I removed the rain cover from the genetic dwarf peaches. It worked - no leaf curl at all except one branch that was sticking out in the rain. The bigger tree is Garden Gold (I think).
This tree is very lush, but only about five feet tall. Under all those leaves one can find growing peaches. They were too thick so I removed about 90% of them, a few weeks ago.
The winner for the first squash blossom, is yellow summer squash "Saffron".
The heirloom zucchini, Costata romanesca has a lot of flower buds. The plants are incredibly vigorous. They look like rhubarb plants at this stage.
The first flowers this year are all female, which usually means they won't form squashes. Sometimes they do anyway.
Having an irrigation system on these is a real life saver. It's a lot less carrying of buckets and hoses. Squash leaves show water stress by wilting, and there is none of that so far.
So far, this looks like a good fig year. I counted forming figs on Lattarula and stopped at 50 figs. There must be at least 30 on Desert King, and at least "several" in Brunswick (a special treat) and even Petite Aubique (heavenly but a poor producer). I think buds are forming for a fall crop on Celeste and Louisiana Tiger. The fig trees that bear summer crop have branches drooping to the ground. The wood is willowy, new growth and figs are heavy. That would be great, except it places the ripening figs at salad bar height for deer.
I tie the branches upright, using the trunk or other branches for support. I was cleaning the garden shed and found more yellow jacket traps, so cleaned those and added new bait.
For fig trees that make a fall crop, removing the tips from vigorous new growth stimulates new figs to form. It's simple. The growth tips are brittle. I just bend them and they snap off. Before.
The old Kenmore sewing machine has a cover, but it's gigantic, clunky, and takes up a lot of room. I thought it would be good to make a quilted dust cover for it. A clean sewing machine is a happy sewing machine.
This is the result. It's reversible. In "Sunflower Mode", each end has a pocket and a handle.
I don't know what the pockets are for. They are there if needed. The handles aren't necessary buy are kind of handy. Handy handles LOL.
Turn it inside out, and it's in sort of antique'y quilty mode. No pockets on this side, just handles. The handles on this side are sewn between the pockets and handles on the sunflower side, so the quilt isn't too thick to sew together.
This started by cutting pattern paper to fit the sewing machine. I gave it a couple extra inches in every direction because quilts shrink when first washed.
I sewed together a quilt sandwich, big enough to fit the patterns. One side was the sunflower cotton fabric. (there was an extra block in the pattern for a front pocket. I didn't use that).
The other side was from a roll of "vintage look" strips that I bought mail order during the worst of the pandemic. They were on close-out and I wanted something to learn on. I just sewed them together to make a sheet.
Between the fabrics, I used 1/4" cotton batting, left over from a quilt. I had to join together two pieces. I used the three-step zigzag setting for that.
I'm not sure I knew the Kenmore could fit a walking foot, but it did. I used that to quilt the fabric in diagonal 2" squares. I used the guide on the walking foot instead of marking lines with tape. That went much faster.
Then I cut it all put. I lined the patterns on the striped side so they would be even.
It looks a bit like a big pillow ate a toaster LOL.
(Source - heavily modified from a pattern on the blog Sewcanshe.com).
