June Garden Tour

I bet you’re wondering, dear reader, what happened to the April garden tour…..asked no one…. Well, time she escaped from me and before I knew it we were in June.  And let me tell you- the garden has taken off!

The squash and green beans are producing like CRAZY!  Sadly, you can see some of the squash are already starting to get hit by the dreaded vine borer beetle 😦

The tomatoes are not only in the ground, but have also taken off.  A couple of the starts didn’t make, but hopefully we’ll still get plenty.  On the plus side it has made room for some of green peppers 🙂

We already have lots of green tomatoes, hopefully they’ll start to ripen soon.  I swear it always seems to take FOREVER for that first tomato to ripen!

Here you can see the Christmas Pole Lima beans and cucumbers.  The first Lima beans never sprouted, but you can see the second go are doing quite well.  The same can’t be said for the cucumbers, you can kinda see the leaves are yellowing.  It seems to be a magnesium deficiency, which we’re working on.

The garlic has been harvested and the watermelon are attempting to take over the world… or at least their small corner of it.  Just for comedies sake here is what that bed looked like on April 23rd.

Well… there you have the garden as of June.  I promise more sewing posts soon for those of you who could care less about my garden 😉

April Garden Tour

As you’ve probably surmised in between sewing, knitting, reading, cooking….and you know working to pay bills, the husband and I enjoy gardening.  I figured between crafty posts I could show you, dear reader, pictures from the garden as things grow and we harvest tasty vegetables 🙂   If you don’t want to see garden pictures then I guess this is a sucks to be you sort of situation, ’cause it’s my blog!

So, here are our main garden beds… and the husband dutifully watering said beds…  The large beds measure 5′ by 10′, the three small beds measure 2′ by 3′ and we have one medium bed (that you can’t see from this angle) that measures 4′ by 5′.  And a triangle shaped bed directly in front of the husband… but it only has day lilies in it .  There’s also two other medium-ish beds in other areas.

Here is the medium 4′ by 5′ bed….. the stalks are garlic that’s been growing since last fall.  They should be ready to harvest soon, hopefully.  The sad little plant there being watered is watermelon.

These are our three smaller 2′ by 3′ beds.  The far bed has yellow crookneck squash, the middle bed has green beans and the near very shaded bed has okra.  We’ll see how they do, for whatever reason these beds never seem to be as prolific as our others…despite testing and amending the soil.

This is the larger 5′ by 10′ bed by the fence.  You can see here cucumber by the trellis and more yellow squash in the foreground.  The other end of the trellis will have Christmas Pole Lima beans.  We direct sowed some beans when everything else was planted…. but they still haven’t come up yet

The other larger bed, that’s not pictured, has zucchini and more okra.

And finally…. here we have our tomato starts, which are right now just hanging out getting used to being outdoors.  Hopefully, if the weather holds we’ll get them in the ground this weekend.  We’re doing five different varieties this year: Chadwick Cherry, Sungold, Mortgage Lifter, Pink Brandywine and Big Rainbow.  The last couple of seasons haven’t been that great for tomatoes, but fingers-crossed we’ll get a lot this season, because home grown canned tomatoes > store bought canned tomatoes!

The two other beds we have that weren’t pictured at all have garlic and spring onions in one and blueberry bushes in the other.  We also have a fig tree that just got put in the ground this past fall and some small citrus trees in pots… meyer lemon and mandarin orange to be exact.

So, there you have it Spring Garden 2015!  I figure I’ll take some more pictures in another month or so and show you how it’s coming along.  Until then hopefully there will be more crafty posts… made even more finished garments!  Or not who knows?!

Works in Progress II ….aka What I did on Spring Break

Well…. Spring Break is sadly coming to an end 😦  Projects were started, projects were completed, and much time was spent lounging in bed in my PJs 😀

I have now finished the body for my Cropped Sweater for Winter and it actually fits!!!!!  Despite photo evidence to the contrary I am really excited about this!  I was so excited in fact I took this photo before I had fully bond it off 🙂

In other news, I cut and did a basted together mock-up of my very first Renfrew.  This is also very exciting because it fits too!!  I’m now working on putting it together for real…..ignore the wine glass 😉

You may be wondering, dear reader, why I’m so excited to have tops fit me.  You see when I first began sewing and knitting I had a hell of a time getting things to fit the *ahem* “girls”.  In fact, I have a skirt I refer to as The Failed Dress, because it was only after cutting the entire thing and getting half way done I realized there was NO WAY the bodice was EVER going to fit 😦

Aaaaannnnd the Spring garden has been started!  Technically, the Husband did all the work on this one, but I’m taking credit anyways….. that’s how marriage works isn’t it? 😉

[Side note: This is our “Grow Closet”, it’s funny ’cause it makes us sound like pot growers. (Side side note: to local law enforcement we do not grow pot, I repeat we do not grow pot…please don’t raid our house). The Husband actually built everything you see here including the table, light, and fan… I have to brag on him ’cause I know he’d never do it himself 🙂 ]

We’ve got yellow squash, cucumber, okra, green beans, and four different varieties of tomatoes coming up here!  Seeds that haven’t sprouted yet include- zucchini, green peppers, and watermelon.

And there you have it My Spring Break…. getting drunk at Mardi Gras in New Orleans it is not (which was Spring Break 10 years ago)…. of course neither was it working all day in the library on my master’s degree Case Study while periodically questioning my life choices (which was last years Spring Break)!

Winter Garden Dinner….a post not about sewing/knitting!

Did you think I forgot about you, dear reader?  Well I didn’t… I just had more important shit to do- Iike read A Game of Thrones! (Spoiler: EVERYONE DIES!)  However, between reading about the exploits of Ayra and Tyrion I made a tasty dinner from very, very local ingredients.  So local, in fact, I only had to walk a few paces out my back door to get them.  That’s right I grew all that shit!  Even more impressive since it’s the dead of winter. [although in Charleston winter should really be in “quotes”]

So, what did I make/grow you may ask.  Well, first up we have Christmas Pole Lima Beans.

Pretty, aren’t they?

Sadly, they don’t stay that vibrant when cooked.  They are a nice big, meaty bean.  In fact, I learned very quickly to just have them in place of meat ’cause with an additional protein it’s just too much.  I cooked them with red wine, chicken stock, water and thyme.  And it took FOREVER!  In the future I need to plan ahead and give them a good overnight soak.

While the beans were cooking I cooked a couple of pieces of bacon and then caramelized a thinly sliced onion in the leftover fat…. that’s right I cook with bacon fat and it’s DELICIOUS!  Once the beans finally finished cooking I added those bad boys to the onions, thickened it up with some reserved cooking liquid and mixed in the bacon. BAM! Dinner!

A Song of Carrots and Kale.

But wait there’s more!  In addition to delicious, bacon-y lima beans.  There was garlic kale.  Which consists of an obscene amount of garlic, olive oil, torn kale, and then a bit of chicken stock for steaming purposes.

Plus roasted carrots– carrots ,olive oil, thyme, salt, oven…. in that order.  So easy.

Apologies for the terrible lighting. We didn’t eat till 9pm….stupid beans!

And there you have it.  Homegrown dinner….. in the middle of “winter”.

There will be more sewing posts….maybe even later this week. I know two posts in one week- IT’S MADNESS!