Cindy’s Blog

I didn’t plant anything this year, unless you count the kale and broccoli I planted last Fall. But this wonderful cucumber plant appeared and is growing well anyway. I haven’t even watered it.

Its doing even better than last years cucumbers, which suffered from crowding by the overplanted soybeans. I have a garden this year after all.

Here’s the shell tank, finally finished.

The point of the V turned out to be quite low. I’m not sure why. The armholes are small. It would be more comfortable if they were larger, but they’re small on the model in the book the pattern came from too. Even so, I like it.

The wisteria is blooming. Here are some shots of it.

But the wisteria pics are really an excuse to try out a new technique I learned for rounding image corners.

Here’s our ridiculous ground cover, winter wheat and hairy vetch. The passages through it were made by the rabbit, Fred. He’s constructed his own maze so he can hide from hawks and eat at the same time. Its so cute.

Here’s the broccoli and kale crop. All that survived is the few plants that were protected inside fencing.

Here’s this year’s list of garden costs:

compost - $47.31
fertilizer - $7.00
seeds - $20.10
rebar/fencing - $31.87
winter cover crop seeds: $4.98
soil / peat pots - $4.98
TOTAL: $127.52

So much less than last year’s $375. But I underspent on fertilizer. I think that was a big part of the reason my pumpkins didn’t do better. Compost will probably cost more too because I’m going to give up on ordering it by the yard and will instead buy different types of bagged compost and manure. There will be no fencing costs next year. I already have fencing but the rabbits won’t be free range. I guarantee that.

Two of the rabbits escaped last week. They were out only for a few days, but it was long enough for them to take out almost all of my kale and broccoli.

Pumpkin season is over already. Here’s the biggest one. Only 11.4 pounds and 32 inches around. Look how square it is from above. So much for being an Atlantic Giant.

Here’s the rest of the backyard. The area closest to the camera is where I had the toughest time getting anything to grow, including the Atlantic ‘Giants’. Its also where the crimson clover cover crop was growing over the winter.

But at least the santa claus melons and canary melons are doing well. Look at ‘em spilling over onto the patio. Brandywines and volunteer tomatoes are crowded together behind the melons.

Here’s one of our first watermelons. So small, but so tasty.

It has a split in it like about half of the melons and tomatoes. What on earth is causing this?

And now for a shot of Jack’s man boobs. They’re visible since his fur hasn’t grown back in after a piece of a sponge ball was removed from his duodenum. A week and a half of not eating much caused him to lose a noticeable amount of weight, probably making his man boobs saggier than they were.

My cat has bigger breasts than I do! Should I knit him a manzierre?`

A yard of compost was delivered in our driveway last Saturday.

As he dumped the compost I snapped away and the driver kept repeating “You’re taking pictures!” Could he be worried that I would cause trouble once I realized how low quality this compost was? He would be right to worry. Last year the compost was very dark and smelled strongly like manure. Maybe the manure component wasn’t composted enough. But it was better than this years batch which had no manure smell, was much lighter and was loaded with sand! Who wants sand in their compost? What were they thinking? I haven’t called them yet, but I will.

Here it is in piles in our yard. It took twelve wheelbarrow trips all by myself. The garden muse was in Disneyland with the band. The cats wasted no time making themselves at home in the new sand/compost piles.

Even camera shy Jackie can’t resist.

Here’s a progress photo of the pumpkin patch.

I tried transfering some into newspaper pots for Michelle, but here’s the result.

The photo is blurry but I’m not re-taking a shot of dead pumpkins. Its no lie that they don’t like their roots disturbed.

Here’s the compost pile, bursting forth with pumpkins. The compost isn’t at all like compost sold in garden centers. I’m not sure what I did wrong. It might be that as the rabbits dug a hole into their palace, lots of horrible clay soil was shoveled into the compost. You’re not supposed to add soil to compost. I imagine adding horrible soil is even worse.

Since it’s so warm, we cut down and dug in a section of clover. It wasn’t easy, but this is the section of the yard where we didn’t amend the soil. This is Garrison’s experiment with growing pumpkins and melons in unamended clay soil.

I spent hours and hours digging up the rest of the yard too. I’m so sore today.

In the front yard we have our first calla lilly bloom. I thought they had completely died after the freeze. It was just an act.

We let Fred out to see if his time in prison had reformed him. It only hardened him. He wasted no time starting another reign of terror. Here he is guarding the bunny palace. He won’t let his brother Ed leave. But if Fred wants to eat he has to leave his post. Ed is then free to leave and Fred chases him around the yard. We have tried multiple times to capture Fred, but he’s on to us now. He’s too fast. Since Ed now refuses to fight and they aren’t seriously injuring themselves, we’re leaving them to work it out themselves for now.

Here’s a closeup of the backyard terrorist.

His mouth fur looks greenish. No doubt from engorging on the lettuce and clover that he’d like to keep his brother from eating.

The task of decorating our bulletin board at work is now a competition and is being rotated from group to group. My team was first up. Here’s our entry.

It’s very 3D. Look at it from the side. Who else has a bulletin board with a windowsill and curtains?

I wish I could say it was my idea, but all I contributed was the origami butterflies and bird which are almost not visible here.

Since we’re at work, here’s the rest of the tour. My cube…

And the view of my new building from across the street.

The tomatoes are growing faster now that the weather is warming up.

Here Ed and Lucy eat what they can reach of the crimson clover. Look how tall its getting.

Time to get diggy.

Documented above is the first turning of the ground for 2007. The soil is a thousand times easier to dig than last year. After a few more years of nurturing I expect it to be spectacularly rich.

Little did I know that as I turned the soil, a gardening muse was behind me.

I wondered last night whether I can use the appearance of pumpkin seedlings in the compost pile as an indicator that its warm enough to plant them. And what did I see today right next to the compost pile?

I can’t believe its warm enough yet. But… it’s so tempting to plant now.

A single cosmos seedling pops its little head out of the ground.

Its only a matter of time until the rabbits discover it and my lovely cosmos vanishes. For now its protected under plastic dome.

Fred peers out from his prison cell.

Here are the newbies…

One of the torpedo onions snuck into the picture. There are nine brandywines and two green zebras. None of the mortgage lifters germinated. I’m thinking of planting more brandywines in case anything happens to them. I can always give the extras away.

I’m still having trouble with mold on the outsides of the dixie cups. I keep wiping it off, but now the dixie cups are becoming more fragile. Next year I’ll start with newspaper pots. Or plastic.

Brandywine tomatoes, onions and marigolds have all been started and have popped their little heads out of their dixie cups. Photos of that later. I’ve learned that if you’re going to use dixie cups and keep them close together in their trays, you need to take steps to prevent the growth of mold on the outside of the cups. I had just read that fungi dislike alkali conditions so I rubbed baking soda on the outsides of every cup. It’s been 4 or 5 days now and the mold hasn’t returned.

It was warm for a few days last week and I captured daffodils in bloom.

On the needles…
I’m working on sweater #22 from Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer 2000. It has holes made by picking up a stitch, then increasing on one side and decreasing on the other as you knit. Here’s a swatch:

I needed to make a large swatch to be sure I had the technique for those holes down before starting the front. It took multiple tries.