She Gardens: Update

This morning I noticed the first two blooms on the squash plants, one on each.

new bloom

bloom!

After shopping today, I went outside to photograph them and decided to take more pictures and give you an update. Mojo was thrilled to have company in the backyard and wanted to play, so I threw the Frisbee for him a few times to settle him down.

let’s play!

Here is the full garden. The tilled grass in the garden makes the pictures hard to make out.

garden on 5-13-2013

squash, broccoli, beans, tomatoes, onions, corn

We have probably lost one of our cucumber plants, and the other is looking kind of sorry. We aren’t too disappointed, though, because we still have many quarts of pickles from two years ago! Our bush beans have already cast their flowers and appear to be setting fruit, though the plants themselves are not very big:

bush beans

Most of our tomato plants are looking great, but still have a lot of growing to do. We still have not caged/staked them yet.

tomato plant

The broccoli (along with the squash) looks the best: dark green and growing fast!

lots of broccoli plants

pretty green

The onions are weak, but growing. The carrots are too small to photograph. They are visible to the naked eye, but in a picture, the little plants get lost among the decaying grass. The corn, like the broccoli and squash, is excellent. I love seeing it get big enough to lay out another set of leaves.

corn!

That is the garden progress today. We won’t be harvesting for a while yet, but are anxious to have fresh vegetables. I’m especially hoping for a good tomato harvest!

She Knits: Lace Birch Leaf Shawl

I started knitting this shawl at the end of February in order to use the yarn leftover from my Swallowtail Shawl. I bound-off the knitting last night and washed and blocked it today. It finished at 63.5″ by 32″, considerably larger than my Swallowtail, which is what I desired. I think the larger size will make this shawl more wear-able.

Yarn Info:
Knit Picks Shadow
100% merino wool
Oregon Coast Heather

It was a little dull knitting this yarn again after having already worked with it. I still love the color, though. It washed up beautifully and blocked easily, so I would use this same line again. I do not know how it holds up over time or many washes, but shawls rarely need washing, so that does not concern me much.

Pattern Info:
Birch Leaf Shawl (a.k.a. Bottom-Up Birch) by Susan Gutperl
Ravelry

The pattern can be worked in two ways. The first (red arrow) is symmetrical, worked from the bottom center point and ending at the long edge (that you would wear across your shoulders). The second (blue arrow) is asymmetrical, worked from one end point across and binding off one of the shorter “triangle” sides.

construction A in red; construction B in blue

The asymmetry of the leaf pattern in construction B appealed to me, so I went with that, and I’m very satisfied with the results. Another reason this pattern appealed to me was that it lacked a traditional border, which most shawl patterns have. A border requires that you guess at how many main body pattern repeats to work before beginning the border. I wanted to make as large a shawl as possible, which meant using as much of the yarn I had available. I did have to rip back a couple of times in order to work as many rows as possible, but it was far less of a hassle than it would have been if the pattern included a border.

The leaf design is simple, but pretty, and was easily memorized, which meant I stopped using the pattern pretty quickly.

Photos: Click any picture to see it larger.

on the fence

leaf pattern

on the desk

on the bed

on our full-size bed, for scale

blocking; tape measure set to 1 foot, for scale

She Gardens: Beginnings

Our new house has a fabulously-large backyard with plenty of space for a garden. A previous owner once had a large garden plot, but a later owner let it grow over with grass. Thanks to a gracious someone, we had a new tiller and were eager to get a garden planted before the end of April.

I don’t have a before picture, but here is the garden plot after we tilled it twice.

about 25′ x 45′

We then planted cucumbers, squash, bush beans, broccoli, tomato, onion, corn, and carrot. We are treating this year as an experiment and are not expecting much. There is grass tilled into the soil which may make growth difficult, and we may have trouble with weeds especially this first year. Whatever we get out of it will be a joy to us.

Elsewhere around the house, I’ve been finding pleasant pretties popping up. Three tulips bloomed in the front yard (one after this picture was taken),

pretty!

along with some wisteria that I think is absolutely beautiful.

Some daffodils bloomed just before we moved in, and I think there are more tulips in the backyard. I’m waiting to see what all there is before deciding what and where to plant new things.