Cottage Garden 7

It's been too long since I've posted anything, as life has been too busy. I now have the china cupboard almost done, and already have some of the china in. It looks so nice! I'll take a picture when it's done, and post that. By the way, the bottom portion of the cupboard makes an excellent place to take pictures of the kids. We had a lot of fun with that. On to the gardens, though:

Ageratum in the pot on my back deck. Photo taken July 8.


I bought a bunch of perennials at a "buy 1, get 1" sale. Also, I was happy to find a kiwi vine. I thought they all grew on trees. And I didn't know there were hardy varieties. So this was a great discovery! If I get some kiwi on it, I'll be even happier! I have to figure out where and how to plant it now.


One of the first zinnias. Photo taken July 8.


What remains of the shorn tomato plants: stalk and fruit.


The first tomato ripening. Photo taken July 8.



A strawberry plant I bought for Sophia.


One of three very large cutworms that made quick work of a couple of tomato plants.
(As an aside, I should tell you that my next degree will be in "creatures that kill a garden".)


(And the next degree will be in hardscaping.) I'm already wishing I'd built up the bed with more soil before putting plants in, but it still looks so much better after adding the rock border. I'm learning as I go.


The pot on the back porch. Photo taken July 16. Dahlia buds clearly visible; zinnias in full bloom. Ageratum being eaten by little lime-green inchworms who covered themselves with flower pieces as a disguise. Very crafty, but after all the damage they did to the ageratum, I surely discovered them, and took an insect spray to them. It's starting to recover now. Had I not found this when I did, the ageratum would surely all be eaten by now!


Another zinnia. Photo taken July 16.


A lime-green zinnia with a lime-green bug. I love this color of zinnia! Next year I'll plant more. They don't seem to grow as well as the pink ones or the purple ones, so I'll plant LOTS of seeds in hopes of a few more than the ONE I got this year. About this bug. I thought it was beautiful! It seemed harmless enough, so I left it there. Big mistake. -- Lots of holes in the zinnia a short time later. Aren't there any bugs that are GOOD for a garden???

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!