One month of this little corner. Still my favorite room in the house.
A sunny little corner · A personal website
Good things
take a little tending.
Notes from the garden, experiments in progress, and room to grow.
Right now: the fall lettuce just went in, the seed catalog is dog-eared on eleven pages, and the tomatoes are winding down for the year.
Mara Ellison
Tending this plot since August 2026
Lately
Small moments, more or less as they happened. The front porch of this plot.
The notebook is filling up faster than the beds.
Sat in the garden with a book and read exactly four pages. Perfect afternoon.
Harvested herbs for the winter jars. The kitchen smells like a better decision.
Repotted the sad fern. We’re both trying.
Golden hour does all the decorating around here.
Longer notes
Essays and field notes from the shelf. The house behind the porch.
Field notes · Sep 23What the tomatoes taught me
On spacing, thinning, and giving things room to grow.
Field notes · Sep 18A little more room for the ordinary
One photograph a day, and room for the unremarkable.
Field notes · Sep 16A field guide to slow mornings
Coffee, no phone, and watching the light arrive.
Growing things · Sep 10A garden takes its time
Rosemary, tomatoes, and the pace I cannot set.
Field notes · Sep 8In praise of dangerous mail
The seed catalog came, and with it, big spring plans.
The small web · Sep 2Leaving a little space outside the feed
An internet made of open doors instead of feeds.
Currently
The short version of right now.
Growing
Fall lettuce, and garlic going in next week.
Reading
A very slow book about snails. It’s perfect.
Listening
Rain on the greenhouse glass, live.
Learning
How to do nothing without feeling guilty about it.
About this plot
I’m Mara. I tend a small garden behind a rented house in the valley, and I write down what it teaches me. No feed, no algorithm — just notes.
Come say hello →Neighbors
A plot isn’t much without the plots next door. Here are the people whose doors are always open.
Meet the neighbors →