Cottage Garden 6

Well, the gardening has hit a low spot, in my estimation. It just looks UGLY. The tomatoes are now officially taller than me, and they've outgrown their cages or stakes, and are taking them down. This morning I found one plant twisted over and lying on its side, with the cage ripped right out of the ground and all twisted up as well. The cage is useless, but so are the stakes, as another plant is about two feet taller than the stake and is flopping over. Where it's tied to the stake, it looks like it's being strangulated.

And then there are the aphids. UGH. I found out about a "natural remedy" for them of dish soap and water, sprayed on. Well, it burned up the leaves. So today I "sheared" my plants of the dead leaves, and now they look utterly despicable! It's like a poodle on a bad hair day.--You wish it would crawl under the bed and quit embarrassing you. So with my tomatoes. And they're on the front of my house, in my front flowerbed. Ugh, ugh, UGH!

I found a very fat cutter worm on another plant. I just can't step on them to kill them. So I deposited him with his tomato stem on the other side of the driveway, along with the dead leaves I'd clipped off of the other tomatoes. Maybe HE'LL eat the dish soap and die! But then, probably not.

One fun part of the gardening that I did today was to buy a kiwi vine and a strawberry plant. The strawberry plant has long tendrils hanging off of it, so I put it in a hanging basket on the arbor where my clematis is growing. I bought the strawberry plant for my daughter, who adores strawberries. (I told her she could plant whatever she wants to plant in the raised bed garden that we're going to make for next summer, and she is choosing strawberries and ice cream. I'm happy to oblige her on both, but I don't think ice cream grows in hot gardens, sadly.)

Another good point is that I found two ferns at Kmart yesterday, $5.99 each. Mum bought me one of them. I've been looking for ferns all summer, but couldn't bear to pay ten dollars each. So when we found them at $5.99, I knew I was bringing them home. I have to get some hooks up on my porch, and hopefully tomorrow I'll see them hanging up. (The ferns are lush green and THICK. At that price, I would have expected half-dead plants. I've got a job to keep them looking so good!)

The zinnias are now blooming! And my dahlia has a bud! And the glad bulbs are sending up 6-inch shoots of green already. (But the cursed tomato plants still claim only green tomatoes!) Bare spots are starting to fill in, too, but I feel like I planted everything in the wrong spots this year. I've been slowly hacking away at the grass to enlarge the garden, and I bought some potting soil to "fix" the dirt with. I'm going to steal some sand from the kids' sandbox supply, and mix it all together. Hopefully this will make for some better drainage -- and happier plants -- in the garden. I'm looking forward to the day that I can pull out the tomato plants and move everything around so that it's a little more pleasing to the eye.

Ah, the woes of first-time flower gardening! With tomatoes, no less!

Felt Baby Shoes 3

Just finished the second pair of shoes, for a boy. This pair I lined, as I didn't like the seam showing in the back of the shoe. I'm much happier with the results, although it did take longer to do.

Felt Baby Shoes 2

I just finished my first pair of baby shoes. They are quite small, newborn size, I'd say, and would be just a little bit big for an American Girl-sized doll.

The ribbons are held in place by flower-shaped eyelets, and are easily interchangeable with other color ribbons, making the shoes more versatile.

What do you think?

Felt Baby Shoes

Well, I think I'm on to a new venture: making things with the intent to sell.

I have admired baby shoes for a long time (even though I appreciated my own children's feet best in their natural/naked state), and recently found a style that I really like: felt or felted (knitted) baby shoes. Considering that knitting will take considerably more time, I am currently opting for the felt baby shoes.

Today I went to my local fabric store and bought several different shades of felt and a few buttons. I have gobs of ribbon. (We used to live near a ribbon outlet store. -- What fun I had there!) So I am in business. Soon. Wish me luck!

Furniture Painting

I'm actually doing it! -- Painting our china cabinet. We bought it approximately 4 years ago, and it's spent that whole time in its unfinished state. Initially I'd planned on staining it, but after sitting in the sun (partially) and getting the wood "tanned" in some spots, but not others (i.e. the back of the inside of the cabinet has six rings of white in it: where my six plates have sat for the past 4 years), we decided staining sounded like too much work. So, since I love French Country for my dining room, I decided black sounded like a good option. Plus, it will really make my china stand out.

The poor cabinet has been in the garage since last August following a commitment to not bring unfinished furniture into our house, and it is now time to thin out the kitchen cupboards by painting the cabinet! So last night I removed the doors and shelves and primed the cabinet shell. This morning I painted it, and sadly discovered that it will need another coat. The garage is WAY too hot and humid to work in anymore today, so it will wait for tomorrow morning for the second coat. David brought a dollie home from work in the event that tomorrow afternoon sometime we should be hauling it into the house. Over the next few days I'll get the shelves and doors painted as well, and then post a picture.

Blogging is good for keeping your commitments to yourself, if no one else! Ha!

Cottage Garden 5

I can't exacly say I'm proud of how my garden looks, as it's half tomatoe bed and half baby perennials, but I'm going to post what it looks like now so I can see the changes as they develop. I have a vision in my head for what I want it to look like, so that's what matters, right? (And if I can make it happen, I guess.) These are some of the perennials and annuals that are brightening a corner of the garden.


To the left of my porch, the tomatoes are bushy and quite tall (about 5 feet):


My clematis is growing, slowly but surely.


Coneflower










Blue Sage

Hydrangea (that's supposed to be blue!)









The tomatoes to the right of the porch are tall and spindly.


My much-prized Russian Sage








Tomatoe clusters


A great find the other day were these hollyhocks, growing along the fence between our's and our neighbor's house. I LOVE hollyhocks, but didn't think they'd grow well here. These proved me wrong! Yeah! So guess what I'll be planting more of along the fence?

On our back porch, I planted a number of plants in this large pot: Dahlia bulb, zinnias that I'd thinned out and transplanted from the front flowerbeds (and they actually took off!), ageratum, and alyssum.


I love the color and the "fluff" of these ageratum. They are annuals, but I just discovered that Bluestone Perennials has a perennial form of ageratum. It looks the same as these, but I get to KEEP them!








A zinna about to bloom. I have no idea what color this will be, as I planted from seed dark purple, light purple, dark pink, light pink, and lime green. Can't wait to see it! Although I planted all my zinnias at the same time, they are all growing at different rates. Some are 3 feet tall with buds; others are 3 inches tall. They've also migrated through and out of my flowerbed due to a couple heavy rains and heavy waterings that washed the seeds around. Oops!

Cottage Garden 4

I went to Lowe's this afternoon to get the paint for my china cabinet, and of course had to look at the plants. Actually, I headed to the plants first, because something outside Lawn and Garden caught my eye as I parked my car: Russian Sage!

Since the beginning thoughts of my garden, I have admired pictures of Russian Sage, but I've never seen any healthy-looking sage for sale anywhere, until today. So I came home with three of them, and also bought a few other plants to try out: Blue Daze, Salvia, and Blue Sage. I set them around in my garden, and even amongst the tall tomatoes they look great! (I'm becoming anxious for the day that I can pull the tomatoes out and start the flowerbeds over as FLOWERbeds.)

Our house has taupe-colored siding with black shutters. I like the monochromatic look of purple-blues with accents in white and pink against our house. It's restful to me.

Since the nursery man hasn't called yet, I've decided to take matters into my own hands for coming up with a design. I drew up some plans today on graph paper. I'm finding that it's a good thing that I do this, or I would buy way too many plants, and they wouldn't necessarily go together well, or fit anywhere. The bed to the right of my porch I'm going to expand to double the size it currently is, and will be able to put in some pretty specimens. The bed to the left of the porch is awful, though. -- Since it's only 3 feet wide (and 30 feet long), and the eaves overhang 2 of those 3 feet, it's a problem child. Most shrubs will spill onto the sidewalk. (I'm okay with this, but finding one that doesn't obliterate the sidewalk is tricky.)
And I will have to water incessantly, as rain doesn't reach most of it. Trying to balance an area this long and skinny is also difficult. So . . . This may not be my favorite side of the house. Ha!