and we have grass!

This update might possibly be boring for people, but it's mostly to give my Mom an update on what's going on!  So, I've talked a bit about my back yard projects and you might remember that previously it was just a bunch of dead weeds. Well, it is now transformed!

A few weeks ago now, I had sod delivered to my house and a few friends helped me lay it out into the yard. We had prepped the dirt the weekend prior. We did not bring in any dirt, additives or fertilizers. When we were digging up the weeds we found that there had previously been sod here so we figured that the dirt would support grass. Honestly I didn't think about it much until after the sod was down and I was telling people (in my excitement) and people kept asking if I had pre-treated the soil - nope.

So, this first picture is the very first day! It already looks so, so much better. You can see in the forefront that there is still some dead weed matter. I have since cleaned that up and covered the edges with weed barrier. 

The picture below is a couple days ago. You can see how lush and green it is. Also, against the fence in the background you can see the angle of the slope towards the back. During the excavation process that slope was gone over a few times and so it is more gradual now than it had been.  Plus we raked over everything to try and even out the area so make it a nice home for the grass.

And, because this is George's home too, here she is enjoying the yard.  I imagine she likes how soft and cool the grass is.

Here's a little peek at the front flower bed, which I am just LOVING! I had planted rudbekia last year and this echinachea this year at the beginning of summer. The yellow rudbekia has been bloomed for like 2 weeks! I must remember to look out for more for the back yard. 

progress happening slowly but surely

Last time I checked in here we had started the back yard project. Well, life has sort of  gotten in the way a bit and it's on hold for now. I've been in an admitted funk about it because I let myself get super excited and then it kind of stalled out. But! It's still going to eventually happen and I'm feeling better about it. I thought I'd share the stuff that is making progress (mostly for my mom to see) 😀

I've been trying to keep track of what plants I put in so that down the line I'll know if I need to for some reason.  In the back yard I put in two bushes that I bought as bare root plants, lilac and forsythia. They are tiny now but in a few years will hopefully fill in the corner of the back yard I put them in!


This is one of the mauve-ish irises that I planted  last year. I think these were given to me by my realtor? She gave me some irises and peonies that she has thinned out from her yard. I just love the tigery pattern at the inside of the petals!

Yesterday (Saturday) I decided to clean up the front flower bed rose bushes. These were bushes that were here when I bought my house. I have trimmed them back several times which I think has just made them even more unruly! One of the bushes was right close to the front door and more than a few times I've come out the door and almost walked right into a branch! So I had been considering removing it. Which is exactly what happened yesterday!  Below is a pic of the branches one part of the bush I removed.  

And below is what it looked like right after I pulled the rose bush out. I planted all the daffodil and tulip bulbs I had left from last year, and more iris tubers. I put irises all along the back edge and the daffodils in the front. I added the salvia next to the rhubarb, then the next plant is veronica which I had planted last year. At the end is a spirea bush that I put in last year I think. I did buy more plants last night and put them in: lavender, columbine, pink veronica and something that looks like a daisy but I don't remember the name right now.  The porch looks so much more open!  In the future I'd like to put a railing along the back of the bed with a little gate. There are a couple houses in my subdivision that have done that and it's super cute!

Okay, in sewing news - I made a dress that I love and it is super comfy!  My Mom had given me this peach cotton that has little ducks on it.  I knew I'd want some kind of garment out of it.  I made this McCall's pattern M7115 and I made view D.  It was a super easy pattern.  I made it even easier by not putting in button holes. When I was trying it on before doing buttons it went over my head easily so I just sewed the buttons through the two layers of the bodice so it's fixed closed.  I used abalone pearl buttons.

And here's the finished product, with George of course!  She is such a photo ham!  She was in another room at then other end of the house and came running to get in the picture.  

So here in the US  it's a long weekend for Memorial day.  I made myself a list of things I want to get done and so far I'm doing good. This morning (Sunday) I went for a 2 mile hike with a friend. There's a little parking area off the side of the highway after the lake that has some nice trails. We got a bit off the trail at the beginning and did some "off roading" but it was still really pretty! I've got an okay sense of direction so we got back to the main trail eventually and it was smooth sailing after that.

We've had a good amount of rain in the last couple weeks so everything is really green and pretty. Morning are still brisk but it gets close to 70's in the afternoon which is nice! I love this time of year.

Today I am going to cut out another dress from the same pattern as above, except I'm going to modify the front bodice to not have the two pieces. I'm just going to cut it out on the fold. I'm thinking I might like to put in some pockets as well?  

I am almost done with the socks I've been knitting, I only have 14 rows of ribbing then bind off! So I'd like to finish that this weekend too. I also pulled out my cross stitch pattern that I had started forever ago!  Oh! and I am going to start reading a book. After my husband died I lost all concentration reading. But, I feel like I'd like to give it another go. So we'll see if I can stick with it!

I hope you're having a great weekend, whatever you're doing!

garden catch up part 2

This garden catch up is the flower edition.  These first pics are in the front yard.  The front yard is significantly easier because I have an HOA which maintains the grass in the front. I do have 3 flower bed areas that are mine to maintain but it's not as overwhelming as my back yard which is a foxtail dead zone nightmare.  But! I am slowly reclaiming it :)

 I know I've shared pics of these flower beds previously but I have made some new additions.  Home Depot had bark mulch on sale for Labor Day weekend so I grabbed a few bags to help with weed control in the front.  And it looks nice too :)  I also picked up these pretty pink coneflowers, I put one on each side of the giant rose bush. Which I still need to prune back! Yikes.

The yellow is rudbeckia. The flowers only lasted a day, then pooped out. But, the leaves are still green so I have hope the plant will live.  In the back row you can see my lavender and salvia did really well through the summer. That salvia is about double the side of when I put it in and the bees love it!

Oh man, this was a great day.  So I stopped in Freddy Meyers to pick up a prescription and the pharmacy computer was down.  What's a girl to do?  Check out the clearance plants, of course!  I totally hit the jack pot!!!  They had just gotten a shipment of mums and the clerk was marking a whole rack as clearance - 50% off!  He said the leaves were droopy and dirt a little dry but the roots weren't dry.

Well, I know from experience that clearance plants usually perk right up after they are planted, watered, and loved!  So I filled my entire cart with mums!  I was planning to buy some anyway so it was really perfect timing.

I planted them around the crepe myrtle tree in the front yard. I have quite a few different colors which are kind of fun.  I have to admit planting around that tree was not fun at all!!!!  The soil is super compacted and the roots of the tree are all over.  I wore a hole in my hand digging holes for the plants. I did manage to also put a ring of daffodil bulbs, tulip bulbs and crocus bulbs all around under the mums.  Hopefully once springs rolls around it will be beautiful!

So, a small update in the back yard. I started the spring/summer thinking that I would be able to pull out all the weeds and reseed the grass. I must of thought I was 10 people with tons of time and energy!  Needless to say that is not what happened!  I did get the hill weeded and a couple areas down to dirt.  Which then invited new, different weeds :) Boo.  

But!  This weekend I thought I'd get after it again.  My tools of choice are my rigid tine rake that I rake as much of the dead weeds out as I can.  Then I use my hoe to pull the foxtail seeds into a heap.  Then I put them in my little cart which I dump in the trash.  It is slow going.  The hill also has a bunch of rocks, for stability I imagine, that hold up the raking process.

 I did manage to claim a small victory in a corner on the hill today!  Woot!  I picked this particular corner because you can see it from the couch in my living room when the curtains are open to the sliding glass door.  I have been dreaming since I bought the house of being able to look out into the back yard and seeing a beautiful flower garden.  I put a hollyhock at the back, a blue aster that is very bee-attractive, a couple "goblin" gaillardia, a white salvia, and the last two mums. I also put daffodil and tulip bulbs along the bricks next to them.  I tried to build little dirt burms around the flowers to help keep the water from flowing down the slope. 

In the spring I plan to put hollyhock seeds along the fence. I also want to work on making the slope less of a hill.  I think by trying to put in steps instead of a slope I will have better success at growing things over there.  Next year I also want to put in my apricot tree! 

garden catch up part 1

I think the easiest way to get caught up at this point is a few posts. This will be the first in a series of what I will call "garden catch up"! Oy vey, where did the summer go???  Doesn't everyone say that at he end of every season?  I know I do.

So, we'll start with the veggie garden. This was so much fun and I learned so much.  I should also mention this was my first real garden so I really had no idea what I was doing. I did a lot of googling, a lot of question asking, reading, etc. to get where I did with my garden.  

Some things I thought going into this: I would have bumper crops of things and be able to can as I went. I did have bumper crops of patty pan squash, which are the cute yellow squash above.  But, my cucumbers were kind of more of a slow steady trickle.  My tomatoes did not really ripen. Green beans pooped out.  And zucchini?  Welp, I am still the only person who doesn't grow an abundance.

 But!  As you can see I did get things canned.  I realized that I could just do small batches of pickles as I had the cukes.  Luckily I was able to find fresh dill at the grocery store in big bouquet form since my dill did not even come up.  I also was able to make strawberry rhubarb jam with rhubarb from my plant in the front yard.  A coworker of mine gave me a big box of tomatoes from her garden that she couldn't use and I made a bunch of canned salsa, which was a first for me.

My spaghetti squash, pictured above, did really well - I think I got about 5 very, very large squash from one plant.  

This past week was the first frost and everything died.  Well, except for a couple leaves on a couple of my zucchini plants which have a couple very small squash so I'm leaving them be for the time being.

I've started a little list of what I need to do differently next year, how I want to rearrange things, what plants I want to do again, add to, etc.  I had a great time with this garden and will definitely do another next year!

Some canning stats:

10 jars of salsa

8 jars of strawberry rhubarb jam

8 jars of dill pickles

how does your garden grow?

I've got lots of updates in my yard to share today.  We'll start in the back yard which is honestly still pretty grody but has had a lot of progress made.  

In the picture on the left is where I ended last summer.  I had killed everything in the back yard and moved over the garden frame which was on the other side of the yard completely in the shade.  The garden box was already here when I bought the house last year.  The photo on the right shows the beginning of this spring.  When everything started coming up green I was so excited! Then, after the first cutting I realized it was all fox tails!!!! Rude. So, I set about pulling them - by hand.  It's verrrry slow going as you can imagine. But! If I weed eat them the heads that have the seeds just go on the ground so this way I am eliminating some of the seeds.

And here we have the day I planted the garden!!!!  Oh that was an exciting day for sure.  I bought already grown plants for most things. Next year I will start things from seed indoors.  I'm learning, slowly but surely!  See that cart in the background?  That is my weeding cart. I try and fill at least one or two cart fulls every day. This past couple of weeks I have not been hitting that mark but still do something every chance I can. Slow and steady I am reclaiming my back yard!

So photo on the left after a nice drenching rain. Photo on the right this afternoon.  I thinned out the onions in the bottom lefthand corner so I know it looks bleak but they are just thin shoots but still there.

 And I have baby tomatoes!!!!!!!  Oh happy day!  I have one group that will be yellow pears and another group of cherry tomatoes.  I have not had any success growing tomatoes up here in the past so this is very exciting!

Now for the front yard. The front is like a whole different house. Ha! My HOA takes care of the lawn in the front yard, keeping it green, aerating and mowing.  So it's lush in front and weed free.  I have two flower beds, one on either side of my walkway.  This first picture is in front of my living room window and there's a bit of a covered porch area behind the roses.  The roses and rhubarb were already here, and the rest before I started planting was grass and weeds.  I pulled everything out back to dirt and planted flowers.  The purple is veronica, in front of that are pink carnations, next is a spirea that is small now but will be a shrub eventually. 

 

The flower bed on the other side I don't have as many photos yet.  On that side there is a giant rose bush that was already there, and tucked behind it was a clump of lilies. It also was full of grass and weeds. I did the same thing here, pulled it all back to dirt.  There are also a bunch of rocks so it makes me think at one point maybe it was filled in with gravel? Anyway, I thinned out the lily plant and divided it into 6 plants and spaced those evenly in front. In the back row on either side of the rosebush I alternated lavender and purple salvia.  In between each lily plant I put in some iris tubers that a friend gave me from her garden.

Everything is filling in very well, which makes me happy.  I can see what I want it all to look like in my mind's eye.  I know it's going to take a long time to get rid of the weeds and replace with healthy grass and flowers. But! With God's grace I have hope.

It's not pretty

Every year around this time I start to look forward to Fall.  And I start to trick myself a little bit and start doing Fall things.  Like I want to wear sweaters and be cozy, light Fall scented candles, drink pumpkin spice flavored coffee...all the things.  Last week it was really chilly at night and morning so I really felt like the weather was feeling the same as me - looking forward to Fall! ha!

Actually, that's one of the things I love about where I live is that I look forward to each season.  Winter not as much because driving on ice is not my favorite.  But a nice thick snowfall when I don't have to go anywhere is actually really sweet.  The other day I found pumpkin spice coffee creamer at the store and of course bought some and I've been enjoying it all week.

I'm trying to remember if I've talked about my back yard or not?  I think I have.  Anyways.  I killed all the grass and weeds and now it is a dead zone.  I am planning to reseed in September or whenever the temps are between 60-80 degrees consistently during the day.  Before that can happen though I have a LOT of work to do out there.  As per usual I could feel myself starting to get overwhelmed and then avoid the situation.  But!  I told myself if I just do a little at a time I'll be done in no time.

Right?  So what do I do?  Start small and take little bites?  Nope.

Yesterday I thought, I'll just start with weeding and cleaning out the raised bed area.  It's small.  So I raked and filled two trash bags full of grody foxtails and debris.  And then I thought, I'll just see if the sides lift up easily.  One side sort of did which encouraged me to dig out around the edges and lift the entire frame up over the dirt and start to move it across the yard.  In the heat of the afternoon in the sun.

Luckily I did not get sunburned but it was hard!  I'd pull and push it a couple feet then have to stop and cool down.  Then get back to it, then stop, and so on.  I kept telling myself, "you can do it, you can do it."  And eventually I did.  You can see here where I started at the dirt pile and then where I ended up on the other end of the yard.  I know in this picture it doesn't look like that far, but it really is!  Oy vey.

I parked it at the bottom of the little hill there. I wanted to leave a nice open space in the rest of the yard in case Rocky and I play fetch or something, give him room to run.  Also it gets the most continuous sun here.  The shade you see here did not start until 5 pm.  

I was kind of hoping to put an apricot tree at the top of that sloped area, there is a flat spot at the top.  But, I don't know if that will work or not.  Eventually I am going to put flowers on the hill.  I'd really love to get a cottage type garden growing there and then have the rest of the yard be lawn.  

This perspective is from inside the house looking out.  George, being a curious cat, is checking out the new situation.

So, I know these pictures are super ugly and not fun to look at, but I wanted to be able to document my starting place.  Hopefully I can manage to get everything green by next year and that box full of veggies!  My goal is to grow the ingredients for my pickles.  I thought that would be really cool.  So, cucumbers, dill, garlic and jalapenos.  I would also love some tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, lemon cucumbers and who knows what else!  

In other news I have finally gotten past the heel on sock number 2 of my raspberry waffles socks!!!  Yeah!  This yarn is so fun.  I think if I can really work on it this week I can finish this sock and have it finished!  

I hope you all have a great week!  I plan to knit and keep watching the Olympics :)

slowly but surely

A couple of weeks ago now, I had an appointment with my hairdresser to get my highlights done and trim.  On a whim I sent her a text to see if we could put some pink peek-a-boo chunks in.  I don't even know what got into me!  But, I love it!  You really only see it when I've got my hair pulled back or wind blows or something.

I started a Halloweenie table runner.  So far I just have everything up on the design wall and one square done, the one in the middle.  It was kind of fun to drag out all my Halloween fabric, there's not really that much and pull together what felt right at the moment.  Joann's has some fun Jack Skellington Nightmare Before Christmas fabric.  I cut too many squares and then overshot my estimate of how many half square triangles to make so I have enough leftovers to make a pillow as well.

I keep knitting away on my Raspberry Waffle socks.  This is where I am on the second sock, almost to the heel.  I'm really loving how this yarn is knitting up.  The colors are much deeper in person.  

I really have a hankering to be knitting a little animal of some kind.  But!  I am forcing myself to finish this sock before I cast something else on.  I'm afraid if I don't make myself finish it will languish for months. Plus, I have yet to find some fuzzy yarn in the right weight....

So!  I think I've mentioned before that the plan this year for my yard was to see what grows and then next year start filling in and fixing and planting.  Yep, that was the plan.  Key word was.  What has actually started to happen is that I'm starting the fixing this year.  Rather by accident.  I mentioned the sad weedy state of my back yard to a coworker and her husband and then all of a sudden they were like we found this spray, you should try it, blah blah you can re-seed in September, blah blah.....

And so I found myself planning how to start a new lawn from scratch.  Any real grass has been long dead and overtaken by foxtails.  Foxtails are no fun and frankly they are rude to animals.  It looks like grass at first, so I was fooled.  But, then the ends turned into foxtails, which pop off and get stuck everywhere!  ugggg. 

The new plan is that I have killed everything green in the back yard.  Don't feel bad though because all that was left were foxtails and spindly spiky dandelions.  I am then going to somehow remove all the dead stuff, rake out the dirt, fertilize and re-seed, cover with either a mulch or compost and then hopefully have grass growing.  

In the meantime!  My Mom brought me a red hot poker plant when she came to visit and I needed to plant it.  I have a couple of flower beds right up against the house in the back.  One is full of weeds, the other was full of rocks.  Nice, huh?  LOL I picked the one I thought would be easier - the rocks - and raked them out.  I bought another couple poker plants and it looks really nice!  

After church today I popped over to Joann's fabric, looking for fuzzy yarn to knit an animal.  I found a few contenders but nothing perfect.  On my way out I stopped to check the magazines. Look what I found!  Eeeek!  I can't figure out how to turn the picture, sorry.  But!  Bunny slippers!  That are not felted!!!!!  oh, it is ON!  

photocatchup

Okay, this is a phot catch up sort of post because I have been slacking a bit in the uploading area as of late. So, first up is a pic of how long my hair was before the chop. And, this is the after.  Nice up the nose shot, dontcha think?    This was taken right after the cut, I had been scrapbooking, took a break for the haircut, went back, snapped a pic and got back to scrapbooking.  I donated the ponytail to Locks of Love which is for cancer to make wigs.  Total length was about 12 inches!  And, I started this quilt on a whim.  I wanted a quick project and a lady in our bible study is pregnant. I don't know if she'll really like it so much because I recall her saying that the nursery is going to be primary colors. But, I really like the way it turned out and figure that anyone can use an extra quilt, right? Here's the back.  I basically just copied the quilt I had just finished, the ugly fabric quilt.  These were taken prior to adding on the binding because I was having a little trouble picking a color.  I wanted to use something from my stash to avoid spending any moolah.  But, I really had my heart set on turquoise and had none in my stash.  So, I ended up buying more fabric anyway but had a good coupon.  So, imagine it with turquoise binding :) I'll leave you with this, a picture of one of the flowers on my squash plants!!!!  I am so excited!  The other plants are also doing well but this is the first one to flower.  Isn't it beautiful? Okay, I can't resist a dog picture!  I was snapping pics of my plants and the boys had to be in the middle of it.  You'll notice my jenky set up here with the plants elevated.  That's because those little stinkers finally noticed the plants and felt the need to try and help with watering if you know what I mean!  Argh!Okay,  that's all for now, I've got to go get ready for a wedding!  Hope you all have a fab weekend!  It's nice and sunny and warm here and in the 80's - perfect!