Intellectual gardening

Gardening is all about learning and you never stop, and if you honestly believe you know it all then you are kidding yourself.  I love stretching my mind and absorbing any new gardening knowledge.

I shun evening television for gardening videos on YouTube, mind you the stuff on the telly is mostly repeats, silly reality shows or crime stuff so while ok to relax and numb your mind to, it is hardly edifying.  I love to read a good novel on holiday, but it has to be limited to holidays only as I am one of those people for whom life actually stops until that last page is turned and this really frustrates my family as washing goes undone and meals unmade.  I have no self-control at all when presented with a good book.  So it is best I don’t go there.  I get my reading fix from gardening blogs and other interesting horticultural places on the internet.  And I have a very large gardening book library as I can’t resist getting my hands on a shiny new gardening book full of things to make my garden better.

So when I got invited to have a display of my books at our local branch of the NZ Tree Crops Association ‘SmallBlock Sunday Seminar” I jumped at the chance.  I had a fabulous time and met a load of lovely people and learnt loads of useful advice about managing to live on the land.

Hubby the Un-Gardener who came along to support me, didn’t really get as much out of it as me, as a passionate Un-Gardener this isn’t really his thing and he wasn’t all that impressed when I told him I was considering signing up for a beekeeping course.  How cool would it be to have bees with all that lavender I’m growing for around the deck?  This is precisely why Hubby the Un-Gardener doesn’t want bees as they would be too close for comfort.

My book became the raffle prize of the day and the winner was so excited to have it as she was considering buying it for herself.  But I had a great day and sold and signed loads of books.  It still feels a little weird, as I still see myself as a gardener trying to feed my family – with mixed results, but people see the author first and then discover the gardener as they read the book.  Even Un-Gardeners have told me they really enjoyed reading it.

Every now and again I have a look online to see if it is still there, because to be honest I still can’t believe I have a book in the first place, and to my surprise I discovered it was being sold on Amazon.com!  Does this mean I’ve made it?

 I did I little bit more poking about on the internet and found loads of lovely things about my book and I thought I’d share it with you all, so you may or may not have noticed, but I put up a new tab up the top of my blog to tell you all about my book, the nice things people have said and how you can get your hands on a copy, if you want one.  Now that Amazon has it, location is not a problem.

Come again soon – I’m going to hack at trees and shrubs – I mean do a bit of pruning.

Sarah the Gardener  : o )