My organic vegetable garden is here!
Last week the rain finally let up enough for me to plant my transplants in their new home =)
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| tomato plant |
It was fun to be outside for half the day getting this done, although clean up is never fun
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| the completed warm weather bed |
I am really looking forward to the fruits of this garden! The idea of having organic vegetables growing within a few feet of my kitchen is so exciting!
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| japanese eggplant (i was NOT successful in splitting up these plants) |
I tried something new this time: separating the plants in the pots and planting them apart from each other – which was recommended to me by an experienced gardener. But it seemed so traumatizing! I REALLY hope the plants survive the insult!
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These little ones are the onions…with grass cuttings over them =)
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| red onions |
Can’t wait to make salsa with these peppers!
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| jalapeno and red cherry peppers |
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| red and green bell peppers – i though they were the same plant?? |
I’m a little nervous about the tomato plants. Technically they have enough room – 9 feet for 3 plants…but because it is square feet, it just looks so cramped! Hopefully it works out since I am planning on making tons of pomodoro sauce this summer!
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| san marzano and roma tomatoes |
The Poppy Dress – By: A Lemon Squeezy Home
A few days ago I was sitting down to make R a hat, when I came across this amazing tutorial to make a “Poppy Dress” for little girls by Christie at Lemon Squeezy Home. I was immediately side tracked reading through her tutorial. It is so great and the dress is so simple!
So here is my dress and my little model wearing it! I won’t tell you what I did, since I followed the directions at the Lemon Squeezy Tutorial each step along the way, which you should check out!
The one thing i did differently: Since I have a new serger that I have been wanting to experiment with, I did a red rolled hem along all the edges of the dress. Overall, I used red instead of orange (although i LOVE the orange in Christie’s tutorial!) because while in Italy, i was completely inspired by the red poppies there.
Overall, I’m pretty happy with out it turned out, and R is too (she kept dancing, which is why my pictures are all super blurry and grainy – i had to really pump up the ISO). Besides preparing the flower petals, which was tedious, the sewing took me only about 1 hour. Well…that is AFTER I spent probably 20 monutes figuring out how to shir properly on my machine.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Red (in Italy!)
For the Daily post’s week’y photo challenge: Red, I submit “Little Miss Poppy”
The beautiful red poppies were everywhere in Italy – but mostly on the sides of the railroad tracks (which is why I don’t have more pictures of them…well that, and because I was too busy eating =) They were so breathtaking and every time I saw them, they made me happy.
So here is my RED
Thanks to a kick in the butt by my mother-in-law, i finally got myself to the store to buy more manure compost and top soil as well as transplants for my second garden bed. Actually we all went. I had been procrastinating because i knew it would be pretty difficult for me to get all the soil, plants and tomato wire cages into the car and home and into the bed by myself. Graciously, my mother-in-law suggested we all go Tuesday evening – just in time before the nursery closed. Yay! So with the help of my in-laws, and my husband – and of course my daughter – we were able to get everything home within 1.5 hours, and then my husband and his father put all the soil into the bed and tilled it for me =)
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| the warm garden bed – ready to go (almost) |
My plan was to get everything into the bed yesterday…but the weather had something else in mind. It was a torrential downpour. So instead, I took my “before” pictures, and planned out what would go where.
Here is my garden plan and my list of plants and spacings:
I was struggling a little bit about what to do with the tomatoes. The spacing on the plant posts said 2-3 feet. I was originally planning to do one per square foot, but my mother-in-law who is quite a successful gardener, said she spaces hers out “at least” 2 feet, and thinks less than that would decrease yield. I know that square foot gardening is different than the traditional rows, but I really want a lot of tomatoes, so I was scared to do 1 per sq ft. So in the end, I am in fact giving each plant 3 feet of space: 3 plants per 9 square feet. I’m probably over doing it…but again, I want to make lots of Italian pomodoro sauce (I got a good recipe from a chef in Firenze while we were there!).
The warm bed garden plan
Here are pix of all my little transplants:
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| japanese eggplant and zuchini |
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| cherry tomato |
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| my transplants =) |
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| basil |
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| basil |
Now for some long overdue follow up of my cool weather bed…or as I call it, the “leaf bed” – i.e. I largely get leaves from it. I have thoroughly enjoyed not having to buy any salad and eating TONS of greens from our garden. It is so flavorful! The arugula is by far my favorite – I still get a kick out of how spicy it is! That being said, I’m looking forward to having a garden with some actual vegetables – or at least something other than a leaf to harvest!
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| the cool garden bed |
As you can see the garden is pretty full!
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| broccoli! |
I never realized how BIG and TALL broccoli plants get! In fact, there is a WHOLE LOT of plant and very little broccoli! It has only been about 2 months…so hopefully more will come. I don’t think I will plant broccoli or cauliflower the second time around, because the yield is so slow. So you end up having much lower return on your time and space investment.
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| caulifower |
Speak of which – here are the cauiflower plants. They too are tall with HUGE leaves (*any ideas of what to do with broccoli and cauliflower leaves?) and there is NO cauliflower yet!
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| no white heads yet – just big ol cauliflower leaves… |
Hopefully we will actually get some nice big cauliflower heads in there sometime soon!
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| cilantro – stalks are getting really big (i cut the huge ones already) |
yesterday I went through and cut all the HUGE stalks of cilantro. They were literally 2-3 times the size of what you see above, and were not producing very much. So I just cut them off – hoping more would grow. the cilantro seeds I planted are actually doing well – so I think I might just pull up these plants and plant seeds in their place. That will give me my 4th crop of cilantro (you can never have too much!)
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| radishes – big leaves, still teeny tiny radishes |
The radish leaves are getting big and crowded, and a few of the plants have teeny tiny radishes barely covered by the soil. Not sure if they are just too crowded? But not much yield yet.
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| buttercrunch lettuce |
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| chinese cabbage |
Haven’t used this as much as I thought I would. I probably won’t include it in my garden next year. I need some more recipes…
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| bok choi |
Same with the bok chi – well that’s not true. it isn’t even big enough to harvest yet…but I’m worried I won’t use it just like the chinese cabbage!
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| mesclun |
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| arugula |
The mesclun and arugula have been AWESOME. Unfotunatley they too are getting woody, spiky stalks with less leaves. I went through and cut all those down too – a couple of them are starting to grow small leaves again. Phew!
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| arugula |
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| spinach – finally getting more leaves instead of just making really big one |
FOr the longest time, each spnach plant would only have about 4 leaves – and as I would cut, it would make just enough to replace what it lost. And then if I didn’t cut anything, instead of making more leaves, it would just make the existing leaves bigger! Not sure what that is about – i.e. if that is the plant’s normal progression or if it is because of something I am or have done. but I’m glad that it is finally starting to make more leaves now!
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| peas |
I unfortunately did not get a trelice up in time, and now all the plants are winding around each other – so I think it might be too late to set them up. I am told by my inlaws however, that they can grow just on the ground if I wanted to, so I guess I won’t stress too much about getting the trelice up there.
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| a little bug enjoying the view =) |
Well that’s it! Thanks for tuning in =)
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| first seed planting of cilantro – planted as recommended on package |
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| second crop of cilantro seed plants – planted per my mother-in-law’s (and experienced gardener) directions: split the seeds in half, soak in water overnight, then plant with barely any top soil covering |
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| herbs – all doing well except the rosemary…not sure why? |
The Duomo
Next image from Italy:
The Duomo in Florence.
Again, another place that we visited during our honeymoon, but of course had to go again. Unfortunately this time we did not get to climb the dome like we did last time (we are too busy eating!) – but it was beautiful as ever.
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| The Duomo in Firenze, Italia. I took this one standing right up to the ropes, and put my camera completely on the floor. It took several tries to get the correct angle and to make sure the center line on the floor was centered. But happy with it in the end =) |
| Canon EOS 5D Mark II EF16-35mm f/2.8L II USM f/4.5 1/40 |
Italy in Infrared
Well, we have been home for a little over two weeks, and I still have not managed to go through all of our Italy pictures!
As I start though, I thought I’d share some with you all =)
We went to Italy for our honeymoon, and although we had 1/100th the quality of camera equipment at the time, we took some pretty good shots. So this time, we weren’t as motivated to take a ton of pictures all over again (although we did carry all 50 pounds of equipment every we went) – partly because our minds were fixated on food and coffee the whole time…oh yeah…and wine!
We did however have our “new” IR camera with us – and that was definitely fun because it was a new way to photograph the sites. Unfortunately we converted our Rebel XT to IR – looking back, we wish we would have converted the 40D so we would have a better quality IR camera. Maybe in the future…
So, here is my first shot to share: a picture from the park at Villa Borghese in Roma. We rented bikes for an hour and rode around the park. It was AWESOME – especially because it gave us a chance to get off our feet, and travel fast enough to have wind blowing in our hair. Love it.
In my wanderings through the internet for ideas of things I want to sew, I came across this blog: Lil Blue Boo. I particularly like this one because she blogs not just about sewing, but all sorts of different crafts. This woman is truly amazing!
Last night, when I was supposed to be sewing a hat for R but instead was printing 18 8×10 prints that were ordered from my last photography session (yay!), I received an email with this post from the blog about yarn art. I was SOOO excited to put it to use to make a present for L’s upcoming Bday …actually it is today – but doesn’t feel like it because it was working all day =(
Anyways, I hurriedly tried to put something together for him using this idea and this is what I came up with! It is far from perfect because i didn’t have time to go to the hardware store to buy wood to nail the nails into. I went to AC Moore to get the shadow box frame and was hoping to find something hard there to use – but didn’t find anything the right size. So I found some corrugated cardboard laying around my house (no joke) and used that instead. it is FAR from sturdy, but I figure – it is in a frame and will be on a wall…hopefully it will be fine! This is my problem: when I want to do a project, I want to do it RIGHT NOW. Even if I don’t have all the proper supplies, tools…or even TIME (which is why many of the get done in the middle of the night with less than all the necessary equipment).
But hey – at least I know that about myself now. So now when I go to a fabric store or a notions store or a hardware store, I buy things that I know I might want at some point, and then when I want to use them, I already have them. This is bad because I have to then find a place for all of this stuff – and i HATE that task…but what can you do?
Anyways, check out the Lil Blue Boo blog for directions on how to make one of these babies. I essentially did what she did, but slightly simplified.
Here is a quick description of what I did, sorry I didn’t really take pictures – i was rushing to get this done before L came home for the evening, and I wasn’t planning on making a post about it at the time!
- Using my writing tablet, R and I wrote the word “daddy” in Adobe Illustrator, then printed it the size that I wanted
R's writing on my Wacom tablet in Adobe Illustrator. As you will see, my yarn art is a simplified version of this.
- After deciding what size I wanted the picture and the words, I printed the picture for the frame
- Then had to decide what color yarn and paper backing I wanted to use, and got all of that stuff out. I debated using fabric for the backing instead of paper, but I didn’t want to take away from the actual yarn art, so I stuck with simple paper.
- Taped the color paper to the bottom of the corrugated cardboard which would be my backing for the whole frame
- Placed the printed paper with the word “daddy” on it over the colored paper
- Hammered nails into the paper and cardboard at the turns in the words (this is the framework for the yarn)
- Removed the white printer paper – since I was nailing to corrugated cardboard which is not that tough, I made sure to hold the nails in place while I pulled the paper off. I had to get tweezers to remove all the paper from the middle parts of the wards and the small pieces left around the nails
Removing the printer paper with tweezers (don't mind my bruised fingernail - closed my thumb in the car door!)
- Then I began wrapping with yarn! This part was fun. In the post from Lil Blue Boo, she used twine – I went with what I had (of course) which is Yarn =)
- Once all the yarn was in place, I put my printed family picture at the top of the backing (used double sided table to secure) and then put it all into the shadow box frame, and I was done!
- Disclaimer – since I was in a rush, I did not have time to devise a way to make this super sturdy. The nails at the bottom half sit right up against the glass – but the top half where the picture is, has no nails to give support, so if you push on the back, it bows in. I am not super concerned because this is going to sit on L’s all in his office and not get handled, but if you are making this, you make want to put something on the sides of the frame on the inside to make it stay more secure. I think there are mo expensive frames that have a side insert specifically for this purpose.
All in all, it probably took about 3 hours – not counting going to the store to buy the frame. It would make a great Father’s Day gift!
Enjoy and definitely check out the Lil Blue Boo blog!
The truly Itty Bitty Baby Dress
As part of my week of sewing (which unfortunately has not gone completely as planned), I made another Itty Bitty Baby Dress by Rae – but this one is truly itty bitty – made for a newborn.
We have a friend who just had a baby, so it went out in the mail yesterday – I’m so excited!
I sent it along with these super cute address labels with their names on them (available at my Etsy shop – 50% off for a limited time – use coupon code “50off”):
Tonight’s projects:
1) Scan all of R’s recent art
2) Make a sun hat for R – using this pattern by Prudent Baby I found on Grosgrain which is having free pattern a month day!
Wish me luck! =)
Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge: Wildlife
Here is my contribution for the daily post’s weekly photo challenge this week. It is from Manuel Antonio in Cost Rica a couple of years ago. I had some fun pictures from a safari in Tanzania, Africa – but they are all in print and after my move, I haven’t been able to organize all of my negatives in an easily accessibly way…so that will be for another day =)
These other two are from last month at the zoo!
Check out some other great entries here!
Spring hat and scarf
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| R’s new hat & scarf – courtesy of many hours of plane travel over the last several weeks! |
THE HAT
A while back I re-posted a cool spiral (free) lace hat pattern I found online, and decided to finally make it on my way to and from Italy a couple of weeks ago. I bought this really pretty varying color organic cotton blues, greens and of course a little bit of purple (R loves purple!). Well, I didn’t do a ton of knitting on the way to italy or on the trains in italy – and finished most of the hat on the way back. I started off with the spiral pattern I noted above, but it was ending up being very loose and without any form. It was pretty, but I was worried that it would not stay on R’s head. I think may have done something wrong because looking at the original picture of the hat it looks like it has more shape than mine did…
Anyways, because of how it was turning out, I decided to make some adjustments. After doing about a 3 inch rim of the lace pattern, I figured I would do a 1×1 rib so that it would be tighter fitting on the hat, and thought the lace would make a nice rim to protect R’s face form the sun. I took it a bit further and decided I wanted to keep the pretty spiral pattern of the hat in tact, so I modified Jared Flood’s Koolhas hat pattern to be a 1×1 rib that spiraled in one direction.
This is what I did (bare with me – i am giving a general explanation of how to do the spiral rib – not actually writing a ready to use pattern):
After doing 3 inches of the pattern described in the previous post for the spiral hat (click here) – make sure to keep a marker at the end of your round
- do a 1×1 rib as follows
- row 1: knit 1, purl 1 (if you are knitting in the round, you want to make sure you have an even number of stitches)
– this is going to vary a bit based on the spiral and cabling below – but the main concept is to make sure you are always knitting a knitted stitch and purling a purled stitch – that way the ribbed pattern will remain.
- row 2: cable 1 knitted stitch (from the front) to the left – i.e. slip the first knitted stitch onto a cable needle, purl the next purled stitch, then knit the cabled stitch. do this all the way around till the end of the round
- repeat these two rows over and over until you are ready to reduce for the crown (about 4-5 inches). A note: when you get to the end of each round, you will need to adjust a little, because your marker will start moving one stitch every time – i.e. the first time your first stitch will be knitted, the next time it will be purled. So you need to move your marker forward or back by one stitch when this happens, so that the first stitch after the marker is a knitted stitch. it doesn’t really matter what direction you move the marker – i would just alternate so that it more or less stays in the same spot.
- when you are ready to reduce – you basically want to reduce the purled stitches first, so that you continue to see the spiraled ribs. I did this by K2tog with a knitted stitch and purled stitch – i.e. the purled stitch ended up underneath (and hidden!) under the knitted stitch. As you are reducing, you still want to cable the knitted stitches on every other row. it becomes tricky, and I improvised as I went along – which is why I don’t have a hard and fast pattern to give you. if people really like it, please ask and I can try to put together an actual ready-to-use pattern. Once you have reduced all the purled stitches, then start to reduce the knitted ones – again space them out. After seeing how this fits my daughter, I would suggest doing a pretty rapid reduction in the crown because otherwise the top of the hat becomes too skinny to sit on the head and ends up sticking up (i keep having to stretch out the top to make it sit flat on R’s head exactly for that reason).
- Once you are down to about 12-16 stitches, you can then loop the end of your yarn through all of them, cinch it off and then weave in the ends. And you’re done! Yay!
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| The top part of the hat has a spiral ribbed pattern (1×1) – where every other row I cabled the knitted stitches over the purled ones to the left |
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| the outer rim of the hat is a spiral lace pattern using yarn overs – from the pattern I posted a while back |
The scarf was very simple and I finished it in one plane ride. I am going to tell you what I did to make this one, which is for my 2.5 year old daughter. it is pretty thin and short (about 3 feet) because she likes to just put it around her neck and not wrap it around. So I didn’t want it too long otherwise she would trip! Feel free to make it longer/thicker as you desire. As you will see below, I made this VERY simple – I did not worry about purling any stitches. I was in need of a quick project so that I wouldn’t loose interest before it was done =)
- Row 1: Using 29 inch size 9 needles, cast on 560 stitches. The gauge for my yarn was 20 stitches per 4 inches on size 7. I used a cable cast on which I would NOT recommend. That is why one side is more frilly than the other. The Cable cast on just does not have enough slack to really make a nice ruffle.
- Row 2: K2Tog for all stitches to the end
- Row 3: (K2tog, K1) repeat till end
- Row 4: Ruffle is done! Now for the body of the scarf, just do a garter stitch – i.e. knit every row until it is as thick as you want it
- For the other end of the ruffle:
- Row 1: K1, K1 then knit through back loop of same stitch (this is your increase) – this should give you 3 stitches on your right needle. Repeat this till the end of the row (i.e. you are increasing every other stitch – increasing your stitch count by a third)
- Row 2: K1, then knit through back loop of same stitch – this should give you 2 stitches on R needle. Do this till the end of the row (i.e. you are increasing on every stitch – doubling your number of stitches)
- Row 3: Cast off!
- And you are done! YAY!
Hope you guys enjoy!
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get great pictures of R in the scarf and hat yet…but here are a couple. She actually likes them and wears them! Finally!
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