In the garden this month, and at the sewing machine! by SIGNYM

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In the garden this month, and at the sewing machine!

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Sunday, September 22, 2013 18:41
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Sunday, September 1, 2013 10:59 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Wow, has the garden changed!

The four tomato plants (2 Early Girl, which always do well for me, and 2 cherry tomatoes) have between them produced about 18 ls of tomatoes so far, with lots of tomatoes still green on the vine.

The Japanese eggplant plants are above my knee. They look so painterly, like something Monet would have dreamed up: dark green leaves and deep, deep purple stems, veining, and splotches, with shiny almost-black purple eggplants, and pure purple flowers. Garden gems, truly. Because huuby needs to watch his carb intake, I made a turkey "dressing" from baked eggplant, which develops a kind of "bready" texture. So tasty, with no blood sugar spike!

The two sunflowers are done. I didn't pick the heads... I'm inexperienced with them... so I missed getting seeds before they spoiled, but they were pretty and next year I'll plant 10, and I'll know better.

The herbs are loving this hot weather. Between the rosemary with its sky-blue flowers and the oregano with its purple pom-poms, there are usually a dozen or so honey bees working the flowers, and once in a while I'll see an awesome collection of pollinators I've never seen before: green-headed bees (natives), or checkerspot butterflies, or insects I haven't even identified yet!

The peppers HATE hot weather. They refuse to set fruit when the temps are 85 and above, so I'll have to wait for this last batch to ripen, and hope they'll pick up a bit when the weather cools down.

One of my watermelons got nailed by a falling avocado. I had to pick it, I guess it was ready because it was so sweet. And I still have five more in various stages.

The yellow yarrow and white yarrow were once-and-done, but I've been impressed with the reblooming power of the coreopsis, rudbeckia, and purple verbena. And the sundancer daisies, so very unimpressive in their catalog photo, have just kept blooming and spreading. I think they'll be part of my groundcover.

The French marigolds are continuing their thuggish ways, but my genetics experiment might be paying off... every flower that dares to bloom orange... YANK!. So I have ID'd a couple of yellow-flowered plants that will hopefully reseed themselves and bloom true.

The Canary Island pines need more water than I expected, and one Cleveland sage which is planted close to one of them really hates the extra water. I'll have to move it to a drier spot. Worth the trouble: I can smell the leaves ten feet away; one kind smells like sage and pine, the other variety like sage and honey. I can't tell you how beautiful this is! These will go next to the front walkway, assuming I will xersicape the front yard.

And speaking of smell... my lavendar bloomed for the first time this year. It is a very short, very blue variety with lovely silver leaves. I glanced out at the garden a couple of days ago, just in time to see a ray of setting sunlight shining through the lavendar... it looked like a frosted plant against the shadows... so pretty!

The avocado trees... well. Not having done my homework, I planned a xersicape around and underneath them. But the trees were looking stressed- one in particular- so I looked up avocado management, and they need a boatload more of water than they've been getting. Since I already redid my sprinklers (silly me!) I give them a deep soaking every week with the hose. They're looking a lot happier, and avocados are raining down. We eat them, and I give them away... and give them away.. and give them away. Had a great guacamole at work a few weeks ago. These trees are old... planted by the first owners prolly back in the 50's. They're reaching the end of their life cycle, but I'm going to do my best to keep them healthy while we're here.

All of this is my relaxation and hobby. A lot of the plants that I planted were experimental. I learned a lot.

---------------

Alas, a not-so-fun project. Dear daughter has this "thing" about dressing up for Halloween, and she usually picks a costume that you just can't buy (The Crow, the Snow Queen, the girl from The Ring, Galadriel before it became commercially available). Some years, we've put it together from stuff that we bought plus stuff around the house, and a couple of times I actually paid someone to sew the dress. Each year, it's always a scramble because dd doesn't pick her costume until the last minute; she wants something custom and it's either nip-and-tuck or can't be done. Each year, I kept telling her: You gotta pick sooner and we gotta get going on this earlier, and if we're going to sew this ourselves (neither one of us knows how!) we have to start this EARLY... like in June, which seems ridiculously far in advance but shit happens, yanno?

WELL. THIS year, she decided early. THIS year I bought a sewing machine. We picked the closest pattern possible (knowing we were going to have to modify it) and SHE was the one nagging me to move forward.

I stress, especially about new stuff. But DD did half of the pinning and all of the cutting. Last week, she sewed up the skirt (the easy part). THIS weekend, she basted the interfacing on the bodice and I stiched it together. I thought... oh, this is going to be a nightmare and it's going to look like shit. But, wow!, yanno? I can see where to take it in, how to cut it to look more like, how to attach it to the skirt. My god, this thing might actually work. And Dd is learning how plan ahead, how to schedule, how to sew, and (most importantly) how to learn because she sees me reading and re-reading the instructions and we go to Youtube together for those "how to" tutorials.

OMG, it's working.

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Sunday, September 1, 2013 11:11 AM

WHOZIT

Obama can bomb Syria with the Peppers.

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Sunday, September 1, 2013 11:16 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

No, he can't have them. I have little enough of those as it is.

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Sunday, September 1, 2013 7:09 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

This has been our worst year for tomatoes ever so far, but not for lack of trying. We plant them in a 4'x8' raised bed, use timed drip irrigation, and usually have good fruit by the end of July. This year, despite our usual cage of deer fence, the squirrels and, apparently, raccoons have been chewing through the plastic netting and getting all the green tomatoes. We had almost none when we left a couple of weeks ago on our roadtrip, and only a few green ones now, even after mending all the holes and re-enforcing with wood. If it doesn't stay warm for quite a while, we may not get any ripe ones at all this year. Looks like we'll have to go with chickenwire next year, since (after 10 years) the critters have learned they can get through the deer net. Maybe I'll make it a greenhouse as well with some light frames with plastic sheeting, and start stuff earlier.

Our unprotected herb garden, on the other hand, continues a 20 year tradition of producing all the rosemary, thyme, sage, chives and tarragon we can use. The kitchen windowsill keeps us in mint and basil as well.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Sunday, September 1, 2013 11:39 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Well I'm pleased to let you know that Spring has sprung here. And very nice it is too.

Can't brag about my garden, as I'm not really happy with it. Nevermind... There's some green and some colour. I shouldn't complain.

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Monday, September 2, 2013 12:04 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

MAGONS... I think I've seen some pix of your garden (didn't you post some?) If that was your garden, then I gotta say: it looks lovely. Don't you know a gardener is NEVER happy with their garden? (Say, did I mention the large areas of mulch which have no plants in them, and the plants that were put in which died? NOPE!) So how was your winter? DId you get anough rain?

GEEZER- AT least you can feel good about aiding the health and nutrition of your local wildlife. Altho our neigborhood has largish lots, it can hardly be called rural. So deer, raccoons, skunks, foxes, coyotes etc... not a problem. It also has something to do with how our neighbors plant their lots... everyone here (except me) sees the yard as a lawn wtih poodle-trimmed ornamentals... this, in a area that gets 15" of rain, when we're lucky. So I understand the difficulties, and wish I had some of them.

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Monday, September 2, 2013 5:41 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Thanks for your kind words. I know it may surprise many of you but I live in a high rainfall area. Temperate rain forest actually, so it RAINS. Il pleut. Yeah.

It was the first really pleasant weekend for months, so despite a heavy head cold I did spend some time in the garden and hubby did a big clean up. Our problem is we have a high maintenance garden with low maintenance time/inclination. So everything looks unkempt. Things die quite a lot due to the extremes of climate as well. But usually the next few weeks everything looks the prettiest. Camelias are blooming, the azalias are just about to come out, and the snowball tree has another month or so to go before it yields.

I have seriously thought of getting in a gardener once a month, just to keep on top of it. Apart from anything, it needs to be free of detritus in summer to be anything near fire safe. We have a couple of enormous eucalypts which drop bark and small branches all year round. When I say enormous, I mean 30 metres. Thats a lot of bark to pick up.

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Monday, September 2, 2013 6:23 PM

CHRISISALL

We're getting big nice tomatoes, one great cucumber and tons of cherry tomatoes so far... ours is a small but enchanted garden.

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Monday, September 2, 2013 9:58 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

MAGONS: Yes, I remember the snowball tree, altho I didn't remember the name. How pretty! But there are MANY pretty things in your garden as I recall. Seems there was a split-rail fence and some pink blossoms?

CHRIS: Enchanted indeed. My garden has a special enchantment all its own - I cannot grow cucmber to save my life. I tried, I really did, because I LIKE cucumbers. But after five years of trying (Maybe too much sun? How about under the climbing roses? Not there either? What about between the tomatoes? Not there either? What about closer to the spinkler?... I think you get the idea.) So, happy tomatoes and cucumber!

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Thursday, September 19, 2013 9:58 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Well, amazingly, all of the difficult sewing-stuff is done. We set the zipper and (puffy) sleeves. I fitted and adjusted the costume SEVERAL times (we're trying to make it look just like the cartoon). Next time, tho, I'll be smarter... I'll know to look for things like "how gathered is that waistband?" (We had to lop three feet out of the circumference of the waist, it was THAT gathered!) and I'll adjust the pattern first, not the clothing afterwards. But all that's left, finally, is cutting down the back neckline (to be like the cartoon, of course) hemming, and finding a petticoat to make the skirt poof out.

This, despite several computer emergencies that tied DD and me us for a few days, swapping computer parts into larger cases. (That is DH's long-range plan to make us computer-literate so that when he's no longer around to do the computer-thing, we can without him.)

Gotta say, DD has very smart hands. She stripped the old PC parts out faster than I could say Whuh....?.

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Friday, September 20, 2013 8:51 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

What costume was finally decided on? Sounds sort'a princessey, and quite a bit of work. Bet it was worth it.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Friday, September 20, 2013 11:55 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

In the ballroom scene of Anastasia, when she is dreaming about a past dance she's wearing a yellow dress with wide chiffon sleeves.

Yeah a lot of work, but I had a couple of goals in mind. Since dd wanted this very, very badly it was a motivational tool to get her to plan ahead, to learn to sew, and- most importantly- to realize that altho learning is hard work it can be done. We learned this together, since I don't know how to sew either, so it was a combination of reading and re-reading and re-re-reading the directions, and heading off to Youtube for "how to sew" videos!

It helped me, too.... when we got to a part that I'd heard was hard (like setting a zipper) I realized I was getting "stuck", so I did the "break this big job down into small parts" trick and we both pushed thru.

The costume is beautiful, and it IS worth it, but (for me) it's more for the process than the result. DD... she just wants to be Anastasia this year!

I hope dd picks another "not commercially available" costume again for next year! It will really help cement the lessons that we learned. :-)

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Sunday, September 22, 2013 6:41 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

You are a talented lass. Sewing was one of the many skills I refused to master, and now kind of regret that i cant do it. Nevermind.

Done a bit of a clean up in the garden and its starting to look a lot better. Azalias and camelias are out, and the bust mint looks amazing. I'm just about to put some tomatoes and silver beet in the vegie patch. I'm still waiting on my broad beans, will they ever yield a crop?

Burn off day today. Suits the pyromaniac in me, I am slightly ashamed to admit.

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