The Inadvertent Gardener

I received the URL to the above site in answer to my plea yesterday for a place to go for gardening inspiration, if not advice. Nicole, the cook at Pinch My Salt responded with the information. The writer lives in Iowa and has discovered that her "black thumb" has turned green. Delightful (and inspiring) reading. Along this line, I received my copy of Sunset's Western Garden today. My old paperback copy, probably 30 years old, somehow disappeared. Loaned, lost or given away, although that's hard to believe. I invested in the new and improved edition, in hardback to reward myself for all the hard work I've been doing in the garden. In the valley we are gardening-challenged on several counts: red hot summers that will fry almost everything you plant unless it is specifically engineered to withstand the heat; semi-drought so the plants have to be able to exist with minimal irrigation; and caretaker sloth, almost impossible to combat. We always have good intentions. Surely that counts for something.