Actually, I’m not, but it seemed like a fitting title since that’s what I did yesterday–canned pickles.

I’ve never been much of one for a garden. We have our flowerbeds out front, that mostly my husband does the work for (granted, he has a lot more time than I do). While I do enjoy fresh vegetables in summer, it never occurred to me until last year that I could have a garden.

There’s plenty of room in the back yard, except the dogs have the run of it. Isis and Skeet, our current dogs, probably wouldn’t bother it, but our past dogs probably would have. Besides, the back yard is shaded most of the day, so I just figured no garden for us.

Why yes, those are tomatoes in our front flowerbed

Then I stumbled on a blog called Tenth Acre Farm, and realized there’s no reason why I couldn’t grow a few edibles in the front yard! I always just assumed there’d be a city ordinance prohibiting it. But that blog made me check to see, and what do you know, I couldn’t find anything to that effect (this might differ in your locale, especially if you’re in an HOA, so please don’t take my word for it!). So last year, we planted five tomato plants, and a cucumber, since my husband’s favorite thing to eat in summer is a salad made from those two, plus onions. What’s funny is most people don’t even notice the tomatoes and cucumber unless we point them out. Even though there are wire cages around the tomatoes!

It was wonderful! We loved having fresh tomatoes for our sandwiches and salads all summer, and for the first time since I could remember, my husband actually got tired of his cucumber/tomato salad by August! The plants actually did very well in the front flowerbeds, too. I am guessing the dirt is very good after years of mulching and growing flowers, and it also gets southwest sun all afternoon and evening, as well as plenty of water (we have sprinklers). One cucumber plant gave us more than we could eat. We gave away quite a bit, and still had a few cucumbers go bad at the end of summer.

Cucumbers go crazy in our flowerbed. There are a bunch of cukes hidden beneath the leaves.

So I decided why not make pickles? Last summer, I remembered both my grandma and my mom doing this, and didn’t recall it being very difficult. A look through the Ball Blue Book I’d inherited from Grandma confirmed that, so I ordered a canning rack for our stock pot, and jar tongs. We already had jars from my husband’s “moonshine” he makes to give as Christmas gifts. I also needed to buy whole dill.

But by the time I got my act together and got the supplies, the cucumbers went bad, and the plant was dying off. So this year, I planned ahead. We again grew five tomatoes and a cucumber, this time also got a dill plant, and parsley, both of which are also doing well. Conveniently, we started getting cucumbers at the same time as our dill flowered, and as of yesterday, we have seven jars of fresh-pack pickles sitting in the basement. They’ll need a couple months for the flavor to settle in, then hopefully they’ll be as good as Grandma’s (Mom only made sweet pickles). And yes, it wasn’t difficult at all.

Tennessee Update: We got our plans back from the designer on Friday. They had missed a few of our changes, so I emailed them back. They sent back the changes the next day, and everything looked good! So I approved the design, paid, and they sent the final plans later that afternoon. I forwarded them on to the builder, so now our next step is for him to apply for permits. I also sent them to our lender, who will need to get an appraisal to complete our loan. Things are moving right along!

What I’ve Been Reading: Not going to name the book or author of the fiction book I read this week, because it was kind of disappointing. It was good enough to finish, but barely. When I put a book down (or almost, as in this case), I like to analyze why, so I can learn from it. In this case, the beginning was way-too-drawn-out and repetitious. It seemed like the book took so long to get going. It also felt too short overall. I was expecting a more meaty read for the price I paid–at least a novel. This was novella-length, but nowhere on the Amazon page was that noted (I just double-checked). It also missed out on some things I typically expect of books in its genre, which is something we really need to get right as authors. It did pick up right as I was about to quit reading, and the ending was pretty good, albeit a little predictable.

What I’ve Been Writing: My goal this week was to work through Week 3 lessons and worksheets in Holly Lisle’s How to Write Villains workshop. And–sigh–only three weeks into this round, I have a big fat fail. And for no good reason. I simply didn’t get to the writing until yesterday, and these exercises are pretty meaty, so… no. I got about halfway through it, and that counted work I did on it earlier today. (On a positive note, setting deadlines did help with my day job–I’m several days ahead of schedule there.) Writing only on weekends is not going to cut it; I need to do a little something most days, if not all. So this week, I want to finish Week 3’s lessons and start on Week 4, working on it for at least 15 minutes a day, five days this week.

What about you–have you tried or learned anything new lately? Ever had a preconceived notion that something wasn’t allowed (or possible), only to find out otherwise? How are your goals going, whether writing or something else? I’d love to hear from you–please share in the comments!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.