Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Knitting (and garden) update!

As promised...a knitting update, with not just one but two pictures!

First, my finished May charity hat...

...which, once again I made too big for an average head. And once again, I will hope it will find its way to some large-headed homeless person. Why I am having such hat-size issues lately is beyond me. Note to self: cast on fewer stitches for hats!!!

And my more exciting WIP, the start of a brown Plath cropped cardigan...

Ok, so the picture itself isn't all that exciting since it isn't too far along yet, but I really like it at this point. As I think I mentioned earlier, the DIC Shrug I was making for myself out of Summer Tweed got frogged. I really, really want to use that brown ST for something. It is a beautiful yarn, but it is so very wimpy soft that it just does not maintain stitch definition well if you try to knit it loosely. It might make a nice shawl, though. Anyway, I'm using Schulana Merino-Cotton 90 for this cardi, and so far it is working beautifully. Stay tuned for more updates. Eventually.

No other projects to update. Sad, huh? It's weird...I am in full-on summer mode, nothing major pressing on my schedule, so you'd think I'd be knitting up a storm, wouldn't you? I would think I'd be knitting up a storm! But for whatever reason, my knitting mojo is somewhat waning at the moment. It must be in summer mode, too. Sometimes I actually start to feel guilty about not knitting more, which is stupid. It's not like anyone is holding a gun to my head and saying, "Knit, woman!" I have to remind myself that this is an activity I love and enjoy...it should not stress me out. Like everything else in life, knitting energy ebbs and flows, I suppose. Right now, it's ebbing, but the flow will return.

Ok...on to the gardening portion of our blog! The lilies are coming! The lilies are coming!

The Stella D'Oro were the first to produce a bloom this year, and while this one is looking a little ragged, there are plenty of blooms coming on, so we'll see how they do.

Then there are the yellow and orange lilies (I do not know what variety this is...anyone know?). Their first four blooms opened today! (Two are in the back so you can't see them.)

Holy moly! Do you see all those buds?? Some of these plants are actually taller than me (I'm 5' 4"), and the weight of the buds is starting to pull them over, so I had to tie them up. Never had to do that before.
These are my most favorite of all summertime flowers. When I was a kid, my dad would stop along the road and cut some of the orange lilies that grew in droves on the banks around where we lived out in the country. I don't remember him every buying flowers for my mom, but every summer, he'd bring home lilies, and that is such a happy memory for me.

I even had orange lilies in my wedding bouquet for that reason...a little way to remember my dad since he wasn't there.

The dianthus have become loaded with flowers as well...

...I love their pretty pink hues.

The salad garden is coming along well, too. I will be picking the first of our lettuces and spinach this week, I believe...
The green leaf lettuce was clearly the germination winner, but the mesclun greens in the middle seems to be growing larger and more fully though it didn't have as high a rate of germination. The spinach...well...what came up looks good, but only about half of it germinated. I resewed to fill in the empty spots, and again only maybe half came up. Not sure what the deal is with that. Will have to research and see what might be missing from the soil that the spinach wants.

Most exciting, though, are my tomatoes...

I've got baby cherry tomatoes on my Sun Gold plants! There are five on this plant (one is too tiny to even see in the picture...it's itty bitty and so cute!) and two on the other plant. I really hope they do well because I LOVE these tomatoes. So sweet without the acidic bite of some tomatoes.

We've been eating green onions and radishes from the garden as well. The beets seem to be doing fine, though they won't be ready to pull for quite a while. The cukes continue to grow. Having planted them from seed, they probably won't be producing fruit for another month, I'd guess. The pepper plants I put in last week are healthy and thriving and one has flowers on it already.

My tomatillos??? Man, I should have taken a picture. They are HUGE! Millions of blooms on them. No sign of fruit, though. I was reading online today that tomatillos will supposedly not self-pollinate so you need at least two plants to get fruit. Guess it is a good thing I bought two instead of just one. It also looks like fruit won't happen until late summer. I may have to chop the plants back a bit, though, before the overshadow everything around them. Next year, I'll definitely plant them in a larger space.

Hm...from the content division of this post, it looks like maybe my knitting mojo has been overtaken by my gardening mojo...and I didn't even know I really possessed gardening mojo! LOL

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't know exactly the variety of your unknown lilies, but I know they're asiatic lilies. We have quite a few in our backyard, and I love them!