Tag: Garden

Arriving with a good education and ambition, Henry Shaw brought a shipment of hardware to St. Louis in 1819. The town was small, but showing importance as a gateway to other portions of the Louisiana Purchase.

With family connections in the hardware and steel business in England, Mr. Shaw set up a hardware store and soon was making a profit. Many people paused in St. Louis and purchased tools and equipment necessary to set up new homes in the West. With an eye to the future, he purchased land on the southern outskirts of the city.

Please, have a seat and enjoy my garden. Botany was my passion after my early retirement. The place where you sit, within sight of my country home, is designed for the public to enjoy and learn.

Thousands of St. Louis residents visit the Missouri Botanical Garden each year. Among them, I like to think are the characters from the sweet romance, COMFORT ZONE. A couple of any age can enjoy a stroll among the roses, through the shady woodland, or by the lake in the Japanese Garden. Check out the book and meet the characters at this link: https://amzn.to/2ZvL0Av

Look at me, mediocre gardener. I survived your Midwest winter. (Okay, it was the winter of 23-24 and rather on the mild side.)

I’m going to stand here tall and proud, inviting you to clip my branches to flavor your tuna salad and other dishes.

Do you grow herbs? Have you had unexpected survivors?

This particular pair of parsley did well until mid-summer when they started going to seed. Since I’m not that serious of a gardener, they were quickly clipped, dried, and stashed in a glass jar for future use. (Oh, yes, I labeled them also.)

In the mid-19th century, most gardens contained a few herbs to both flavor the food and to use as medicine. In th sweet historical romance, Stitching a Dream, Polly, the seamstress gets herbs for tea for her ill son. Click on the link to get more book information. https://amzn.to/3VwoeFh

I planted garden seeds last week. I planted them inside to transplant into the raised garden bed when the weather is warmer. In the interim weeks, they will be very much like a houseplant — expect I’m starting from seed.

In a perfect world, I’ll have a dozen cabbage plants and three sunflowers to transplant. I’m aware of my gardening skills and hope that I have several cabbage and at least one sunflower to transplant. The sure thing — the chipmunks will not get the sunflower seeds — at least, not yet.

Only a dozen cabbage? The immigrants and early settlers in fictional Elm Ridge, Illinois would be appalled. While they often started cabbage at this time — in a cold frame often set on the sunny side of a building. (For shelter against wind and best advantage of the sun.) They planted more per person. After all, the garden needed to furnish enough to get them through a year. Storage? My ancestors turned much of the cabbage into kraut. Potatoes, onions, carrots and other root crops were stored in root cellars. Other items found their way into crocks — some pickled, others not.

In the sweet historical romance, New Dreams, one of Louisa’s tasks is working in the baker’s garden. Raised beds within a fence take up a good portion of the area behind the two-story building. Bakery downstairs, apartment upstairs with the outside steps making a physical divide between work and home.

Here’s a link to the Kindle edition of the book: https://amzn.to/3vWydWE