Category: garden

A Vegetable Garden planted

Marie Haigh6 Comments

There is something besides just dirt in my raised bed!

The following seeds or seedlings were planted on Saturday:

9 Roma tomato seedlings
2 Big Boy tomato seedling
3 store-bought Strawberry seedlings
3 wild strawberry seedlings from the patch growing in my backyard (I’m not sure how this patch came to be, but it is starting to take over a large swath of land behind my Sweet Gum tree. I may have to do something about it in the next year or so).
Several bulbs from 1 onion set
1 seed packet of Anise
1 seed packet of Mint (Ostracized in the small container to the right of the raised bed because mint has a nasty reputation)

Though I wanted to plant pumpkin squash (Neck pumpkins), Dan was adamant that I not plant pumpkins of any sort in the bed. He said it would ruin my garden, since they are a hearty and invasive plant. Determined to have enough strawberries to make jam, I opted to forgo fresh pumpkin. I won’t have any other plant undermining my jam efforts.

The amount of tomato plants may seem large, but I have yet to plant enough to make one large batch of homemade tomato sauce or tomato soup without supplementing the recipe with store-bought canned tomatoes. Three years ago, I had dreams of canning my own tomatoes. I assumed that tomatoes were a very prolific plant, similar to a zucchini plant. Alas, it’s not so. Part of the problem, perhaps, lays on my head. I love tomatoes. I am a firm believer that tomatoes make everything taste better. Of course, some of the tomatoes don’t even make it into the house. What sort of a cook would I be if I didn’t sample the ingredients? Rather than try to eat fewer tomatoes, I decided that my only option was to plant more tomatoes. Here’s hoping 11 tomato plants is enough to quench my appetite.

Every morning before I venture into the garden, I have been knitting a few rows on my Happy Marriage lace design.

It is slowly starting to take shape.

Jake’s Birthday Presents

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Yesterday was Jake’s birthday! He is 5 years old now.

Rather than traditional dog gifts, Jake received two chestnut tree saplings and a record player.

In a word – boring.

Ungrateful lout.

Giggle. OK. I’ll confess; the gifts were for me. They just happened to arrive on Jake’s birthday.

The trees were planted straight away. I took care of the digging, watering, and mulching while Jake supervised to ensure everything was done to spec. I have named them Cleo and Mark in the hopes that they will be renowned lovers – as Cleopatra and Mark Antony were – and lavish me with a huge crop of chestnuts every year.

It may take a while for the first batch of chestnuts to be realized. They are awfully small right now.

Later that evening, I played my record player for both Jake and Dan. Enthusiasm waned in each of their responses. I tried to live without one; I honestly did. My old record player died approximately a month ago. I piled up all my LPs and stored them in the office. I pulled out my CD collection and and drug it into the kitchen with the hopes they would help me forget. The trick worked for about a week. Yet, there is no lap over between the two collections. None of my CDs include artists from my LP collection and vice verse. I could, as many people have done, purchase CD versions of all the LPs that I own. Yet, it seems like a waste of good money. I already own the music. Why should I buy it again? Plus, I would lose the sound of the vinyl and the joy I get from finding old LPs for sale.

I caved. I bought a Crosley stack-able record player (model #CR85) from Second Chance Crosleys.

It’s so wonderful to be able to listen to my LP’s again.

Gardening and Knitting Progress

Marie Haigh3 Comments

It is resting right now.

I finished shoveling the topsoil into the beds on Monday. My gardening book, The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible by Edward C. Smith, recommends that the bed be allowed to rest for a week before you start jamming seeds and seedlings into it. I’m too impatient to allot it a whole week. Five days is going to have to suffice. Weather permitting, my tomatoes are going in this weekend. I’ve also added one more plant to my list of veggies/herbs to grow this season: mint. I mix dried mint leaves into several of my daily teas; it is divine in a cup of Irish Breakfast. To be able to grow my own mint leaves and then dry them in the basement would save me a lot of money.

Onto knitting news, my 4th tie in the Christmas Tree skirt is complete. Well, complete is a bit of a stretch. I have finished knitting it – would be more accurate. Ends still need to be woven in. Then, it has to be washed and blocked. Finally, it has to be seamed to the 3rd tie.

Five more ties to go. I’m looking forward to a Christmas in September. You can bet your bottom dollar that my tree is going up the moment I finish knitting the tree skirt. I won’t be adverse to small fireworks being set off afterwards. Of course, fireworks would require a discussion with Dan about what is the proper level of enthusiasm when your wife finishes knitting a large project. I suppose he would want to discuss with me the proper level of enthusiasm one is supposed to have when GTA4 (Grand Theft Auto for you non-gamers) is released. I am ashamed to say that I did not take two days off of work to play the game nor did I stay up till 6 am the morning after it was released. Guess who did?

Small Hills to Scale

Marie Haigh3 Comments

I had no idea that 7 yards of mulch would look like a small hill.

It seems like it is way too much for our 1/3 acre yard. It’s true that we do have a huge amount of our yard dedicated to flowers, shrubs, and trees. We have one garden that wraps around the entire house. Then, we have two side gardens that hug the property line between us and our neighbors to the left of us. Not satisfied with the amount of gardening that needs to get done each Spring, I have been planting more. Ground cover, a male Holly (to pollinate with my female Holly), Columbine flowers, Blue fescue, lilies, and one annual plant have already been put in the ground. I am still waiting for three more plants to arrive. Plus, I still have my wild flower garden to seed. This small hill of mulch should not only make sure these plants succeed by keeping the ground moist longer, it should also cut my summer weeding job in half. Here’s hoping!

The smaller mound, protected by the blue tarp, is 1 yard of topsoil. I’ll be planting my vegetable garden this weekend! I have only planted tomatoes and herbs in the past. I’m shaking things up this year. I’ll be planting onions, eggplant, anise, mint, and strawberries. Of course, I’ll also plant tomatoes. Maybe this year, I’ll yield enough of a crop to make homemade tomato sauce and tomato soup.

Though my plan was to take today off and work in my garden, the weather had other plans. Instead, I’ll read your blogs, knit on my Christmas tie, and make lemon bars for dessert. Despite the fact that my plans were skunked, Jake’s were not. He still got his walk this morning. Even after drying and brushing him for 15 minutes after we got home, he still smells like a wet dog.

On a more sobering note, there is another reason I titled this post “Small Hills to Scale”. You may have already noticed the new button on my blog in the left side bar.

My husband’s Aunt Kathy (my MIL’s sister) was recently informed that she would need a kidney transplant. The process to find a donor has already begun. It is almost certain that a donor will be located, since Dan comes from a large family. To help cover the many expenses associated with transplantation, fund raising efforts have begun. The family will be hosting a Beef -N- Beer event. My contribution was to create Aunt Kathy her own website on WordPress: http://KathysKidneyFund.com. Dan helped me activate the Paypal button, since it wasn’t a simple copy and paste of the code. He actually had to edit the HTML code. I know a little HTML code, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to my computer engineer husband.

Slipping into Happiness

Marie Haigh14 Comments

I swore I wouldn’t do again. I had even considered giving it all away to somebody who would put it to good use. My knitting, sewing, quilting and gardening hobbies keep me busy. I don’t have time for another hobby. I explained all of this before.

On Wednesday when I was deciding between the gorgeous yarn my MIL gave me and the true-red, practical yarn, I saw the Corriedale roving. Instantly, I remembered where I was when I bought it and how excited I was to bring it home. Master K, my nephew, was newly born. (He will be 5 in August). I was visiting my sister in Texas to help with keeping Miss K, the proud big-sister, out of the way. I purchased it in a small shop in McKinney, Texas on the one day my sister and I escaped the confines of her house. I was terribly excited to bring it home. Inside the package of roving was a drop spindle. Once I got back home to Pennsylvania, I immediately took it out of its packaging and tried to spin it up. It was a disaster. At first, I was spinning too loose. Then, I was spinning too tight. So, I bought a book. Then, I bought another book. I purchased a Turkish spindle. I bought a batt of gorgeous merino wool. I took a spinning class at Stitches East. Nothing worked. The harder I tried, the more frustrated I became. So, I packed it all up and put it away. I gradually accepted the fact that I would never spin my own wool. It was nothing to be upset about. The world is full of commercial-spun and hand-spun wool. Naturally, I just bought more wool to make up for the lack of handmade wool.

Looking at the Corriedale roving, I was inspired. I walked into the office/craft room and took down my Turkish spindle. All these years, it had been hanging from a hook. Waiting. I sat down and I started to spin. My first try was once again too loose. Then, everything I had been taught just clicked into place. I was spinning! And I was smitten.

The rationalization has already started. If I finish knitting 10 more rows, I can go spin for a half an hour. If I finish making four more quilt squares, I can spin for a full hour. It’s going to rain tonight, so the gardening doesn’t need watering. I can spin a bit more during the time I would have been watering. It’s a slippery slope.

I don’t need another hobby. Yet, I just can’t stop myself!

Speaking of my garden, I leave you with a picture of a Flowering Dogwood. Though last summer’s drought took a toll on my other four dogwoods, this one was left unscathed. It is protected in the backyard from the afternoon sun.

Bees and Yarn

Marie Haigh4 Comments

Yesterday was Earth Day. So, of course, I had to plant something … anything. I chose to plant my new Columbine flower seeds. My original plan was to plant them underneath Henry’s tree (an Eastern Red bud tree given to the woman who used to live here by her son Henry).

 

While uprooting the few weeds, I noticed that there were several holes in the ground. My first thought was that a mole had taken refuge underneath the tree.

Miffed with his/her real estate choices, I started to fill a hole in next to the hosta plant, since the tunnel was causing it to lean over. That is when I realized it wasn’t a mole’s tunnel. Instead of frantic digging, I heard buzzing. Then, I saw a bee enter one of the other tunnels. I admit, I started to get a bit nervous. Normally, if you tamper with a bee’s hive, it gets a bit irritable. Yet, these bees did not.

It seems poignant that on Earth Day I learned something new about Mother Nature. Ground bees or mining bees are solitary. They are harmless to humans and extremely beneficial to the environment (my garden). So, I plan to do absolutely nothing about them. Even Dan, who is deathly allergic to bees, asked me if I knew how to invite them back next year. Alas, I don’t.

Rather than spend the day eradicating bees from my yard, I finished a new lace design instead.

The design is based upon the picture. I translated the Chinese symbol, which means ‘happy marriage’ to the best of my knowledge, into yarnovers and decreases.

My only problem is that I can’t decide what yarn to use to try out my new design. I have pulled out almost everything from my stash. I narrowed it down to the two skeins you see sitting on the red table. The vibrant red is sheep’s wool by Briggs n Little. This truly reflects the color used in the picture. My devil’s advocate would note that the feel of the red yarn is a bit course. The other skein was given to me by my wonderful MIL. She purchased the yarn at a fair in Maine. It is hand dyed and hand spun. It’s softer than Jake’s lovely fur. So, naturally, I am leaning toward using the sumptuous yarn. I hesitate because my MIL instructed me to use the yarn to make something wonderful. A lace pattern that I will probably never use, except as a centerpiece for our dining room, doesn’t constitute as “something wonderful”.

Fine, you talked me out of it. I’ll cast on with the true-red.

PS. Doesn’t everybody keep a Tigger on their work desk?

Taking a Break in my Garden

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First, I want to thank everybody who offered advice on how to correct my quilting woes. It was excellent advice! Goodness knows, I didn’t want to have to recut all those squares. So, I will continue on with the original plan. My nephew will be the proud owner of a too-big quilt for his twin bed. Yet, like all little boys, he will grow up and eventually grow into the quilt.

Rather than stay cooped up inside yesterday afternoon, I dediced to go play in my garden. True, there isn’t much that can be done at this time of the year. The soil is still very damp barring me from planting anything, trees and shrubs that flower in the spring should be left alone until after their blooming season, and I already trimmed the hedge row. So, I opted to move some rocks around.

Many people strategically place rocks and boulders in their gardens for asthetic purposes. I use them as guardians against the evil lawn mower.

The list of plants injured or killed by the mower grew longer last year: 3 day lillies, 1 hosta and 1 japanese maple. The lilies and hosta have sprouted already and will bloom soon. So, Dan’s mantra that the plant will grow back stronger if trimmed holds sway. However, the maple died. So, to protect all plants that aren’t big enough to fight back, I use large rocks or bricks. (The rose bushes and fire thorn bush require no such protection. They have mawled the man behind the mower a few times.)

I can take virtually no credit for our gardens. The majority of plants were planted by the original owners, specifically the husband. I have only planted trees: 2 japanese maples and one eastern redbud. I also planted these flowers last year.

Hopefully, they will grow up to be purple coneflowers.

This year, if the ground ever dries out a bit, I will be planting 2 shrubs, 1 tree, ground cover, and a plethora of wildflowers. The main goal is to reduce the amount of grass Dan has to mow. Thereby, reducing the amount of damage to my plants. Additionally, a little bit of my personality should start to shine through.

Thank You So Much for the Birthday Wishes

Marie Haigh6 Comments
It was a wonderful birthday. All the dishes I dirtied while making the cupcakes were left in the sink Friday night. On Saturday morning (my b-day), I awoke to find them still there (no green elves in my house apparently). Not wanting to start my birthday off by washing dishes, I decided to take Jake for his morning walk instead. I came back to find my husband washing the dishes. No, he didn’t just shove them all into the dishwasher. He was actually washing them by hand. You see, folks, his jobs around the house consist of killing bugs, taking the trash out, hanging my many pictures, cutting the grass and operating the air conditioner. The cleaning of the kitchen belongs to the cook. Thus, it was a lovely surprise!

So instead of cleaning the kitchen, I got to go play in the garden. The other rose bush is saved from the evil mower!

Afterwards, I started to prepare for dinner: ham, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob. Can I pass along a cooking trick to you that I just tested out? Like most others, I tend to buy pre-cooked hams that just require warming. During the last 20 minutes or so, one is recommended to baste the ham with a brown sugar mixture. If you have kids visiting or time is of the essence, try this: baste the ham with molasses instead. The kids can help out with this one. Just hand them an old paintbrush that has never seen paint or anything else equally toxic, and have them dip into in molasses and then paint it onto the ham. It’s fun and easy! Plus, my husband was raving about how good it tasted.

Birthday Presents: Hubby got me a bike rack and tote to carry all my purchases back home. The only trouble is I can’t get it to fit on my bike. Typically, it would be attached to the bike seat pole, but I have to have my seat almost at the lowest position in order to reach the pedals (Oh, the joy of being short). Thus, there isn’t enough length of the pole to attach the rack to. I’ll drag it up to my trusty bike shop and see if they can’t advise me on what to do next.

My dear friend got me a Craft Tote. Isn’t it cute? It holds all my sewing notions.

The next day I went to visit my Aunt and Uncle. They spoiled me with a homemade dinner: roasted chicken, spaghetti, Italian bread, and green beans. It was very good. The chicken was the best though. And because they know how much I love to bake, they gave me 2 cookbooks and a huge tub of flour. (They had picked up a 25 pound of flour from Sam’s Club and then didn’t know what to do with it all. I go through 10 pounds in a month so I was happy to take some off of their hands).

The only bad thing that happened was poor Jake came down with an ear infection. I started him on the ear drops and wipes yesterday and, as you can see, he is feeling much better today. He’ll have to endure a few more days of treatment though. It takes both of us to get him to cooperate with the ear drops for he tries to bury his head in your lap.

So, all in all, it was a wonderful weekend and a wonderful birthday.

Thank you to all for your warm wishes!

Weekend Work

Marie Haigh5 Comments

How was your weekend? I hope it was wonderful!

I spent the weekend quilting, gardening, cooking, and being followed around the house & yard by Jake. Hubby even took me out for lunch on Sunday. It was a lovely weekend.

The quilt is almost finished.

I completed the border and stitched it to the front. Then, I made the “quilt sandwich”, holding everything together with safety pins. (I’ve decided that I am never going to hand-baste the layers together. Why? Pure laziness.) Finally, I machine-quilted the piece together. The majority of the quilt is machine-quilted via the technique called “stitch in the ditch”. Only the diamond in the middle has a 1/4 inch stitch (a.k.a. I stitched 1/4 inch away from the seam).

Next on the list:

  1. Learn how to make a hanging sleeve
  2. Attach it to the quilt back
  3. Stitch on the binding.

So close! Which means I am all the closer to starting on my next quilt – a baby quilt.

Sunday was mostly dedicated to working in the garden and hanging out with Hubby. I am in the process of creating specific paths to mow between. If my husband mows down one more of my plants, I’m going to throw the mower out! He’s killed a Japanese Maple sapling (with Jake’s help who peed on the tree when it was trying to grow back), and injured my rose bush (again with Jake’s help … I think they are in cahoots!) and 2 hosta plants. So in an effort to ensure he doesn’t nick my rose bush again, I ripped up the grass under and around it, laying down mulch along the way.

Hopefully, next weekend I can “save” the other rose bush.

So, what knitting did I accomplish over the weekend? Um. Does knitting 2 rows this morning on my mystery project count?

Internet trouble equals longer sleeves

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Finally, I can get on the Internet today. Comcast has a monopoly on the area (unless you’re willing to sacrifice speed, which I’m not) and I have been suffering for it these past few days. Today is the first day, I am able to get on the Internet, check my e-mail, and update my blog. Even earlier today, Comcast was having problems, i.e. Internet outage. **mutter**

There is a silver lining in everything. Thanks to Comcast, my right sleeve is 75% done. I have started on the cap.

Plus, I finished both of the gauges on the project I can’t show you. It should be ready for submission by Friday.

Then, when my hands hurt from knitting so much, I went outside to my garden. I pruned the Easter Redbud tree (well, it looks more like an overgrown bush), the Forsythia, and some of the Fire Thorn. (I can only take so much of the Fire Thorn bush at one time. It’s painful!).

My thanks to J3W3 for his/her advice on the mint seeds. S/he stated that mint can be very invasive. After spending all of last summer combatting against the Lily of the Valley, I have no desire to battle it out with another invasive plant. I should mention, that I only managed to thin out the Lily of the Valley, despite pulling out the roots. It came back this year in the same spot. I am worried because it has started to encroach upon the grass, which Jake loves to nibble on. Sometimes, I think he missed his calling; he should have been a goat.