I live on a small ranch/farm just west of Austin with my dogs, horses, cows, chickens and sweetheart George. I grew up here, and when I was a child we grew all our own food (the ranch was much larger then ~ almost 600 acres). Besides the 3/4 acre vegetable garden, we raised cattle for our beef (and extra money); chickens, geese, guineas, peacocks and turkeys for our poultry; hogs for our pork and rounded it out with proceeds from Daddy’s hunting. We even had a milk cow.

I’m trying to get back to that lifestyle. Currently, we have a very small herd of Longhorns for our beef, chickens for eggs mostly at the moment and a Jersey milk cow. In the coming years, we’ll be adding more chickens (for meat and eggs both), turkeys, geese, and a hog or two (small breed, possibly a Heritage breed) as well as dramatically expanding the vegetable gardening space. George has already helped me expand it to 60′×20′ this year with another 30′×30′ or so coming soon (I NEED a pumpkin patch!).

I love all sorts of gardening, but have to say that veggies and tropicals are my favorites, with aquatic plants coming in a close third. I do have some flowerbeds for perennials and need to fill them. I get a kick out of flowers as well, especially bulbs (Aren’t gladiolas one of the most gorgeous flowers?!). I also do a good bit of water gardening and want to do more.

George and I both work at a large garden center in Austin called The Natural Gardener. I love working there because I get to teach people how to grow their own food. As the boss says, “We’re not selling plants. We’re selling organic gardening.” I can really get behind that.

If you want to read more about me and my garden, go to my blog, the Redneck Hippie Gardener: http://linda-wall.blogspot.com/ .