Any good gardener knows that success doesn't come easy. A good gardener knows that reaping a bountiful harvest requires lots of attention to detail.

Regardless of what some beginners might think, just tossing a few seeds in the ground, sprinkling a little water on top and hoping for something to sprout doesn't make you a green thumb.

The preparation and patience are more important than the depth at which the seeds are planted or the exact formula of fertilizer used.

Unbeknownst to some people, an amazing cash crop is being cared for right here in Lawrence County.

Leaders in Lawrence County have been tilling the earth, planting seeds and carefully tending to the slowly growing crop for more than a decade.

For the taxpayers, who own the land, patience almost certainly has been difficult at times.

Watching and waiting can be torture.

But that's exactly what the county's residents have been experiencing for years as lots of economic developers have been promising and promising that the harvest day soon would come.

Well, after years of patiently tending to the basics, the harvest of economic development has begun in Lawrence County.

New or expanded businesses have already announced to move into the county's two industrial parks - The Point in South Point and the South Ironton Industrial Park.

Both sites are prime examples of how to transform old-style heavy industrial sites into modern, new facilities.

At The Point, hard work and a little ingenuity have transformed a rough, hardscrabble former munitions site into a lush, ready-to-develop modern facility.

The same has happened in Ironton, where a former environmentally hazardous site has been cleaned and converted into prime developable land.

Watching the new economy grow is fascinating and exhilarating, too.

And, just think, the harvest has just begun.