Eloquent Pedestrian

I'm going to skip talking about putting the garden to bed, and get right to my exciting knitting projects. Despite being discouraged by my discovery that I had been doing one of the most basic stitches in knitting wrong, I persisted in my quest to knit myself a pair of socks. I've learned a lot from this project. First of all, I hate knitting things to fit. This is the first time I've done that, excluding making scarves long enough which doesn't count, and I don't like it. I like to pick up a pattern, knit it according to what it says, and be done with it. But since I have big calves, and the wrong needles, that wasn't going to happen with a pair of socks. So I experimented, knowing I'd probably have to rip back and start over, and my enthusiasm died. The pair of socks sat by where I sit to watch tv for weeks. I'd look at it and think really hard about knitting it, but I never really had the urge to pick it up. So instead I went to JoAnn's, bough...

The first part of the title is supposed to be to the tune of the Chia Pet commercials. It doesn't really work with chives, unless you hear it... and this is a blog... and I'm spending far too much time explaining a joke... ANYWAY! The season is done. I'm sorry if this is news to anyone, as it is, after all, October. Other balmier climates may still be growing and harvesting things, but one good frost will kill off my few remaining plants here in Minnesota. But I'm alright with that, because in exchange, I get this: And just in time for my birthday! My 25th birthday has come and gone. I went to gamble with my friends. That was totally unprecedented for me. But I digress. The garden is done. All that is left are the marigolds and nasturtiums, blooming their little hearts out. They really are a joy to see, especially since they're covered in BEES. I would guess they are the final source of nectar in the area. It's time to start planting bulbs which will...

I thought I would take a moment and tell you all about one of my major hobbies besides gardening, especially since it will soon be dominating what I talk about here. It's still cold, and the post-summer drear has settled in. There are rumors of 80 degree weather, but I'm not sure I believe them. ANYWAY. I knit. This is what I was doing in the middle of the summer when it was too hot to go outside and play in the dirt: When finished that is the Serenity blanket. The subtitle is "I am a Leaf on the Wind" and if you don't know what that means, you need to go straight to Hulu or Netflix or more morally ambiguous sources and find the greatest Sci Fi tv show ever created, Firefly. Expect to spend the weekend watching it. Anyway- it was a significant project for me, because it was my first major expedition into the jungle of lace. It's nothing fancy to lace knitters, but knitting cables in the round, and looking up completely new stitch abbreviations. It too...

Long ago I wrote about the magical properties of beans, and compared them to the fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk? Remember the lessons in fairy tales? Obey your parents, don't wander off, and again and again when something looks too good to be true, it probably is. Here's a picture of the beans when the sprouts first showed up: And about the time I was posting about the wonders of beans: And within a few weeks: I attempted to give the beans a place to grow, tying string between the two poles, from the overgrown pole to the failed pole. See all the runners reaching out for somewhere to grow? They were headed towards the fence. If I find a picture of the beans in between I will put it here, but to keep it fairly short- they overgrew the second pole. The strings did not last long, the beans were too heavy, but then they started making their own way, growing around each other and reaching over to the other pole. As the overgrown pole began to pull itself towar...

I haven't been out in the garden in almost a month. That is to say, I've been physically present in the garden almost every day this month, but only as long as it took to de-beetle the roses, pick a few beans, ooh and aaah at the tomatoes and then run back inside. And I've been blaming my lack of attentions on a lot of things: mosquitoes (our state bird), "it's too hot", "it's too cold", "I don't have the time", "I went to the state fair and ate my body weight in carbs and have slipped into a diabetic coma" But they were all just excuses. The garden's gone wild with marigolds and tomato bushes, beans breaking their poles and lettuce gone to seed (deliberately). Time to get out there... Any second now... Okay I'm going.

It was late coming, and it may be short lived, but we are living in the time of the tomato. This year I decided to give heirloom tomatoes a try. Two plants, nothing crazy just two specific types I'd heard good things about- the Brandywine and the Kellogg's Breakfast. The plants quickly turned into huge tomato monsters. Unfortunately the 103 degree weather hit right as the tomatoes should have been setting fruit. Apparently when it's that hot, the tomato loves to grow vines and the flowers dry up on the vine. So it wasn't until recently that we even saw the small green beginnings of proper tomatoes. Now the nay-sayers are telling us that there's no chance of our little greenies are ever going to ripen into fruit. I am putting my faith in the long season promised by Paul Douglas and the Farmer's Almanac, and in the taste of fried green tomatoes. So far I'm pretty impressed with my Brandywine heirloom tomato. It doesn't just taste like any tomato, it...

It's been slow in the garden lately, but I think I'll post a few things at once that I've been thinking of for awhile. The first thing I've got planned to talk about are my allies in the war on sure plant destruction. All of the flowers you see here were planted as seeds this year. The lilypad looking leaves with orange and red leaves are nasturtiums. They aren't as impressive as they were last year (I'll look through my old pictures to see if I can find the small trees they grew into last year), but the nasturtiums are very reliable for color and to freak out visitors to the garden by popping a flower into your mouth. The leaves are also supposedly edible, but I've only eaten the flowers, which are peppery and really pretty on a salad.  According to my reading Nasturtiums are good for the soil, especially planted around apple trees, which I have yet to do with our apple tree, and can be mild pest deterrents. I'm also told to be cautious as they are sup...