Literary Gardening

I'm reading an article in Computers in Libraries (trade pub for librarian computer geeks) about Hennepin County Library's BookSpace, a site designed to match readers and books (readers advisory in library jargon). Being something of a book nerd, I decided to try out the site. While browsing through their nonfiction recommendations, I found a section with the wonderful title of Literary Gardening. Is that the perfect thing for a garden-obsessed former English major or what?

Now that the weather is turning cold, and my garden is a soggy mess (I don't call this blog Rainy Day Gardening for nothin', ya know), it's the perfect time to catch up on some garden-related reading. If you feel the same way, check out their Literary Gardening list (Heh heh... "check out"... I made a library pun... get it? Yeah, OK, now you know why I have to keep my day job.)

Profitable gardening?

No, I haven't discovered a money tree that produces real money. If I had, I'd be lounging on a beach somewhere in the tropics instead of tapping out a blog post on my lunch break. But J.D. over at Get Rich Slowly has demonstrated that vegetable gardening can have some financial benefits. He just put up a post summarizing the costs and estimated value of his family's vegetable garden. Very informative and encouraging.

You can reap savings as well as produce from your garden, or it can be a hole in the ground into which you pour money. The difference lies in your gardening style (e.g. using found objects vs. buying new, uniform materials), your willingness to work more rather than spend more (e.g. doing work by hand vs. buying expensive power tools), and your shopping habits (if you are the type of person who can't walk through Best Buy without dropping a grand on a new TV/home theater/computer/whatever or walk through the mall without getting at least three new designer outfits at Nordstrom, you probably won't be able to walk through the local garden center without dropping large amounts of cash on a new tractor/tiller/designer garden art/pile o' imported stone pavers either).

Since the economy is the news story these days (apart from the election, which I'm not about to address here - don't we all get enough politics elsewhere?), I think I'll write a post or two on frugal gardening. If you have some favorite frugal gardening tips or resources, drop me a comment and let me know.