Category: gardening

happenings

Want knitting? Skip to the end.

The beans have really popped! I harvested by first beans today – a good handful of Royal Burgundy and Provider bush beans. I sauteed them briefly in a little olive oil, then sprinkled them with salt and downed them right quick. Yum. About ten minutes from plant to mouth. I love growing things.

Other stuff in the garden is going crazy too – this is actually two zucchini plants. They’re huge! No fruit yet, but I’m hoping for soon.

I also finally have a couple of teeny tomatoes. Things have been so slow this year, but my tomato plants are starting to outgrow their cages and they look super.

Two weeks ago or so I planted some rainbow chard in a pot – it’s still very tiny, but it won’t take too long for it to get a whole lot bigger (I hope).

On a completely unrelated topic, I’ve got some awesome (lightly worn) shoes for sale that I’m hoping someone out there can use –

Dansko Mylas – brown, women’s size 38. I loved these shoes, but they just didn’t love me and my orthotics. Danskos rule! Click on the photo for more info. I paid $120, asking $65 including shipping to the US or Canada.

Adbusters Blackspots – the “World’s Most Ethical Shoes”, apparently – they look similar to Converse Allstars, but with a hemp upper, handdrawn logo and sweet spot, and are built in a union shop in Portugal. They also feel more substantial than Chucks, with a lot more cushioning in the sole.

Women’s size 7 – they turned out to be a little too small for me, but I’m totally going to buy a bigger pair because they’re really cool and comfy. I paid $90 Canadian, asking $50 USD including shipping. You can tell they’re very lightly worn because the toe caps are still white!

Email me if you’re interested in either pair – they’re great shoes, and I’m sad that they didn’t work out for me! I have such trouble buying shoes, sigh. Does anyone have recommendations for shoes that work okay with orthotics (preferably with a removable insole) and are somewhat stylish?

Still with me? Want some eye candy?

I’m knitting a sample shawl for the store out of Louet Mooi – apparently it’s pronounced “moi”, but I keep thinking “mooey” in my head. It’s bison, bamboo and cashmere, and pretty spendy…but this red colour is gorgeous and it’s working up really nicely!

July 21, 2008
state of the garden

Someone asked for an update on how my garden was going – I’m more than happy to oblige! I took a bunch of photos today while out doing some watering. The constant rain for awhile there was irritating, but at least I didn’t have to get dressed, go outside and water every day!

In the top row, L-R:
1. Cucumber. Doing pretty well, looks healthy, with one yellow flower so far. I think I might let it just sprawl on the ground although I’m still wavering on whether to trellis it. That was the original plan, and it’s planted just at the bottom of the stair railing to the deck. I’ve got other squash plants planted next to the cucumber, and while they aren’t big yet (actually, two of them died and I just reseeded, ugh) it might get really crowded, really fast. Maybe I will set up a trellis so the cucumber will grow up along the railing.

2. A puny tomato plant. Maybe purple ball? I can’t remember (but they’ve got tags in the ground). I’d originally planted a few of my tomato seedlings in a different spot, and although they all look healthy, they just weren’t growing much. I think once the leaves really came in on the trees in my yard they got shaded out. So this weekend I went out, turned some other crap under (green onions that weren’t doing so well) and moved the tomatoes to a sunnier spot. I hope they catch up!

3. Bush beans (Royal Burgundy). They’re kinda leggy from being grown in the pot, but they look leafy and healthy and have lots of pretty purple flowers. I’m hoping that the taller stems will make it easier to find and pick the beans! These are so easy to grow, and satisfying – for those that don’t know, they’re normal “green bean” type beans, but are dark purple on the outside. And they turn green when they’re cooked!

Bottom row:
4. Flower on the biggest tomato plant in my wee garden – which is in a container. It’s a “Lemon Boy” variety that I bought on a whim at Canadian Tire and was the first one that I planted out. It’s almost as tall as its cage now, and has a couple of blossoms.

5. An heirloom tomato growing with a basil plant in a recycling bin. The tomatoes that I planted in the bins are doing somewhat surprisingly well, so I’m happy. I think this one is a “Tigerella” variety. The basil’s doing great, too!

6. This one cropped kind of weird, but it’s another tomato + basil in a recycling bin. This one’s “White Queen” – white beefsteak-type tomatoes! Doing quite well too.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with how things are going. The squashes could be growing a little faster, but at least they’re alive; it seems like everything’s a little slow this year. I hope the sunshine and heat predicted for the next little while helps things along, even if I do have to be out there watering!

And I’m keeping my cool knitting hemp (in my AC’d house, but anyway…) – this is the “cool hemp ponchette” by Hemp for Knitting, in the new AllHemp6 Lux. It’s smoother and silkier than the usual AllHemp6, and really quite nice to knit with! This one’s a shop sample, and it’s almost done.

July 7, 2008
weaving and growing

Still not much knitting going on around here, I’m afraid! I’ve been weaving up a storm for the Etsy shop, including this scarf out of Dream in Color Smooshy in “Gothic Rose” with a teeny stripe of Fleece Artist Silken in the warp.

Hopefully I’ll have a few more scarves up by the end of the week – I’m currently working on one in Sea Silk. Yum!

Here ends the fibre talk, now it’s onto the gardening – I spent a good amount of time this weekend working on my garden at home. No allotment garden this year, I’m just making do with space in my (rather large, really) yard at home. Saturday I dug out a LOT of overgrown raspberry bush to make room for my squash plants.

Right up to the bricks was raspberry bush; I took out way more on the other side! I know I’ll have to keep on top of the raspberries invading back into the space, but I tried my best to dig up as many roots as I could (those suckers are crazy pervasive). The plant on the left is a slicing cucumber plant; I’ve never grown cucumbers before! I’m going to (hopefully) get it to grow up and around the deck stairs bannister and railing, just to the left of the photo. The other mounds there are different types of summer squash – “Black Beauty” (normal green), “Flying Saucer” (a scallop-type squash) and “Cocozelle” (striped green). I’ve also planted “Eight Ball” (green and round) and “Sunburst” (another scallop).

The Sunburst I planted in a container, and the seedlings just popped up in the hot weather!

And because it’s getting late and I’m trying to get to bed earlier these days (yeah, right), some concluding photos of my container deck garden. I’ve planted two varieties of bush beans, lots of basil, some tomatoes (in old recycling bins! yay repurposing), spinach and parsley. The rest of the tomatoes will go in the ground, along with the aforementioned squashes and some other stuff already planted (peas, coriander, green onions). More info if you click on through to my Flickr!

I’m getting excited about this year’s garden – lots more varieties of tomatoes, and lots of squash – I really don’t think I can ever get enough zucchini (also my family is five people, so we can eat a lot of it).

Now if it would stop raining for long enough so that I can get the rest of the tomatoes in the ground!

June 9, 2008