Hilling Potatoes

Early this afternoon I worked in our garden planting a third crop of lettuce, more carrots, bush beans and zinnias. It was raining lightly; a perfect day for working in the garden.

Last week Taite and I went to open house at Sugartown Garden. We had a lovely visit and we learned that they were looking for help during open work hours Sundays 2-4. Taite was very excited about this opportunity and talked about her "work" all week. Unfortunately she spiked a fever yesterday and has not yet recovered so she could not join me to Sugartown today.

Anna and I headed over there at about 2:30. It was hard to leave unfinished work at home to go work on some else's garden, but it felt right. The people who I met there last weekend were so kind and seemed so excited about sharing. When we arrived just one other mom and child were their to help the two organizers. Anna and I were put to the task of hilling potatoes. I had never hilled potatoes before and was happy to learn all about it. Apparently if sunlight finds the potatoes underground then they turn green and inedible. As the plants grow you mound dirt at the base of the plants so as not to let in the sunlight.

While we hilled potatoes, the other family left leaving just the four of us. A bit later we were joined by friends. Anna and Z played in the sandbox and M and I moved on to thinning chard. We came home with plenty of freshly pick swiss chard to stir-fry at dinner and some chard plants to add to our garden patch at home.

I'm so glad we took the time to go over to work. I learned a lot and the camaraderie was wonderful.

Surprise Snow

This morning we woke to a winter wonderland.  Here's what T had to say about that "it's not even Thanksgiving yet!"  We built a snowman family and enjoyed the fluke snow.  It has put me in the mood for Christmas earlier than usual.

All summer I waited for my parsley to grow and it never did much of anything.  Now after a bit of cool weather it's much healthier.  I'm going to try to protect it and enjoy it all winter long.  

BTW yes, I have been knitting.  On needles now is an adorable pixie.  I got the kit from E at our knitting group's yarn swap.  I'm also working on a scarf for Special Olympics.  I've decided to crochet it to give my hands a different action.  At night I've been having pain and numbness in my right hand.  The project specifies you make the scarf with specific colors of Red Heart yarn it's an awful yarn to work with, but affordable to most people.  

New Garden Square

In case you haven't noticed, I've been playing some catch up with posts.  After a bit of a writer's block, I'm back to blogging again. Over the weekend, we started our new garden. Hubby got the 4x4's lined up and in the ground using these nifty anchor joints. (Thanks to Marsha for the suggestion.)

The  girls had  most fun watching us and taking photos.  Especially as the sun went down and the camera flashed with every photo they took.  Now we have plenty of photos of the car, their bikes, the driveway and us (or parts of us) working on the new garden.

I went ahead and filled the bed with this soil, recommended by Mike McGrath of You Bet Your Garden.  Personally, I despise his call-in show, but I have used his suggestions for container gardening with much success.

I know it is way too late to start much from seed, but we'll see how it goes.  My sister has to thin her young spinach so I'll have those plants.  Also, I'm not opposed to buying plants.  

Note:  I planted some Cosmos seed in one of the 1' squares on 8 June 08 and I noticed sprouts already today, 10 June 08.  Is that possible?

Morning Glories

For the past couple years, I've planted morning glories in the corner of the yard. This year the plant did particularly well; the opposite side of this fence looks just as lush. Against the fence hangs a rusty old bike frame that I pulled out of the creek (drainage ditch) that runs by our home. I'm an avid bicyclist in my past life and was intruiqued with the piece. My MIL and husband did not share my enthusiasm for the find and as a joke, nailed it prominently to the corner of the fence. "That looks great - perfect!", I said. Now the joke's on them. The bike frame has been hanging there ever since; you just can't see it this year due to the prolific morning glories.

See those ugly white lamp posts behind the beautiful morning glories in the photo to your right? You can't? Good! I hate those posts and I've hated them for the past four years. Thanks to another great idea from Marsha (Marsha has great ideas), this year I planted morning glories to hide the post. Why didn't I ever think of that? I thought to put morning glories in by the fence which now cover my beautiful bike frame.

The first time I planted them from 4" pots, I put them right into the ground at the base of the post. Little bunnies had a feast overnight, next morning, no plants! So, I bought new plants and put them in large pots thinking that maybe having the delicious plants up off the ground would deter the rabbits. I don't know if that's what did it or not. But, it worked.