Laura's Tangents

Enjoying looking at an enormous book Strider brought home-Atlas of American Agriculture: Physical Basis including Land Relief, Climate, Soils and Natural Vegetation. It was published by the US department of agriculture in 1936 and has lots of color plates:

(You can access this book online here.) 

Katie's Tangents

In all my years of cooking and preparing food, I've never easily cut up a whole, raw chicken. While preparing this awesome chicken for Michael's Father's Day meal, I found this video for how to cut up a chicken into parts. I'm proud to say that I cut up my second chicken in less than five minutes- it's such clever technique! 

Laura turned me onto the Alan Bradley series about Flavia De Luce, an 11 year-old detective. If you are looking for some light summer reading, the five-book series is a good bet. 

I think I already posted about this book, but we're having so much fun working through Art Lab for Kids. I wanted my boys to spend more time making art this summer, and this book is providing the perfect framework. 

We were off to a bit of a slow start, but I'm hoping to get in the groove for summer break and do a few projects from the book each week. I replenished our art supplies using the suggestions in the first chapter, so now we have almost everything we need to do every project in the book- which makes contemplating new projects much more fun to me, don't have to run to the art store before we can get going.  

Laura's Garden

Now that the asparagus is in its second year it has really established itself as a fern-y hedge. See the grapes on the screen porch?

I got them for mother's day last year, let them languish in their pots all summer, finally got them in the ground last fall, and just a couple of weeks ago put up wires for them.  Amazingly, they aren't holding any grudges and have scrambled up and over the first 2 wires and are well on the way to shading the south side of the screen porch.

That is ONE parsley plant going to seed beneath the grapes-it is covered with little beneficial insects and butterfly caterpillars....The garden in the meadow is really popping, I am about half way done with spreading mulch, and I've gotten 2 of my 3 rows of tomatoes supported:

I had a bunch of cages made of woven wire fencing, but only enough for 1 row. For the second row I drove in T posts, and strung up t-shirt yarn between them. I'm worried about how well this system will work when the plants are huge and loaded with fruit. I'd love to hear suggestions for any tomato supports you've been successful with-maybe I'll do something else for the third row for a little tomato trellis trial!

Katie's Garden

We're enjoying our tiny pond and it's inhabitants- three fat goldfish and one huge frog. This pond was an afternoon homeschool project and while it's not one you might see in a garden magazine, it has enriched our yard and garden so much. It attracts all kinds of birds and creatures. Last week I fixed up the edge with more stones and raised the water level a bit by messing with the liner. Now the whole thing is larger and more intentional-looking. The water lettuce and water hyacinth have turned the water shockingly clear, and Avery was delighted the other day when the resident frog was sitting on a water lettuce plant just like Mr. Jeremy Fisher perched on a lily pad. 

Now, on to the edible part of the garden...

I've been out of sorts lately and haven't been working outside much. But, happily, the garden keeps on growing, especially spurred on by the much-needed rains we've been getting. All around us are promises of fruit and food- soon, soon! 

Figs

Blackberries

Tomatoes

Cukes

and so many more things! Garlic is ready to harvest and the herbs are helping fill the gap between spring and summer crops. Basil, dill, parsley plants are all large enough to harvest big handfuls of leaves to add to almost every meal. I thrilled my boys by making a family favorite, Basil Chicken, for dinner this week. Now if only my Thai basil plants could keep up with my family's appetite for this dish!

And I'm so glad I let this hollyhock go, even though it came up in the gravel outside of the vegetable garden beds. 

Laura's Projects

Knitting on the screen porch, knitting in the hammock, knitting with my feet in our stock tank pool-making progress on my scarf:

It is 50 inches long (!), I'm just over halfway through the ball. I love how it is coming along, but sheesh this is a ton of straight, boring knitting the color changes are what keep me at it....

I finished another knit yoke top-and wrote up the pattern, stay tuned for that soon:

Katie's Projects

I'm making good use of my clean worktables this week- it's so great to spread out!

I really need a new purse and thought it would be fun to design something that would work well for summertime essentials. I'm planning to use heavy white canvas, maybe stenciled, and a simple leather strap. Also, I've been long considering the idea of designing something and offering the pattern both as a sewing pattern and a knitting pattern and this might be the first project where I try that. 

Anyway, I bought a tiny leather bag at a church rummage sale years ago, and am using that as my inspiration for the shape. 

But this bag is really narrow, not super-functional.

(note the nut holding the lacing in place...)

I purchased Brendan's Leather Book when I first began working with leather and there's a chapter on purses. There are really helpful directions for how to draft your own purse or bag pattern. So I made a few pattern drafts on big pieces of paper. The back and flap for the purse are all one large piece. I made a generous, tapered gusset so the bag will be plenty deep enough for all my stuff. This was the longest part of the process, it's funny how small changes to the proportions or curves makes a big difference in how the bag looks in the end. 

I had to wing it for the rest of the project since working with fabric is very different from working with leather of course. But I think the shape is headed in the right direction. The extra-large flap stays securely in place on its own. 

Figuring out the lining was a bit tricky, but I think the hardest part of this project is behind me. 

Tomorrow I'll try a second-draft and include a strap. 

Katie's Projects

I don't have a lot in progress right now, but earlier this week Laura and our friend Laura spent the morning with me, grouping like with like and tossing the trash. I now have a clean workspace. 

Imagine that! A clean table. I wish I had taken a before shot, though it might have been too much reality. 

Now the prospect of starting a new project feels exciting and hopeful. I'm looking forward to spending time at my clean worktable soon. 

Laura's Projects

Making a tree house doll house for a young friend:

Also carved a few stamps this week-

Laura's Projects

I finally finished the chair I started reupholstering 3 months ago-

Of course, it didn't actually take that that long-just turns out I do not enjoy this kind if work. Big thanks to my mom for so much help! It is tricky to get an unoccupied photo-most of the time the chair is in use by this person:

or this one:

Success.

Knitting wise, my cotton bias scarf is fetchingly growing from one indescribable color to the next:

Out of the blue I've got a fever to carve stamps, so, I bought Geninne's lovely book and dug out a linoleum cutter I stole out of a studio in college...hmmm:

 Katie's Projects

I made a bit of progress on my scarf...

but my progress has slowed since I've moved back to my outside work. I can't believe Laura has surpassed me in progress, I had a sizeable head start. She's such a super-consistent knitter. I work in fits and starts. Now that there's a "race," maybe I'll be more motivated. We have a friend who is also making this scarf and I think this mini knit-a-long is just the thing I need to keep me motivated. 

Does this gravel pile look any smaller to you?

I'm beginning to wonder if it will be a permanent addition to our driveway. Which actually would please my kiddos so much. I've been making slow progress moving this heavy stuff around, and I am really happy with how it looks. 

I've also moved on to a different part of the project- 

The fence. Lots of holes to dig- 18" down and through a compacted gravel driveway. Oof. 

Katie's Garden

A bit of background- I live in town and have a small, super-shady lot that is wonderful in the heat of July when our house is cool and shaded by giant oak trees, but makes it tricky to grow vegetables. Last year I put in 6 raised beds right by the street. The spot is the sunniest I have and the parking strip isn't much good for anything else anyway. This year it was so wonderful to have these beds all ready to plant.

The peas love the unseasonably cool spring we've had and are just about ready to pick. These are a shell pea variety I can't remember. I don't know how they snuck in, I meant to only plant snap peas this year because there is more yield since you can eat the shells. But I'm happy to eat any peas this time of year, even if it's just a handful. 

Something is wrong with my onions. They are all falling over and sending up seed stalks. I don't know why this is- maybe from sets that were too large? Also, I bought the sets at a big-box store, and worried they were crappy when I planted them. 

The lettuces, spinach and greens have been SO productive and beautiful. I started the plants inside and transplanted them out, and that gave them a nice head start. The mesclun mix is from Seeds from Italy and the Asian Greens are a mix from Botanical Interests. 

You can just see the celery plants on the left of this bed, this is the first year I'm growing them. I got the plants from the Potting Shed, a local garden center. 

I'm put in four new garden beds next to my driveway. They get more shade, and I haven't constructed raised beds, but I dumped a bunch of chicken run compost and straw to prepare the beds last fall. I am happy with the broccoli I started from seed, it's the Piracicaba variety from Fedco. There's also a bunch of garlic in these beds, as well as some lettuces and kale that's going to seed. I'm going to let the kale go and save the seed. 

Another new thing I'm trying this year- growing in straw bales. I've planted these four bales full of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and watermelon, but that's not the only thing growing- 

So many mushrooms! It's a good sign, means the bales are decomposing. So far this method has exceeded my expectations. Maybe it's because of the weather, but I haven't had to water these plants any more than plants in the garden beds. 

Laura's Garden

My situation is quite different from Katie's. We are creating our homestead in a sunny 2 acre meadow, surrounded by acres and acres of wooded hills. We have been living here for a year and a half, carving out gardens and building sites from the ground up.

Before we built any buildings, I put in 9 4x8 raised beds. These hold herbs, strawberries and the makings of many salads-lettuces, arugula, kale, radishes, celery and beets. I haven't had any trouble with bunnies or deer-I assume our dogs keep them at bay.

That tall clump on the right is a yarrow that was growing wild in the meadow when I made these beds. Despite trying to dig it out a couple of times, it has persisted and thrived. I appreciate the many uses of yarrow, just wanted to choose where it was growing-so much simpler to just enjoy it and let it be where it wants to be!

These beds from another angle-someday, hopefully next spring- I'll be able to walk out the front door, across a pergola covered patio, and out into the garden:

This garden can't be expanded until the house is finished and all the earth moving is done, so we've started a bigger garden plot for row crops in a more out of the way spot:

Even though we have a nice big tiller, turning thick sod into garden space takes a ton of hard work. Our method is; mow the grass as short as possible, go over the area with the tiller, turn by hand with a shovel, till again to break up the clods and clumps, spread truckloads of manure, lime and amendments, till that all in. Phew. 

I've tried sheet composting to build new gardens in the past, but am not convinced it is the best way, especially for a garden this big. Also, acquiring that much material is hard work of another kind!