SHOULD I GIVE UP?

Am I the only one disappointed with their yard and gardens this year?  I know some areas have had much more rain than us, so perhaps your properties look a lot better than mine - but I really feel like I am beating my head upon a brick wall this year.

Nothings is growing... things that I transplanted that I had grown indoors by early seeding are just about the same size as when I put them in the garden.  Things that I direct sewed into the garden are spotty - some things - like carrots - I have sewn 3 times and still not a sprout.  Other things like beans, maybe half came up, and the things that did come up, are just not progressing.

Once again I have an entire garden filled with portulaca, and I have actually taken the tiller to the garden and tilled all the open spaces.  I have ants everywhere, I have cutworms everywhere, spiders killing my cherry tree and my birch tree, a neighbours cat using my beds as his personal toilet,  dead grass, and straight line winds that have broken most of the tall perennials down in my shed bed.

I have birds that live in my strawberry patch, and some that have set up shop in my Saskatoon tree!

Oh and I forgot, worse of all - I have very few pollinators!

Yes - I am royally fed up.  I am about ready to take the tiller to the whole yard and be done with it.

BUT

Then I come across something like these little beauties...

Beauty in spite of the drought, ants, spiders, wind and lack of bees, choking weeds...  How can I give up, when they haven't?

I can water everything to curb the effects of the drought - but treated water is not the best, and I have a lot of property to water - not sure it's really worth the expense.

I can attract pollinators ( another blog coming up about that)

I can try and kill ants, and I have killed a lot - but you just get one hill down and another forms in another spot.

I can pulls weeds, and I have been doing that every day, but where to start when they are everywhere.  I also could mulch, and that is something I want to do - but without vegetation growing, not much mulch is produced.

I delight in hacking cutworms to bits - if I dig one up - I go into terminator mode.

I could do the same with the neighbours cat - but it is someones pet after all... I have nothing against cats - I like them - just not pooping in MY yard!

I can't do anything about damaging straight line winds, except bawl when I have to cut back plants that should bloom for another 4 weeks or so.

The birds - well to tell the truth, it cracks me up when I go outside and see a head pop up out of the middle of my strawberry patch - and then disappear again, because they are not quite done!  The cheeks!

We netted the Saskatoon bush but the birds  flew up from the bottom and went inside anyway.

I love my birds and I don't really care if they get some fruit - I don't have enough from either source to do anything with anyhow....

My biggest problem is not any of these things.  If I could be outside all day to stick with these tasks, I would gladly be outside all day and get them all done.  But I can't do that with the extreeme heat we have had for the past 6 weeks.   I just can't tolerate the heat, so I work in the early morning, and late evening... or on a breezy day.  But it's not enough.

SO

Should I give up?

You see - I come from a very long line of very stubborn people (on both sides of my family).  At times like this I am very thankful for that fact.

And - if those little beauties up there aren't gonna give up - then I'm not going to either.

A POTAGER ?

Do you know what a Potager Garden is?

I must admit that I have always loved them, even wanted to have one myself, but never knew they actually had a name - before this week that is!

I was watching a video on YouTube from yet another young gardener who lives is Arkansas.  She is a homesteader and her and her husband have started their homestead farm and gardens from basically nothing.

I love her garden - it is beautiful and it is so productive - and I might add - HUGE!  She maintains 10,000 ft of garden, filled with fruits and vegetables, herbs and flowers...hundreds of varieties of plants producing enough food to sustain her very large young family.

So what is a Potager Garden?

It is a garden that combines fruit, vegetables, flowers and herbs in one garden designed to be as much a feast to the eye as it is to the tummy.  Potager gardens were invented in France and were considered ornamental kitchen gardens... meaning their purpose was to provide food, but they also had to be a place of beauty, to be enjoyed by the gardener and his guests.

 Potager gardens are informal, romantic, natural.  They are comparable to The English Cottage Garden, except Potager gardens are centered on vegetables and not flowers.

Potager gardens, have paths and beds, and rarely have bare earth showing,  They have as much vertical as horizontal and some have hedges and walls.  They are a myriad of shapes, colours, annual and perennial all intermingling as one.

I am quite sure that traditional vegetable gardeners, such as my Dad was - would detest them.  These gardens lack the clean lines of neatly spaced rows of a traditional garden.  Instead they appear haphazard, even wild... but they produce just as much even sometimes more food as the traditional garden can produce.


So how do I get one?

Well there's the big question that I already know the answer to!   Planning... and sweat equity!

I know what I have to do, and starting this fall as my current garden is removed - I will start building my own version of a Potager garden.

No more sleepless nights of thinking, dreaming and wishing  - the planning stage has now begun!

RECIPE THURSDAY IS BACK!

It was Gary's birthday a couple of weeks ago, I didn't have any mixes to make him a regular birthday cake,  but then remembered a really good cake that was always popular with both him and our son whenever I made it.

Not your traditional birthday cake - but oh boy, it was sooooo good!

So birthday or no birthday - give this one a try - and I promise you it is not Banana bread - it's a cake, and way better, and so simple to make.

BANANA CAKE

1 cup white sugar

1/2 cup butter or margarine

2 eggs

 4 tbsp sour milk

1 cup mashed bananas ( 3 bananas)

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp soda

2 tsp baking powder

2 cups flour

Cream butter, add sugar gradually.  Beat until light and fluffy.  Add eggs and banana.  Add dry ingredients  alternately with milk. 

Bake in 375 degree over for 25- 30 minutes.

Ice with Butter Icing or serve with whipped cream

...

I used a tube pan, but you can bake yours in whatever suits you.   I did not ice my cake, I just drizzled icing sugar mixed with some milk over the top of my cake once it was cooled.  

It was delicious...

Enjoy!

THE LILY NOOK!

 I have been digging up more of my yard once again.  The very neglected front of our house, is finally getting the start of a much needed face lift.

We tore down a narrow brick planter that ran the entire length of the house, and I have been creating a flower bed ( a very long one) where the planter once stood.   I have widened the bed significantly, and have been moving some of my more established perennials into it.

A couple of days ago I decided to work on the rest of the area that had the planter, on the other side of the front steps.  I had bought a Mock Orange bush for somewhere over on that side, so had to dig a  space for that - what I ended up with was a  a nice size flower bed to accommodate not only the bush, but some flowers as well.

Last year I had planted a small dogwood just beyond the spot I was working on, so I decided to join the two spaces with a small peninsula-type bed.

My first idea was to move some of my rose bushes to this peninsula bed.  It would be perfect for roses, as one could work around both sides of them to keep them looking their best.  But that idea required more work than I have time for at the moment, because my roses are old and so well established that they are pretty much growing into the foundation of the house.  Removing them is not going to be a easy job ( know this from experience as we tried removing some from a different bed last year).  And to be quite honest - although I would love to be able to maintain some of those roses, digging them and moving them will not be the way to go.

So I have been reading up on how to propagate new roses from cuttings - and as soon as I get my hands on some hormone powder, I will be starting that process on all the varieties of roses I have.

So what to put in my new peninsula bed?

I can't believe it took me so long to think of it - I must be slipping!

I live a little over a half an hour from the Lily Nook!  I am going to plant Lilies.

I love Lilies, but sadly the Lily beetle destroyed all mine in my garden in Winnipeg.  Happily - the Lily beetle is not here ( yet), and the Lily Nook, located just 2 miles south of Neepawa has over 1500 named varieties growing in their six acre plot of land.  Their catalogue offers 150 of those varieties, and they ship world- wide so if you are interested visit their website ( below).

www.lilynook.mb.ca

Even more exciting for me is from July 1 - 31, they allow the public to open tour their lily fields.  Can you imagine?

A camera moment for sure... I will have it charged with an empty SD card in place...

So, next week, I have a date with my hubby to visit the Lily Nook - to take photo's and to buy some new Lilies for my garden.  I already know a few that will be coming home with me..

                                                 

          

   

Blackstone

Of all these Stella is still my favourite!  Stella and Bumble Bee are both Day Lilies, so if the beetle does make it's way to us - these two plants will be okay.

Am I excited?

You Betcha!

WHY DO WE DO IT?

Before I made my first mug rug a couple of years ago, I had never done applique work of any kind ... in fact, I had done very little sewing aside from mending for almost 40 years!

My first mug rug was made from a free pattern I found on the Internet.  It was a cup of tea with a bird holding a heart-shaped tea bag sitting on the cup...

I made a lot of these at first, trying my hand at machine applique until I was comfortable doing it.

But then, like everything I do, it seems I could not really stop there.  Why is that?  Why do creative people always have to go further with a craft or a design or an idea?

I don't know what pushes other crafters, but for me it's almost always my love for another person that makes me want to create something special for them.

I know a lot of people, some in my own family who would belittle that last statement.   It is, however true.  Every time I make something, no matter what it is, I am thinking - I should make one for....   

I can prove my statement this way.

Every mug rug I have made except that first design you see above, which was someone else's pattern, was made and designed by me initially because I was thinking of someone else.

A cousin of mine and her husband have a motor home, and love to spend time in the summer travelling around to different parks and campgrounds, so I created this mug rug design  for their special little home away from home.

I had a father who loved to hunt and fish, so I designed this:

My brother-in-law and sister-in law love to tour around the countryside and visit lighthouses, so I designed these:

I have a friend who had a vintage red truck, which he has since sold.  I made him this so he would always have his little red truck.

My son is a teacher... 

Some I designed for my own love of the subject like these two mug rugs:

Being a prairie girl to my bones, I have lived my entire life seeing these in every town across the prairies.  They are fast disappearing from our landscape... so I designed this mug rug.

Long before I was born, my Grandfather built a barn that looked much like this... so I designed a mug rug, in memory of him, but also in memory of my Uncle Alfred's farm where I spent so much of my childhood years!

A friend of ours has beautiful working horses that made me think to design this...

Everyone of these designs were initially created for someone I care about.

This is why I do it... it is what drives me more than the handwork itself.

I have made and sold some of these designs many times over,  and I have gifted even more.  I get the same reaction every time someone gets one... Joy, Gratitude, I've even had some tears!

Awe - it's so worth making someone happy! 

That's why I do it! 

THE LADIES OF SUMMER!

A few posts back, I was discussing a new mug rug that I designed for my soon to be daughter-in-law's birthday.

The idea actually started with the dress cards that I make.  Every time I make a dress card, I feel like I want to add a hat to the dress.  It's really just a thing I have about hats!

I love them!  I so wish that women wore more hats.  Having said that -  I really do believe that hats are starting to make a comeback, there certainly are more  knit and crochet hat patterns than there have ever been on my pattern sites.

I digress - so back to the birthday card - I made a dress card for the birthday gal and I wanted to make a mug rug for her as well, as I had made one for my son the month before.  I looked at all my designs and really wanted something different...

So I decided I would try something with a hat.

A hat on it's own is only a hat - but put it on a head, with a neck and shoulders, and you have a lady...

And the Ladies of Summer was born.

This is the one I made for Sasha... she was my prototype....

I tried this design with another arm and even gloves...

 

but I eventually went back to the one arm, no glove design, mainly because they looked better when quilted...

 

The second design started this way...

But I didn't like having to paint on a eye, so I lowered the brim of the hat, got rid of the eye and ended up with this lady.

The third lady is shy, pensive and I think totally adorable... and she is mostly hat!  I think I might love this one the most!

And the final lady is a blast of style... The hat may be smaller, but it is certainly a statement of it's own!

So far I have only done these 4 styles of hats, but I am toying with idea of doing a bride with a veil, and perhaps some Ladies of Winter - fur hats might be next!

These mug rugs have all been sold and I am working on some stock for future sales and some gifts.  

Mug rugs are intended to be little quilted mats that you can put a cup of tea or coffee and a treat on.  I realize that these mug rugs have gone beyond that concept a wee bit, but why can't we ladies have something different and pretty to set our cup on instead of a plain old coaster...

So there you have my Ladies of Summer...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA!

Welcome to July!

How did we get here already?  Seems like it was just May and I was planting my vegetable garden!  Seems like I was also wishing you all a happy weekend, and that was half a month ago!

Hope you have all been keeping well, and enjoying this summer season so far?  There is much about summer that I love, but there is a bit of it that I don't - excessive heat in particular  - and we have had it in spades!  So while I love to be outside working in the gardens and in my yard in general, I just can't tolerate extreme heat and humidity - what's enjoyable about being stuck indoors in the air conditioned house on a sunny summer day?

But it's better than having to visit the hospital with heat exhaustion, as I did last year!

So - the garden....

Well it's not growing as well as it has other years - extreme heat being one factor, but the other is the lack of rain.  We have only had 3 inches of rain since the snow has melted, and the grass and vegetation, and certainly the vegetables struggling to grow in the garden are really reflecting that at the moment.  I have been spot watering, but my yard and garden is too large to water regularly... so we are limping along hopeful for gentle overnight rains and cooler day temps to help the plants.

I haven't been working in the studio either, in fact until yesterday I think the last time I was up there to do anything was the last blog I wrote.  The heat just does not inspire me to be active in anything, I'm afraid.  Yesterday, a much cooler day, was the first day in a long while where I was actually up there working on my projects.

So lazy days of summer, these days certainly are... there actually is something to those lyrics of the that old Nat King Cole song.  At least that is true for me.

Today is Canada Day - a day for celebrating our beautiful country and our heritage.  We plan to take in the local festivities and the fireworks tonight at our community park.  I have never been successful catching fireworks on my camera, so I am going to challenge myself again tonight and see what I can come up with.

So enjoy your first day of July everyone - Happy Birthday Canada!  So proud to call you my home and native land!