I'm Getting Addicted...

Actually, that's a lie.

I done been addicted. ;)  To sewing and quilting, that is.

I finished my very first quilt from start to finish last week.  I know, right?

I have the pictures on Mr. Gardener's camera just waiting for me...and beckoning me to put them on here with all my thoughts and excitement.

I also made my own little selvage block, which I turned into a pillow for my couch.  Pictures also coming.

But right now...I'm waiting for the internet to get a move on and finish publishing the second of seven online tutorial modules I'm trying to finish for work.  (It's been 20 minutes for a 6 minute tutorial.)  Yes, I know it's 10:30 on a Friday night.  Thank God they gave me a work laptop.  Maybe this is a sign to give it up until tomorrow.

But tomorrow I want to finish fixing up my flowerbed while it's halfway decent outside (isn't it supposed to be spring?) and finish sewing my dad's birthday present.  (He'll be 60 on Sunday!)

And I have to clean my house.... These are the signs that I'm closer to 30 than 20. ;)  (But I wouldn't trade it for the world.  Life is so much happier now than then.  Of course eliminating medication linked to depression will help with that.  Singulair is evil people.)

Anyway.... This is why Mr. Gardener dvr'd 36 tips for Adults with ADHD for me.  (At which I was very indignant until I started watching it....sigh.)  Which, I haven't finished.  36 is a lot of tips.

So...I'm definitely doing Lee's (of Freshly Pieced) Quilt-a-long, but I'm contemplating the Sew Mama Sew Block of the Month, too.  As though there aren't a billion things on my to-make list (we're not even going to talk about the to-do list, that's a whole separate issue.).

I do best when I'm busy. :)

Oh thank God.  Video's at 100%.

Speaking of thanking God.  Today is Good Friday.  Thank God for all He did for us.  He walked with us, felt our joys, pain, and suffering, and literally laid His life down for us in one of the more agonizing ways that humans have invented to kill and torture one another.  His standard is perfection and none of us can live up to it, but He stands in that gap for us, so that we don't have to be dependent on our own imperfect selves and our inability to bridge that gap to be with Him.  He took it all and asks only for our lives and hearts in return.

Thank You Jesus.

'Night y'all. :)

Garden Starts 2013

So...last garden season was definitely a lesson in, well everything.

I completely botched my seedlings.

My zucchini was destroyed by squash vine borer.

Weeds!  Weeds!  Weeds!

And the higher than average heat didn't help things either.

I still need to revisit some of those items and the other lessons I learned.  (Mulch, for example, will definitely be part of my plan this year.)  However, for now I just want to record what I've done so far for this year.  Because, yes, it did snow on Wednesday, but gardening season has already begun!!

I have a new seedling setup this year that Mr. Grass Man kindly created for me.  I need to take pictures and write about it, but it's already getting dark (the only benefit to daylight saving time starting tomorrow is definitely longer evenings) and I'm not going to get very good pictures.  Just know that it involves PVC piping, a lamp, and heat mats.  All is much better on the seedling front this year.

So, on February 25, I started Petunia (Supercascade Blue), Snapdragons (Lemon Lollipops - albeit a little late), Tomatoes (SuperSauce Hybrid, Patio Princess, Big Bush Boy, and SuperSweet 100), Peppers (Sweet  Big Dipper and Sweet Red Popper), and Eggplant (Bambino).  All started indoors and under my awesome new lighting system.  And yes, this year my pots do have holes in the bottom.  Everything has sprouted and is looking great, except the eggplant.  It was oldish seed and I had some trouble with it last year, so I planted it as more or less let's see what happens.  I replanted some today in hopes that it might help, but I don't have high hopes.  We'll see what happens.

Today, I started Marigolds (Taishan Yellow, Dwarf Bolero, and Crackerjack), Cucumber (Spacemaster), Zucchini (Sure Thing Zucchini Hybrid), and Yellow Squash (Early Prolific Straightneck).  Hopefully this round of seedlings will be as successful as the last.  I did plant a couple of extra Sweet Red Poppers to take the place of the eggplant should it never germinate.  It's fairly late to start peppers, but I wasn't able to get any to start indoors last year and I had to direct sow and I got a fair amount of peppers.

All in all I have about 70 seed(ling)s started and I still plan to start Basil (Sweet Basil), Nasturtium, and Cosmos (Sensation Mix).  I'm still wavering over whether to start my Zinnias (Purple Prince, Thumbelina Mix, Lilliput, and Cut and Come Again Mix) indoors or direct sow.  I should probably direct sow.  They don't like having their roots disturbed.  But I've read that you can start indoors and let's face it, I'm impatient.  And they really looked awesome last year.

Whoops.  May have overdone it again.  Oh well.

A win for last year?  Plant flowers with your veggies.  Your neighbors judge you a little less when you're south-facing and you have to plant them in the front yard (not that I care that much) and they attract beneficial insects that your veggies need.  Plus they're just enjoyable.  (Not that veggies aren't.)

Also, believe it or not, now is the time to start with spring planting.  I was going to skip this year, but I still have seeds from my second season attempt (which was largely unsuccessful - I started way too late) last fall.  But I pinned SproutRobot and it just convinced me to just do it.

So, I cleaned the crud (i.e. failed second season plantings) from my containers and cleared the weeds out of part of one of my beds (I didn't do it all because I think I will succession plant and I didn't want to give the weeds more opportunities and space to take, so I'll clear it a little at a time) and planted some spring veggies.

Today, I planted (and plan to succession plant about every 2 weeks hereafter):

• Spinach (Double Choice Hybrid) - I should start seeing seedlings between March 16 and March 23.  I can harvest in about 35 days - so around April 13.  These are in containers.  I do need to re-plant one container because I knocked it over with the hose and I think I spilled most of it.  Bummer.
• Peas (Peas In-A-Pot) - I should start seeing seedlings between March 16 and March 23.  I can harvest in about 55 days - so around May 3.  This didn't do bad in the fall, but I didn't harvest as regularly as I should have.  Also in containers.
• Lettuce (Four Seasons) - This is head lettuce.  Didn't have luck last fall, but hoping for a better turnout this spring.  We shall see.  Planted in my partially weeded bed. :)  Should see seedlings between March 19 and March 23.  I can harvest in about 60 days, so around May 8.  
• Pak Choi (Toy Choi Hybrid) - Should see seedlings between March 19 and March 30.  Harvest in about 30 days, so around April 8.  In the bed.
• Lettuce (Gourmet Blend) - This is loose leaf lettuce.  This actually did do well last fall - the only thing, haha.  But it was good lettuce.  I've never had such flavorful lettuce.  I am looking forward to it, so I hope it does well.  Should see seedlings between March 19 and March 23.  Harvest in about 45 days, so around April 23. In the bed.
• Kale (Dwarf Blue Curled Vates) - Seedlings between March 19 and March 30.  Harvest in about 55 days, so around May 3.
• Beet (Bull's Blood) - Seedlings between March 19 and March 30.  Harvest in about 40 days, so around April 18.  Containers.
• Radish (Perfecto) - Seedlings between March 16 and March 19.  Harvest in about 22 days, so around March 31.  Containers and bed.
• Carrot (Short 'N Sweet) - Seedlings between March 16 and March 30.  Harvest in about 68 days, so around May 16.  In the bed.

You just get so excited and it gets away from you and suddenly you've planted 9 varieties of veggies outside when you really just meant to plant spinach, beets, radish, and peas.  

Oh well.  :)

Ugh, gross...Squash Vine Borer

Okay, so this past summer/fall, I did my great garden experiment.

Overall, I guess it was successful.  I got some produce and what we got tasted pretty good.

But let's be frank, I'm a perfectionist.

In the spirit of working on trying to view the glass (at least when it comes to myself) as half full, I will concede that all of the lessons I learned about garden were successful.  Winter, between the growing seasons, seems like a good time to reflect.

Let's review a rather unsavory lesson.

That would be the tale of the Squash Vine Borer.

Yeah, anything that's called a Borer is probably disgusting.  And let me tell you, it is.

Remember my pretty zucchini blooms?

So, I planted what we should probably refer to as a "whole lotta crap," heretofore referred to as WLC.  (Side note, I now think that when your neighbors say things like, "Wow!  You have the greenest thumb in the neighborhood!," they're actually trying to politely tell you that your yard looks like a jungle.)  So in spite of all the WLC, I had actually planted zucchini before.  Summer '11, actually.  And that zucchini was fabulous.  I harvested a good number of healthy, sizable zucchinis off my two plants in my ginormous pot.

This year?  Yeah, not so much.

In fact, my zucchini looked embarrassingly awful.  Embarrassing like how my dad used to pick me up from after-school activities in high school wearing his slippers (a threat to get me in the car faster).

Actually, more accurately, the zucchini looked disgusting.  The leaves kept turning brown and wilting.  I pulled them off in an attempt to rid it of whatever was happening.

By the way, I don't think that measly attempt would have made a difference no matter what the problem actually was.

Mr. Gardener thought it was a fungus.  So I sprayed it with some anti-fungal stuff.  But that didn't seem to make a difference.  Plus all the WLC seemed fine.  Okra everywhere!  Additionally, even though I live in Virginia and it can get fairly humid, this summer was dry, so I didn't think it was probably fungus.

Then, this stuff that looked like sawdust appeared on the stem.  Let me tell you now that this was probably the most obvious sign.  But I was in serious denial.  There was nothing seriously wrong with the zucchini.  It would just go away.

haha.

I was stupid.

Now the deceiving thing was that my zucchinis were still growing.  I got a couple tiny ones.

But once they got past a certain size (or close to a normal size), the ends would go bad.  They'd get all squishy and gross and just rot away.  Literally.  Liquefied.  So I assumed it was Blossom End Rot.  Again...fungus.  But the anti-fungal didn't do anything.  And the zucchini just got more disgusting.

But really, in its sheer nastiness, the zucchini was trying to tell me something.

Finally, one day in late July/early August, I came out of my denial stupor and accepted that my zucchini was, in fact, A) foul, B) dying, C) making the rest of my garden look bad, and D) dying.

So, I finally did some googling "wilted," "sawdust," "rotting zucchinis" and some photos on on Google confirmed what I had begun to suspect.

Squash Vine Borer.

These are the young of a moth species known for killing squash and like crops.  I found the entry wound on the stem and after looking at pictures of the adult of the species, I realized that I had seen a number of them at various times.

These nasty little biotches destroyed the plant.  In fact, I completely confirmed the diagnosis when I pulled the plant out of the pot and there were several in the soil, squirming around in all their self-righteous glory.

Until they suffocated in the plastic bag in which I dumped all the contaminated soil.

Turnabout's fair play.

I did not take pictures of the gross little things.  They were like short, swollen, white worms.  If you must know what they and their adult counterparts look like, I will allow you to google them.

Yuck.

During the winter, I am going to strategize my fight against them.  I will share the battle plan with you as soon as it is formed.

Hope

There are no words that I can say, that any of us can say.

But I'll take comfort in a Savior who knew the steps we would take before we were even formed, who can catch us when we fall, and hold us when our hearts are breaking.  Who gave us the freedom to choose Him.

Who keeps His promises.

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them.  They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Revelation 21:3-4

Dear John...

Dear Singer Simple,

I realize that you and I have been working hard lately.  We pieced an entire quilt top and I recognize that I'm asking a bit of you to quilt it.  But really, it's just straight line quilting a quarter inch on either side of each seam; it's truly not that much.

But, really, do you realize that it's Christmas and I had big plans for you and I?  We were supposed to make a quilt for my brother, a tote bag for my dad, a new eye mask for Josh, and hopefully a quilt for my mom.  Ambitious, I know, but I thought we could get through it.  I know that Jesus gave them the best gift of all, but I do enjoy sharing and showing my affections through quilt making.

You helped me make fun stockings to hang on the shelf.  What happened?

I am disappointed in your inability to sew a consistent stitch length and feed in a straight line.  Pretty much, you're making my sewing look terrible.

Thanks for what you did while I was learning to sew.  We had some great times together.  In fact, my last project had no piece that ended its life in the trash.  However, I think we're in different places now.  It's time to move on to a sewing machine that Grandma didn't snarl into a broken mess after she bought it cheaply at Wal-Mart.

Singer Simple, I think it's time that we broke up.

Love,
Ashleigh

P.S. The real love of my life promised to help me find a new machine that actually sews properly.
P.P.S. I hope you find new life at the Goodwill.  (Soon, but not yet, I'm still going to try to use your sorry behinny while I still can.)

Ways to Embarrass the Husband

So I saw this amazing video today....

Well...I thought it was amazing.

Not so sure that Mr. Gardener will find it so amazing.  (Really, I ought to call him Mr. Grass Man - that would be the grass that grows in front of your house, btw...but I will explain that in a later post.)

Actually, I think know that the video creator was pretty much being facetious.  But nonetheless, I now have an overwhelming desire to participate in this "new craze."

What is it, you ask?

Dance Walking.

What?

Oh you read correctly, my friend.  That would be walking and dancing at the same time, in a foolish, attention-grabbing, ridiculous manner.

Right. Up. My. Alley.

Because in fact, I do like spontaneous and ridiculous singing and dancing.  In public or private.  Partly because it's fun.  Partly because hubster always asks, "What is wrong with you?"

So many things, my friend.  Where shall we start?

But I always remind him how BORING and NORMAL his life was before me.  Never again!  hahahaha!  (or should I say muahahaha!?)

In fact, my favorite section of the Wegmans happens to be the beer and wine section.  Besides the obvious, I love it because it is the best place in the store to hear the music.  Which naturally spawns some level of grocery store singing and dancing (and always when Josh accompanies me in the store).

And he is mortified.

But perhaps not quite so much as when we walked past the school supply/teacher supply section of Target the fall I stopped teaching, resulting in a (likely loud) singing of "I don't have to teach anymore! Hahahaha!  Take that bitches!"  It was perhaps not one of my more appropriate moments.

But it was still fun.

Pray for the poor man.  He needs it everyday.  :)

And watch the fabulous video that will likely inspire a dance walking marathon somewhere very public.

And while you're at it, catch Cookie Monster's rendition of "Call Me Maybe."

I love Sesame Street.  So much.

First Tomato Blooms

Teeny tiny blooms on the Roma tomato have been spotted.  Can you see them?  I know it's challenging in this photo, but they're there, nonetheless.

Please excuse the blurry pictures. :)