2008 June

Besides quilting I spend a lot of time every year on my gardens. I have mainly shade gardens as I have a lot of shade in my yard. This year I have a tiny vegetable patch and have some veggies mixed in with my flowers. I have a project this summer of finishing a flower bed that I started 3 or 4 years ago — been so long I have forgotten when I started it. I have more than my share of rocks in my yard and woods and spent a lot of time with a wheelbarrow and shovel collecting them. I use those for the borders. I think they look nice and I don’t pay for them so I make use of them. Anything for free as far as landscaping is concerned is a plus in my book. For 3 years I collected fall leaves and pine needles and put them in the rocked in area and let it rot. Last year we had a lot to put in it as we had finally got a bag for the lawnmower to collect them in and it became easier. This summer it was time for me to add more dirt to get it to the level that I want it at so I can get plants planted in it this fall. Today I started on it and almost immediately had to back off until I make a run to the store tomorrow to get some snake repellant — yes I know there is at least one snake mixed in all those leaf cuttings – a small copperhead — and I don’t want to mess with that or anymore if they are there. I was turning over some of the mixture and a small copperhead came crawling out of the mess — well I backed off very carefully looking around to see if there was anymore — none, got out of there safely – called my daughter to have her ask my son-law what to do to make sure I have no more in there – he is in pest control so I figured he would have an idea of what to do — MOTH BALLS — we will see what happens. I figure seeing as I will be putting them in and around the flower bed I am working on I will also put some around the house also — this is at least the second if not third snake I have seen this month.

Here are some photo’s of the gardens: This first one is the part of the front of the house and the shade beds in front of it.

newest garden project that the snake was in:

another angle of the snake garden so you can fully appreciate the size of it I had tossed some lilies in it last year that I didn’t think were any good - they surprised me and grew and had flowers this year, I will leave them in the bed as that kind of lily does well in the shade. As you can see I have some cleaning up to do around it, I still have piles of rocks to move and I need to fix the border a little in some places. The rocks are dry stacked, I do not mess with masonry :

My swing and garden – I have some veggies planted in this one too -

One more – my little veggie patch – that is a make shift trellis for pole beans in the background and the bags hold upside down tomatoes.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

I finished all the blocks for the first row of my second Dear Jane last week and spent time last night and today adding the sashing in between them. It sure makes taking a picture of them easier. I will make sure to take Mike’s camera with me next time I meet up with Regina and Julie and take a new photo of the first row of Regina’s blocks – I think she said she was going to work on the sashing, I will be be able to get a better photo to put on here. When Julie gets her row completed I will put hers on here too and maybe a photo of all three together so we can see how totally different they look with all the different colors involved. I know this row of mine looks so different than the first Dear Jane I made in the scrappy look. I have 3 out of the 13 blocks finished on the second row and starting on the 4th. It is coming along nicely and sure is a lot more fun making it with friends making one also. (I laid it out on the floor kind of wavy like – I will have to watch that next time)