Vegetable Garden Tour

This is a tour of my vegetable garden. This was a difficult year due to the bad spring weather and our trip to Europe. Our trip fell right smack in the middle of the best time to plant. So I took a risk and planted early not sure if the plant would survive the very cold spring nights. So far, the risk is paying off.

A few years back I planted 4 strawberry plants. I've never had much success with strawberries but for some reason these 4 plants went crazy. I had to build a rock border to hold them back. The plant were growing so wildly that I had to dig some of the up and replant them within their new boundary. They are coming in beautifully. I think the compost helped.

I decided to cut back a lot on plantings in the garden this year. So I purchased bean and pea plants instead of growing them from seed. In years past I was overwhelmed at harvest time so I think less plants will mean less stress later this year.

 

 My husband loves kohlrabi so we always have those planted. I wish they would take a little longer to be ready for harvest. I think I could pick a few already and I just planted them a few weeks ago! The cabbage is starting to form heads already too. I just love cabbage and look forward to making spring rolls at the end of summer.

 I've always planted 10-12 tomato plants in the past. This year I only planted 5. I hope that's enough plants to keep my family in homemade salsa-we shall see. In place of tomatoes, I chose to add a tomatillo plant this year. I look forward to fresh Mexican dishes later this year.

I planted 2 cucumber plants. One is a burpless and the other is a mini cucumber plant. My granddaughter cannot get enough of the mini cucumbers. I think she will enjoy picking them when she wants to eat some. 

I always plant a variety of peppers. I have 2 bell pepper plants growing. One is a red and the other green. I also plant a poblano and jalapeno pepper plant. It is so fun to cook by just heading out to the yard to pick my ingredients. There are already jalapenos forming on this plant.

Since I am trying to cut down on the work of managing a large garden, I planted less vegetables and added more flower pots to fill in the empty spaces. We do a lot of composting - we have 2 compost bins so the garden gets lots of nutrients. I also have a soaker hose connected to a rain barrel so watering in a breeze, especially on very hot days.

So that's my tour for now. I can't wait to take some July and August photos later in the year to see the progress. It's hard work but totally worth it.

My Little Free Library

The girl next door's mother did some summer cleaning right after school let out for the semester. The result was that I got a nice donation for my little free library. It is so generous of her to supply all these books. The neighbor is my best library steward.

My little free library gets lots of visitors who are children so I am always in need of books for young people. Sometimes I swap some of the books I get with other little free libraries in order to keep up with the demand for kids' books.

It is a fun hobby that I really love.

Our Trip to Europe

Our 40th wedding anniversary was June 2. To celebrate this milestone we took a river cruise through Europe on the Rhine River. It was magical. I will never forget the wonderful memories we made and the incredible sites we saw during this trip.

Day 1: Basel Switzerland
We took a leisurely walk through the streets of Basel. Basel is modern and history-rich. The buildings reflect the splendor of the Gothic, Renaissance and baroque traditions and the city blends the traditions of Switzerland, Germany and France since it sits on the Rhine River where these three countries meet.

Day 2: Breisach, Germany
Breisach dates back to the 11th century and has been devastated twice; once during the French Revolutionary War and again during World War II. Some old buildings still remain the rest were rebuilt to resemble the medieval structures that survived.

The Black Forest
The region is associated with the Grimm Brothers fairy tales since their inspiration came from this area. The area has romantic castles, farmhouses unchanged for centuries, and dark mist-filled woods associated with Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, and Snow White. The Black Forest is also associated with cuckoo clocks and Black Forest cake. We enjoyed watching a demo from a chef making the delicious cake.

Colmar, France
Colmar is in the Alsace region of France. The city was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1940 and then returned to France after the battle of the Colmar Pocket in 1945. This is where the war hero Audie Murphy single-handedly held off the Nazi forces until help arrived. There is a movie about it called "To Hell and Back".  After a solemn tour of the area once devastated by the Nazis, a tour of the gorgeous region shows a town rebuilt. The region is known for great wines and picturesque buildings that date back to the 13th century.

Day 3: Strasbourg, France
Strasbourg blends German and French influences in its charming architecture. There's an amazing cathedral with a magnificent astronomical clock that has a mechanism that dates back to 1842. The city has many amazing shops and restaurants as well as museums.

We stopped at a French bakery and picked up some sweets before heading over to the Strasbourg Modern Art Museum.

At the Modern Art Museum we were thrilled to see masterpieces from Kandinsky, Renoir, Picasso and there was an original writing from Edgar Allan Poe.

Day 4: Heidelberg and Rudesheim, Germany

Sweet Sundays Quilt Donation

I made this quilt from a pattern I found in a magazine. It went together quickly and since there were butterflies in the fabric prints, I used a butterfly pantograph when I quilted it.

The quilt is made from fabrics that were donated to my church group. So I thought I would only use the donated fabrics to make it. As it turned out, our group leader wanted to make a quilt for the lady who donated the fabrics. When I showed up at our last group meeting with this, it was just what she was after. Mission accomplished (without even knowing it - ha!).

Quilts for Kids Quilts

I finished two more quilts for kids quilts this week. There's not a lot of time for quilting these days as we prepare for our upcoming trip to Europe. Yes, I said Europe. I can hardly believe it. A dream come true. I can't wait to go.

Here are my finished quilts to donate:

My Small World Quilt

Here is my finished My Small World! After 1 year and 2 months, it is complete. My daughter, Bailee bought me the pattern last year for my birthday and I started working on it immediately. I got hung up with each section that required hand applique. I don't know why. I can do it, I guess I just didn't want to hand stitch anything. But for a quilt like this one, it had to be done that way, the right way. So I muddled through making hexies by hand, Dresden plated by hand, and a some curved pieces. I learned a few tricks along the way and I have to admin, every time I finished a hand appliqued part, I wondered why I put it off. It was all so very enjoyable. I did cheat a little; I paper-pieced a few blocks which was not how the pattern was intended but I wanted to see if it made any difference in how some of the blocks turned out. I didn't. So I machine pieced most of the quilt just like the pattern said to. After lots of thought I quilted this with a pantograph called Breath of the Gods. It looks like the wind is blowing across my little world.

So now I'm on to my current crafty project - hanging deer antlers. My husband is a hunter and he had one of his deer preserved in a way called European-style. I don't understand why they call it that, it looks rather southwestern to me. Anyway, I dug out some pallet boards I've been saving and made a panel to mount the deer antlers on. Now that it's ready to be hung, I have to decide where. I think that part might take me a little while since we aren't quite done with putting things back after our new floors were installed. I guess I will leave it on the floor until I figure out where it should go.

Client Quilts Finished

I quilted a few client quilts today and considering how busy we've been with our home improvement project, I'm surprised I found the time. I must confess, it felt good to do something more normal.

I had fun choosing the right pantograph for each of these as well and the thread colors. The quilts both turned out cute and I hope my client likes the results too.

I attended a volunteer breakfast at my granddaughters' school and we all went home with a few hand sanitizers with thank you messages attached to them made by the 5th grade art classes. Aren't they cute? I took the one that says 'I love popcorn Thursday' because I pop the popcorn for that fundraiser every month.

What's on the design board?

I am happy to report that my design board only holds one quilt right now. It's my second version of the Gypsy Wife. I am trying to follow the quilt-along for this quilt as each month a new section is work on. For May, it's section 5 and I have just a few of the blocks done for that section and I plan on completing the entire section this week.

The big news for me is that I finally finished the My Small World quilt top. It is on the longarmer right now and I have to admit. I don't know what to quilt on it. Originally I used a pantograph called Good Vibrations which was just wavy lines. I thought it would be a good simple design but after quilting 4 rows, I realized it was too simple. So I ripped out the quilting and started again. It's ready for a new quilt design - whatever that might be. Ha!