sometimes i make other things

Knitting and sewing top the list, but I think I like making things in general.

Now, to call my gardening making things might be a little egotistical, but I did help the little guys out, planting, watering, talking, ogling.  I get a little obsessed with the garden.  We've gotten some good stuff this year!

A melon?! We didn't know what would happen with these.

 Isn't his little face cute?

33 little tomatoes! These and the basil behind them were homemade sauce tonight. I make sauce too!

 These suckers were even bigger than they look in this picture!  One became zucchini bread tonight.

A few other things homemade this summer...

pasta from scratch...

a haircut...

and a failed attempt to make liquid soap from a bar of soap...

Speaking of my recent compulsion to confess my failures - I was super-excited because Tessuti Fabrics asked to post my kooky gabby on their blog!  And I kept checking and checking (I'm not even going to lie and say I tried to play it cool) and I never saw it.  Turns out they posted a link on their facebook page, and it came and went.  Oh well.  I guess not a failure, I should be glad it was facebook-worthy (although I hate facebook?), but I was kind of bummed.
[Update:  Guess what!  Tessuti did post my dress!!  Check it out here!]

update on nothing

Life, knitting, and ambivalence about what to make next gave me a little forced hiatus on sewing.  I'm eager to back to it though, so I should have a something in the works soon.  Allusions towards a completed knitting project seemed to have jinxed me, so I'll just keep quiet about that.

Until then, a little green pepper from our community garden plot.  Aw!  It's so cute.  It's the first pepper we ever got to pick and eat - in Providence they always got munched off the plant and I can't figure out what creature did it there but doesn't in Baltimore.  I'm sure we have all the same rats, mice, and squirrels.  You could easily convince me that the creatures in Providence are more evil though.

tomatoes!

the tomatoes have arrived.there are four varieties, but i only remember three, amish paste (which, until just now when i looked it up, thought were the little orange ones, but are actually the plum tomato-shaped ones) a beefsteak variety (big boy i think?), and black prince. so i'm not sure what the orange ones are, but they're all good. i made a teeny bit of sauce but mostly have eaten them raw, and that beautiful beefsteak above was eaten sliced with a little bit of salt.

the warmth that radiates from a giant just-picked tomato is amazing.

i can't boast the same about corn. corn is hard! this ear tasted not so great and was pretty much all we got. now the stalks are dry and dead and impossible to pull from the ground.

the animals (and by animals, i mean rats and possibly raccoons) eat the vegetables too fast, so i picked this little bell pepper too fast so i could have it first, and it was tiny and good. there are more coming!

i can't even touch the inside of the pepper and then touch my lips without running for water. these peppers look beautiful but are, wow, hot.

i just pulled all the carrots today and there are finally some legit carrots. two actually.

to add to the list:

successes:

• italian roasters and jalapenos

what didn't work:

• corn. maybe if we had more space we could make a square cluster and space them a little better. they might like more water too.
• green peppers, only because of the critters

for the fall:

pickling cucumbers, broccoli, kale, and brussels sprouts

garden variety

some garden updates... the jalapenos are AWESOME and this red italian roaster was supposedly amazing, but too hot for me to even consider trying. there are three more curly green ones on the plant waiting to ripen.

we finally got two small eggplants (two more were removed by some creature perhaps, and rotting on the ground, unfortunately). i made eggplant parm with them and they were delicious. the tomatoes have started ripening, including the black prince tomatoes, which i mistook for diseased tomato, and threw the first one away. once i figured out they're supposed to look like that, we've been eating them and they taste pretty good, although i'm still getting used to the color.

i found one of our big beef tomatoes unripened and on the ground before it began to rot and decided to fry it up with cornmeal, flour, cayenne, and garlic powder (i wish i had added black pepper too), and it was so good that i considered yanking off some more unripe tomatoes - in fact, i probably will.

3/4 of the garden has now been removed (dead, unyielding plants and rotting green beans - completely my fault for not keeping up with them, a big disappointment). and we've planted seeds for pickling cucumbers, zucchini, and broccoli. i started seeds for kale and brussels sprouts that i'll transplant when the carrots and lettuce are all gone.

this plot is too small! i'm glad though, rather than too big. we should have some edible corn in the next couple weeks, and hopefully a lot more tomatoes. i may transplant the peppers and eggplants so they can actually have some room to grow.

so to add to the successes:

• eggplant
• tomatoes

and what didn't work:

• green beans - mostly because we don't love them enough to pick and eat that many i guess, although the plants yielded a hefty amount.
• carrots - i think the soil is too rocky, because they are too stubby

i wish i was planting cauliflower, potatoes, and butternut squash. no more room.

my first garden

this is kind of another "finally" post - because i'm finally posting about the garden. this is the first time i have ever gardened before and i'm kind of nutty about it. every time we don't have to buy something at the grocery store because we're growing it in the garden is so exciting. and now it seems like each time i make a trip to the garden i'm coming back with more. this week the green beans surprised me and i came home with a handful of long, stringy beans with the usual lettuce and peas - and a jalapeno and a few stumpy carrots. the picture above is from a couple weeks ago, including the cherry tomato "tree" in the driveway (it's huge) and some wildflowers from the garden.

this picture below is about two months old - a lot of these plants are about three times as large. i'll have to "finally" post a more recent picture of the jungle.

i wished i had been taking notes all along so that i could reference it next year, and then i realized i can use my blog to take those notes just like i do for my other projects.

what's worked:

• peas - all of a sudden these exploded a few weeks ago and we've cooked whole pods in pasta, blanched shelled peas, eaten raw pods (with peas in them and without). next year i'd like to plant them a little earlier; i think they're dying now because they're drying out and i wonder if we could have gotten more out of them if they peaked with more time before it got so hot.



• lettuce - wow. we overplanted but we've had lettuce for weeks and weeks. i spent the first couple months thinning them every time i went, but once the leaves were a couple inches long, thinning them resulted in salad every time. i would maybe not plant quite so many seeds, but i would overplant again.


• green beans - so far so good. we planted bush beans and i had no idea that when i pulled back the leaves they would be crawling with beans. they're a little pale, but they taste good.

better luck next time:

• spinach - we got a tiny yield and then it bolted, i think because they were planted too closely. it is a tiny garden.


• carrots - they taste great but aren't getting much longer than three inches, i think because they were too crowded and the soil is too rocky. we'll see if the ones still in the ground make more progress.

the verdict is still out for the corn, tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. up next for fall: brussels sprouts, potatoes, kale, and zucchini. for starters.