Sunday, July 27, 2008

New Monarch, Garden, & X-Stitch

Yesterday morning the Monarch broke out of it's chrysalis. Looks like the other one will be breaking out today.

Reeve took the monarch outside to tell it a secret.

Kyle thought the monarch was stinky.

The bumblebee was willing to share her nectar.

We have yummy cherries growing on our cherry tree.

It's a difficult task, but I've been trying to focus on weeding the garden.
The garlic is about ready to harvest. Once the tops look really brown I'll dig out the garlic & then hang it to dry for about 5 weeks.

The scallions needs water, but I did get them weeded. It was really hard because there were so many tall weeds in this bed that you couldn't even tell it was a raised bed!

I harvested all the basil I could get yesterday and made some delicious pesto. I froze most of it in muffin tins. Today I'll pop out the flat pesto circles, put them in a container, and keep them in the freezer. In the top left corner of this bed is the basil, below that is the majoram, the right corner has the parsley, and the dill is in the top right of the bed.

Yesterday I weeded my cabbage patch. I was surprised that they looked so good considering the horrible neglect. My theory is that they were so well covered by the weeds that the stupid cabbage moths couldn't get to them.

We've picked a couple of cukes, three to be exact. Not exactly pickling quantity, but hopefully we'll be able to make a couple of quarts of pickles...I hope!

This is a new bed for the cukes and muskmelon. They don't tolerate heavy clay soil. We had a lot of sand from when we poured the cement pad in front of the garage, so I made a raised bed on the side of the cement pad.
We have one lone muskmelon...hopefully there will be more.

Our neighbor did a lot of work to get our land ready to plant his organic feed corn for his organic dairy cows. The corn looks great and we're all happy about that!

My next weeding attack will be targeted on this tomato bed...how did this happen?

Once that's done I'll move in on this mess...

Can you believe we had some volunteer kale from the plants I let go to seed last year? We've eaten a ton of it already. I love red russian kale! It's got to be one of my favorite things to grow. It's so hardy and it tastes wonderful.

Inside I've managed to keep a good sprout system going. For the last 3 weeks we've been able to eat fresh alfalfa sprouts everyday. They taste great and I can't believe how easy they are to grow! In the past I've used awkward sprout growing systems that were frustrating, expensive, and never really worked for me. I read an article in my Yoga Journal and the author said that she likes to use a mason jar with a nylon cap to grow her sprouts. I had some left over netting from the butterfly houses, and I cut that up for the the tops. I also found a sprout lid that I use for the sprouts that are about ready to eat. Everyday I start a new jar. You soak 2 tbsp. of seeds in a jar full of water for 8 hours. Then you make sure to rinse the sprouts 3 times a day. I've skipped a rinsing here and there, with no ill-affects. I let them drain in my dish drainer. Now I'm motivated to get the dishes cleaned and put away to make room for my sprouts :-).

I haven't had much time for cross-stitching these days. I can't believe I started this project in May of 2006! Here's the latest look of the last chair...the autumn chair. When will I ever get this done?