Vegetable Garden. 5.4.21

 The vegetable garden is coming together nicely.  I did a lot of work over the past few months, building the new raised beds, removing the old ones, filling the soil, changing the in-ground beds around.  Now, most of that is done.  There is always something, but now I can relax a little more.

The second raised bed.  Everything is taking off now.

This winter I was excited to find Lemon Boy tomato seeds after years of looking.  The I planted the plant out early with the water cone for protection, and the leaves burned.  It's making a come back, yay.  That's also good news because I wondered if they were planted out too early.  It looks like they are just fine.

Mostly the third raised bed.  It's quite a mix.  The radishes are ready to eat.  That will happen with the lettuce and spinach, too, before the peppers need the space.

These are the hybrid Roma tomatoes.  They will need a sort of trellis before they flop over.

So far Extreme Bush tomato is looking nice in its container.

These thornless red raspberries are descended from some that grew under the fence into my yard from a neighbor, which I moved from the Vancouver place last year.  There were some good raspberries then.  This looks like a much better year.

 

Most of the vegetable garden.  There are more tomatoes than I will grow next year.  This is my tomato test garden year.

Quilt Updates. 5.4.21

 These are the two quilts that I am working on.

First, the disappearing nine patch.  All of the nine patches are sewn and pressed.  I also cut the first 1/3 into quarters.

This is one of the nine patches, cut into quarters.

These can be turned in any direction, or mixed with squares from other nine patches before sewing into the quilting blocks.  This is one way.

Combining four of those, it looks like this.

I'm not crazy about how those come together.  I think a less overpowering and more playful look happens if they are mixed together, so this is an example using those same four patches.

I like that a lot more.  It is still open for other colors to be mixed in.  I need a quiet time when I can arrange them on a larger surface - the floor - and no doggie romping around.  That will have to be in an early morning.  Then I can photograph the result so I know which patches to sew together, how.

Then there is the brick sidewalk quilt.  I arranged a few rows of the "bricks" to see how I like them.

I like how this comes together.  I'll use the photo to sew together the rows.  The bolder pattern may need a little more arranging.  I'm not sure that anyone would recognize this as being made from men's shirts.  Some quilters like to emphasize the repurposed aspect, by including pockets or buttons in their quilts.  For this quilt, I just want to concentrate on the fabrics and patterns.

I may need to make it a row narrower, so that I can make it a couple of rows longer.  I need to re-count the bricks.

Strawberries. 5.1.2021

 This is a nice development.  I've been trying for several years to grow strawberries.  This is a raised bed that I kept despite more or less giving up.  It's covered with fencing because deer regard it as an all you can eat salad bar.  For the first time, they actually have flowers.  Looks like it might be a nice crop.

Tomato Seedling Update. 5.1.2021

 The Romas are mostly planted now.  That included the hybrid, determinate Romas, and the indeterminates.

These are Amish Paste and Tiren, both indeterminate but Amish Paste is open pollinated and Tiren is a hybrid.

These are mostly the slicing tomatoes.  They are the second group that I planted out, so they didn't get cooked in the Wall-o-Waters.

Some of these did get cooked.  However, I think they might be starting to grow anyway.  That would be nice.

These are the hybrid Romas.  They are determinate.  I hope they do well.  The nonhybrid Romas are only two plants, and not yet ready to plant in the garden bed.

Then there are the first of the Dwarf tomatoes.  This was a large plastic container that was originally a water feature filter.  I drilled nine 4-inch holes in the bottom, filled with a mix of home soil and home compost.  Also some left over peat moss.  This container should be large enough for these two dwarf tomatoes.  I read that they can be grown in 5 gallon buckets, and this container holds about 5 of those buckets of soil.  They do seem close together.

Forsythia Cutting Update. 5.2.2021

 I have these forsythia cuttings in my home office window.  There are two pots with smaller cuttings that I scored and treated with Dip-and-grow.  They are in peat moss / perlite mix, seed starting medium.  They are covered with plastic sandwich bags.  At 4 or 5 days, no wilting.  There was slight wilting the first day.

There are also 4 cuttings in water.  They are much bigger.  I also scored them and treated with dip-and-grow.  I doubt that did anything, since the water probably washed it off.  It's possible some is absorbed and not washed off.

If all of these take, that's about all I think I need for a nice hedge.  If they don't, well they are free plants, so not a problem.  Plus there are the ones I have soil layered in the mixed hedge row.

One thing I'm guilty of that frustrates me when I'm reading other gardening blogs, is that the start is nicely presented, but there isn't always follow up.  That's especially true if they don't grow.  If they do grow, the info is easier to present.  I'll try to keep a record of how these do whether they grow or not.  I've read that forsythia can be started in water, and I think I have done it, but my memory isn't perfect.