A Central Texas Garden Blog.
Zone: 8b
Location: East Austin.

The East Side Patch documents the development of a garden from a flat plane of Bermuda grass to absolutely no Bermuda grass at all. It tracks the journey of the garden and the gardener as new insights are gleamed, new insects are spotted and new bottles of sea-weed emulsions are administered.

The ESP uses film and TV references to comically push the journey along, as it tracks all the wild, weird and wonderful inhabitants that reside in an urban Texas garden five minutes from downtown Austin.  ESP inhabitants like “The Botox Lady,” “The Naboo Tribe,” “William Wallace,” not to mention the “East-Side Witches,” are among a host of others characters that play an active role in the continuing,  ridiculous plot. You can find out more detail about these characters in the “Pages” section at the top of the green sidebar.

I get a lot of questions regarding the equipment so here it is:  All camera shots in the ESP are the result of a small point and click Sony Cybershot…a small camera that packs a big 5x optical zoom punch. Slim-line, it is perfect for a blogger at work in the garden. I highly recommend it, this is my second, the first ending up in a watery grave on a lawn chair…it didn’t like that!

This is me, an Englishman, brought up in Scotland. I hold a Masters Degree in Industrial Design from The Royal College of Art, London.

I have lived in Austin Texas for the last fifteen years, the last eight of which has been in the East Side Patch. I started my gardening venture in the Patch about seven years ago with a little pottering, and a few ideas. Slowly but surely it became a passion, then an obsession…one from which there is now no escape.

My blogging history started on live journal (for over a year).  I then moved over to Word Press.com (briefly),  then I FINALLY made the jump over to being a self hosted site August 2009, armed with my Word Press for Dummies book!  Quite the learning curve, but most definitely worth it.

The Hobbits / Nike Advertisement.

Story-time and a pint in the Patch.

The ESP is situated five minutes from downtown Austin. The house was built in 1890.

Here is the original house complete with the original Victorian Lady, who I don’t think has ever left.

So… grab your favorite libation, put your feet up, and get reading about the wild side of the East Side Patch.

“Pauline, have you read ESP’s blog on-line?

“On-line George?

“You know…on the internets”

“Oh no, I am afraid I will break all of those those!”