Mrs. Pollifax Pursued, by Dorothy Gilman

Mrs. Pollifax (now remarried, I assume in one of the books I missed) discovers a young woman hiding in her closet; when she asks Carstairs for help protecting her, they are both stashed in a carnival that’s a front for spies in need of stashing. Unfortunately his last one was just stabbed there. Oops. Pro: Mrs. Pollifax is conveniently on hand to investigate. Con: So is the stabber.

Fun but not my favorite entry in the series. There is a foreshadowed but still sudden turn in which the carnival portion of the story abruptly ends and then they all go to Africa. As one does. In other series entries, all the supporting characters had full arcs; in this one, some did but others were left hanging.

I was also frustrated by the suggestion that Mrs. Pollifax pretend to be a psychic and tell fortunes, only for them to decide that would be too difficult and instead had her pretend to be a journalist and interview people. What a bait and switch! Mrs. Pollifax telling fortunes would have been hilarious. In fact I am going to add that as a prompt to my Trick or Treat letter right now.

Mrs. Pollifax Pursued

Gardening

On Layla's suggestion, I've been trying various projects this year at approximately one per month. The standout successes were learning to bake bread and eating almost entirely from the farmer's market. The common themes in those two are food, cooking, self-sufficiency, eating local, and apocalypse skills. (Though if the true post-apocalypse skill is pasta-making, I am still unprepared for the pastapocalypse.)

I want to branch out into gardening, specifically herbs and vegetables - possibly also fruits/berries if that's at all practical. I have never successfully nurtured a plant in my life (but have only ever tried to grow plants in very small pots) and do not have a garden per se, so this will be challenging.

Please read my conditions carefully, then offer ALL the advice.

I want to grow...

Greens that I can eat in a salad. My preference would be baby kale (small flat leaves), arugula, miner's lettuce, or something of that nature. I don't like regular lettuce or spinach. I would ideally grow enough to have one-person salad every day.

Herbs. Except cilantro, the weed of Satan. My favorites are thyme, rosemary, and flat-leafed parsley, but I can happily branch out.

Anything else that's practical for my conditions EXCEPT zucchini, squash, eggplants, broccoli, cauliflower, and tomatoes. I don't like them.

I have...

An open space which gets about 4 hours of direct sun/day. It's concrete, but I can put planters, grow bags, pots, boxes, etc on it. It's about 4' x 10'.

Another space which is mostly shady though it gets some dappled sunlight. Same condition (concrete but can put stuff on it), about 3'x3'.

I'm in Los Angeles which I believe is zone 10. I'd like to start planting or growing stuff now. I'd prefer to start with at least some seedlings rather than growing everything from scratch. I have access to nurseries.

Advice, encouragement, and tales of others who went from hapless plant-killers to genius gardeners welcome! Feel free to link this.