow author, Lex Valentine, turned me on to a
wonderful site called stock xchng (http://www.sxc.hu/).
Here, photographers and graphic artists from all over the world post images that you can download and use for free, with only a few reasonable restrictions (like no pornography).

I found some exquisite images that are perfect for my covers and better than anything I can create at this point. All I had to do was add the text with Photoshop and I was set to go.

In the process, I’ve “met” generous and talented photographers from Romania, Croatia, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Poland, Italy, New Zealand and several states in the U.S. What a small world this has truly
become. I feel privileged to be able to make these connections.

The cover I hope to post here (if I can figure out this Blogger software), for my Regency romance A Lady of Letters, uses a photographic image created by Michael Faes of Switzerland. He doesn’t list a
website, or I’d provide that so you could see more of his work.

Next month, I’m going to do my best to show you a cover I really did create from scratch (with a little help from my husband). But in the meantime, I hope you’ll go over to the Kindle store at Amazon.com and take a look some of my new Jacqueline Diamond covers such as Danger Music, The Eyes of a Stranger, Lady in Disguise, Song for a Lady, Shadowlight and The Forgetful Lady. Please let me know what you think!