Playing Around

Happy New Year!
Yes, I know that January is almost over. It's been super busy, what with the holidays, and all that. I know you know, too. I took a break from creating for the Etsy shop for a while, and worked on handmade gifts and lots of cooking projects. Making jam, sewing, all kinds of things.

My granddaughter on a recent visit to the zoo. "Grandma, take my picture riding the crocodile!" She's wearing a granny square vest that I made for her - she likes lots of color!

My grandson, watching me feed the Koi fish. While trying to figure out how to escape from the stroller. He has learned to walk, run, climb ladders and slide. He is afraid of nothing. I follow him carefully when he climbs with his sister at play park.

So what has happened since I last wrote?

I have changed jobs - new law firm, new type of law, new part of town, new people. All good stuff.

My husband and I got iPhones. Yes, for almost three years I was off-line. Now my daughter and I text again, like we used to.

We picked, cracked, shelled, roasted and froze almost 50 pounds of pecans from the trees in our yard.

I broke out the knitting needles and crochet hook again, after a long time away. I have a lifetime's worth of yarn and projects to work my way through.

I started making homemade yogurt just about every week - it's so much better than store bought!

We stocked up on our pool supplies, and got a solar heater for the pool water, to try to start the swimming season a little earlier this year, maybe.

My daughter, granddaughter and I went to "Hello, Gorgeous" to get haircuts. My hair is very short now.

What hasn't happened? 

We didn't travel at all this holiday season. We just decorated the house and stayed local.

We still haven't replaced the doggie we loved and lost. We just give extra love to everyone else's pups.

I didn't keep my promise to myself to go to the gym several days of the week - my new job is further away from the gym and a lunch hour isn't long enough. Still working on figuring that one out.

I didn't put the garden completely to bed this year. I planted cool season plants, and have tomatoes in hangers that I can move inside a plastic semi-greenhouse when the night temperatures drop. I'm still picking tomatoes, even in January.

And what comes next?

More time with family.
Getting back to the studio, now that it's warming up again. And giving it a MAJOR spring cleaning!
Working on the garden beds, to get ready for spring.
Finishing the last six pounds of cracked pecans, to put into the freezer for baking and candymaking.
Trying out the cheesemaking kit I got for Christmas - homemade mozzarella cheese!

And of course lots of other, everyday regular things.
I'll try to take more photos (the iPhone helps!) and post more often this year. And keep up with other blogs I read, to see what's going on beyond my garden fence. I'm sure you know that a new job takes up a lot of mental activity and time, and spending time with family and gardening take time. I'll try to share more of it here.

What have you been up to?

Happy Sunday Sunshine

      The weather wasn't too bad in our area, here in Central Louisiana. Thankfully, we got some steady rain, some wind, but nothing destructive. My new rain barrel is completely full now!

     This is my grandson, enjoying being in the swing. He is walking now, and it's so cute. He holds his arms up like he's holding a balance pole - just a little bit tippy still. But when he falls down, he laughs out loud. 

     Here is my granddaughter pushing her brother in the swing. She had a hard time figuring out exactly when to push, and when to back away so she didn't get clobbered by the swing. 
     It's sunny and 90 degrees warm here today. I'm headed over to the studio to make up some orders. But I got a great bonus - the kids' daddy hooked up the electricity to the air conditioner compressor again - so it's cooler at the studio again! YAY!

     I hope everyone in Louisiana gets past all the damage and flooding from Hurricane Isaac soon! And thank you all so much for your encouraging words and thoughts, while we waited out the fate of the weather front.

Weather Watching

See that big red path there? It goes right over my house. We started preparing for lots of rain and wind last night. The usual things, like bottled water, batteries, weather radio. Hopefully, the tree trimming I had done two weeks ago will make sure that no branches fall on the house in high winds, or take out the electricity. But it's good to be ready, just in case!

Saving for Winter

I'm so happy with my garden right now. The tomatoes are geting ripe! I planted for a fall garden of beans and cucumbers, as the ones I planted in spring are pretty much done right now. It had been really, really hot, but last weekend we got some nice rains. And that lowered the temperatures a bit. So what do I do with this wealth of tomatoes?

 I got myself a food dehydrator! First I dried a whole bunch of basil leaves from the herb garden. It takes about 18 hours or so, with my dehydrator, to dry those wet basil leaves. Then, I cut up some of the tomatoes and put them on the dehydrator screens, sprinkled with the fresh dried basil and some sea salt, to give them some flavor.

 I have four trays for the dehydrator, and it sits on top of the clothes dryer. It's not too noisy, and I just fill it with fruits and vegetables to make dried snacks and un-sun-dried tomatoes.

 I put some of them in olive oil, and they turned out really well. Pretty soon I'll make some spicy tomato chutney, too. Storing the summertime harvest for later, when the tomatoes are just a fond memory, makes me feel very productive!

Bead Soup Blog Party Celtic Spring

 I haven't sat down with a pair of jewelry pliers in my hand in a very long time. One reason I decided to participate in this Bead Soup Blog Party was because I needed some motivation to get me to sit down with some pretty beads and make jewelry! And the lovely lampwork beads from Lara Lutrick were a great inspiration, along with the other goodies she sent to me.

 I was inspired by the spring-like colors to create something that reminded me of my garden. I used flower-shaped beads and ones that resembled snail shells, to go along with the flower and leaf design in the glass beads Lara sent me. I knew I wanted to feature the clasp, a Bali silver heart shaped toggle, and make the viking knit wire front and center.

 The pretty blue ribbon was used to give some softness behind the neck, the toggle is attached to it and tied to one side of the necklace. I like to wear necklaces with lots of color, and Lara's beads gave me tons of options to pull from. I like to keep things simple, so I used wire wrapped connections to make a single strand of color at the center.

 The celtic knot in the focal bead reminds me of the pattern of a wrought iron garden gate! All in keeping with the spring garden design idea.

 I started working with sterling heavy-gauge wire on the focal bead first. The wire is some sterling that I brought back from my trip to Ireland - I wanted to use it for something really special. From the center, I started working out, using Lara's beads and some from my stash, until I had a long enough strand to attach with large wire-work loops to the ends of the viking knit. That way, both the glass focal and the sterling wirework could be front and center in the necklace!

With the knotted ribbon off center in the front and the toggle showing - why hide it behind my neck, it should show up where it can be seen - I like the fact that it can easily be shortened if I wanted it to be choker length, by adjusting the ribbon tie. And very dainty and feminine it is, too. I also like that the focal bead is free to rotate, as both sides are very pretty and unique.

It will be great to wear with a dress, or with jeans and a t-shirt ... Or a lace camisole!

So there you have my necklace from the Bead Soup Blog Party.

Check out Lori Anderson's blog if you want to hop over to the many other participants, from the 1st, 2nd or this 3rd reveal. Click the link to see all of the participants of this 6th Bead Soup Blog Party Fiesta!

And many thanks to Lara - it was fun, and you are very talented!Be sure to drop by her blog and tell her how much you liked her beautiful lampwork beads ... If you want to see what she created with the pewter I sent her, take a look!

Shop Talk

I like to create these faux cameos. I get to mess around with shapes, colors and paints.

When I start on them, I don't always know how they will look when they are finished, what color they will be.

 I create the inserts in polymer clay, to create blanks with a design that fits inside the reproduction optical lens bezel.

 Polymer clay is so versatile, it can reproduce the looks of so many different kinds of vintage items, like ivory, jade or carved bone.

To make them shiny and not matte, I use my Foredom buffer. Sometimes it grabs the little round painted piece and flings it randomly across the studio, if I don't hang onto it very tightly!

That gives them a nice sheen, and a little bit of a worn look, too. And each one is unique. I can get close to reproducing them, but since they're handpainted, each one turns out a little bit differently.

Bead Soup Bounty and Beauty

 I've never participated in the Bead Soup Blog Party - I always seemed to miss out on the date to sign up. This time, I almost did again! I managed to figure out how to join on the last day. I hesitated - what if I couldn't make this work with my schedule? But I went ahead and signed up. See how lucky I am? These are the beads I received from my partner for the Bead Soup Party!

 They were sent to me by Lara Lutrick. She's a lampwork glass bead maker. I do envy those people who can bend molten glass to their will and make such beautiful beads! And there's a lovely ribbon in a beautiful blue color, and some viking knit strands! I will be working with these in the next couple of days to make up at least one, and maybe more than one, finished piece of jewelry.

Don't you love her celtic impression in the large focal bead? She's very talented, and has a great sense of color. I will be working on the finished piece(s) in the evenings after work, putting my hand to making something fun to wear. I have to look up the date of the next reveal and I'll share that, too, so you can all take a look at everyone's Bead Soup Party finished work!

Outdoor Living

The Gazebo Under the Pecan Tree

 Besides the plants that I have added to the yard that produce good fruit, we are lucky to have several very large pecan trees around the house. Every fall they drop lots of pecans, and I get exercise by picking them up. Last year we had 20 pounds of fresh pecans shelled, and I'm hoping this year we will get even more of them. This is the gazebo in the side yard where we enjoy the mornings and evenings - and shelter during pecan season when the trees are dropping lots of nuts on our heads.

The Square Foot Gardens By the Picket Fence

We added the picket fence last year to keep critters out of the gardens, and it has been a great addition to the yard. The three 4X4 foot beds are in their second year of use, and I started a compost pit this year so that next season will be even better. We chop up all the leaves that fall and add them to the compost pile, and next spring those leaves will go back into the beds to make them even richer.
     I even lucked out at the garden store and found two plastic greenhouse covers that were 4X4 foot size and three feet tall on sale. I grabbed them so I can extend the lettuce and cold weather plants in two of the 4X4 foot beds, and get an early start next spring.
     I hope you have enjoyed seeing the gardens, the fruit that comes out of them and how I use it. By December, those little beds will just be flat spots in the yard again, waiting for spring so they can fill up with vining and blooming plants in the new season!I'll rake up the soil, add compost and leaves, and cover them for the winter. 
     But what will I do with all the extra time on my hands when there's no garden to tend every day?

Herbal Bounty

Lantana and Miniature Roses in the Herb Garden

Just outside the kitchen door by the carport, I have a 4X8 foot bed for herbs and flowers. I have a miniature rose in it - I've always grown them in my herb gardens. 

Mexican Marigolds and Sweet Potato Plants in Pots

 For color and pest prevention,the pot of sweet potato plants have mexican marigolds growing with them. 

4X8 bed for Florals and Herbs

Herbs don't like a rich soil or a lot of feeding - they have a better flavor when they grow lean. So I keep them out of the vegetable garden, and I don't feed them very often. Just when I transplant them, or add new footings, to get them started. This bed is on the sheltered south-facing side of the house, so the rosemary is perennial - especially with a mild winter like the one we had last year. I can go out of the kitchen door and cut some rosemary or oregano to use fresh in cooking.

Rosemary and Lantana

I just added a small mint plant to the bed, but I double-potted it to keep it from covering the entire bed in mint. It grows aggressively, and will send out runners to spread itself. With one pot inside another pot, and potting mix in between, I hope to keep the mint controlled and where I want it! It's great for cooking and drinks. 

The Double-Potted Mint Plant

Oregano in the Herb Garden

Sweet Balm Leaves

I just bought a dehydrator, and I've been using it to dry my purple and green basil leaves to store them for use later. I plan to dry lots of herbs and vacuum pack them for soups or stews when the cold winds blow in December and January! A little scent of summer saved up.

The New Dehydrator With Basil Leaves Inside

I'm also making dried tomatoes - they're not sun-dried because it's too humid here to do them out in the sun - but they still have a rich, sun-dried flavor. Great for salads. 

Kitchen Plenty

Cajun Bell and Sweet Banana Peppers

If you wonder what I've been doing lately, I've been tending the garden and making good use of its fruits. I almost have enough of the sweet yellow banana peppers to make another batch of sweet pepper relish. I got the recipe from Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening Cookbook, along with the recipe for the bread and butter pickles you see in the jar. I like to add pink peppercorns for the light flavor and the pretty pop of color in the jar.

Bread & Butter Pickles with Pink Peppercorns

Refrigerator Pickled Peppers
2 lbs sweet or hot peppers
12 black peppercorns
6 to 8 tsp coriander seeds
3 or 4 bay leaves
1 small red onion, thinly slices
6 to 8 garlic cloves cut in half
2 1/2 c. vinegar
2 1/2 c. water
1 Tbl. salt
3 Tbl. to 1/3 c. sugar, to taste.
Leave small peppers whole, cutting a small slit near the stem for flavorings to penetrate. Cut large peppers into strips. Remove seeds and ribs. Pack peppers, peppercorns, coriander seeds, bay leaves, onion and garlic into 3 or 4 clean glass  pint jars. Heat the vinegar, water, salt and sugar in a small saucepan; cook, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Pour the vinegar mixture over the peppers, top with a lid and ring. Refrigerate for at least 1 week before using. The peppers will keep for several months in the refrigerator. Makes 3 to 4 pints.

I like to use mustard seeds and pink peppercorns also - I like the extra flavor they give. And instead of plain white vinegar, I like rice vinegar, for a slightly lighter taste.

Small Loaves of Butter Pound Cake

 Last weekend I baked 3 small loaves of pound cake. There are only 2 here because we ate one already. We used it as a substitute for shortcake with strawberries, to make strawberry shortcake-like breakfast bowls. Instead of topping them with whipped cream, we used some homemade greek yogurt. YUM!

Homemade Sunflower Seed Bread Loaf

I also baked a loaf of french sunflower bread. As soon as it came out of the bread machine, we had to cut into it and add butter and honey for a mid-afternoon Saturday treat. There's nothing like homemade bread with local honey spread all over it. 

We are eating fresh, and homemade wherever possible. Lots of vegetables and salads, batches of green beans from the garden, and home pickled and baked goods. There's nothing like the taste of fresh home grown, baked or pickled foods!

The Fruit Payoff

Green Tomatoes Just Starting to Ripen

I've enjoyed having the garden, and go out early every morning to check on progress. Every night when I get home from the day job, I go out and see if anything needs to be picked or taken care of. 

See the Pink Tones at the Bottom?

 The tomato cages I bought this year were brightly colored. I got them for my granddaughter, so we would have a "rainbow" garden. Right now everything is getting ready to be picked, so the red, blue, green and yellow cages don't show up as much as they did in April when I first set them out.

First Come Male Zucchini Blooms

 Using the Growboxes is new this year. The zucchini bushes get so large, they take up 9 square feet in a square foot garden, not leaving much room for anything else. I thought I'd try the zucchini planted in separate Growboxes, to let them expand and have as much space as they needed, with only 2 plants per Growbox. If they still get too big and expand past to start shading other plants, I can just move the Growboxes over. You can't do that in the ground-based garden plan!

Then Come the Female Zucchini Flowers for Baby Squash

 This plant survived the big windstorm we had. One thing I will do differently next season in the zucchini Growboxes - I will put tomato cages, round ones, around the zucchini plants in the Growbox. When it's very windy, the stems can get thrashed around and sometimes they break. I think if I had trained them up inside a round tomato case, instead of letting them sprawl down on the ground, they wouldn't have gotten any injury even in a heavy wind. We'll see how it works out - for the fall zucchini I'm going to try the experiment and let them grow up inside a tomato cage.

Yellow Banana Peppers

The sweet yellow banana peppers have been covered with fruit since June, and I just keep picking them. Lately, it's a game to see how large I can let them get on the plant before snipping them off. If they stay on too long, the plant will stop blooming. So far, my timing has been good. They keep making new peppers higher up on the plant. 

     I have found that roasting or sautéing zucchini with yellow banana peppers in a lemon-butter-olive oil mixture is so tasty!

Lots of Square Foot Gardening

New 4X4 Foot Garden for Fall

 It's the middle of July, and I'm setting up for my fall garden. This is the newest 4X4 foot bed that I put out a couple of weeks ago. It's a cedar kit for the 4X4 outside, and my husband used strips cut from our cedar fencing to make my grid. I've started the fall zucchini plants under little net cloches, to keep the borers and squash bugs off of them. There's also parsley and pineapple sage showing in the bed. What you can't see are the 4 squares of bush beans that I planted this morning on the left side, and the 2 square of radishes I planted on the right side.

Net Cloches Keep the Bad Bugs at Bay

     I've found that pineapple sage, marigolds and radishes help keep the bad bugs off the zucchini. This time around I planted "Sure Thing" zucchini from Burpee - it doesn't have to be pollinated by bees to set fruit. We'll see how it comes along, it's the first time I've tried that kind of seed. I grew these from seed in my plant nursery area, then transplanted them into the new bed.Usually I would plan the seeds directly into the bed, but I got the seeds before I got the bed ready - so I went ahead and planted them. It all came together in the end, as you can see.
 The narrow strips of cedar lathe that my husband set up for me to use as my grid had an unexpected benefit - the net cloches fit right into them perfectly! Do you recognize what they are? I am using the small umbrella netting domes that you get for keeping bugs off your food at a picnic to keep the bad bugs off my baby zucchini plants! They will grow too large for the domes at some point, but I've already found frustrated snails and slugs climbing on the netting, trying to find the way in to eat the leaves. I was able to just pick them off and ... dispose of them.

     On either side of the 4X4 new bed are two Growbox planters with two Black Beauty zucchini in each. The Growbox planters are self-watering, which helps with heavy drinkers like zucchini plants. I put a mosquito dunk in each water reservoir. The mosquito dunks contain BT - an organic bacteria that kills mosquito larvae and also helps with squash vine borers. It's an experiment to see whether the BT in the water the zucchini take up in their roots will also inoculate them against the dreaded squash vine borer. Fingers crossed! Those little beggars are tough on squash. 

Tomato Tower and Cucumber Cube

These two beds are across from the new 4X4 bed, with its cedar plank walkway. I put them in last year, and now wish I had some cedar boards or mulch between the beds, so we wouldn't have to mow so close to the garden beds. 


These beds are composite recycled boards, not wood, and the grids are strips from plastic foam board to make the 4X4 grids. I like these grids because they let me put up the bright red 18" square 6" tall tomato towers that I order from Burpee. I like them because they last forever, look cool even with no plants growing on them, and I can fold them flat for storage at the end of the season. The bed on the right has tomato plants that are loaded with fruit and starting to bear. See the bird block netting? There are a nesting pair of cardinals that have their eyes on my ripening tomatoes!



I made a mistake and planted an indeterminate vining tomato in the shorter tomato cage, and when it grew right out of the top, I got a staking system at the garden store to keep it from falling over - so it's double-staked! Sort of like a belt-and-suspender system. Next time I'll learn to READ on the transplant's tag whether it's determinate (bush) or indeterminate (vining) and cage accordingly.

Rooting Tomatoes and Starting Melons

     The further away bed is basil, marigolds and cucumbers, with a couple of determinate tomatoes on the other side. The cucumbers have been bearing heavily all summer. I love going out and picking one, then cutting and eating right in the kitchen. So fresh! and I know exactly how they were grown. It makes me feel very virtuous to grow and eat my own salads! 

 This is where I start plants off from seed, in the plant nursery. There's a concrete slab here, probably from an old pump housing years ago, and I have another Growbox on top of it with baby watermelon and cataloupe vines getting started. That large pot has tomato rootings in it. I cut away large limbs and sucker vines off the vining tomatoes and put them in good potting soil to grow roots. When my spring-started tomatoes are all done, these will be ready to get started and bear through to the first frost.

Supporting the New Plants for the Fall Garden

 Because I'm in Zone 8 here in Central Louisiana, I almost get a chance at two gardens, Spring and Fall. The Spring-Summer plants get tired from bearing all summer, but these new baby plants are all ready to take their places and keep growing all through August and September, for a fall harvest. I plant marigolds all over the place, to help keep the bad bugs away - and to give a splash of yellow color here and there.

Peppers and Pineapple Sage

This is the other side of the tomato square foot bed - it has okra, pineapple sage and yellow banana pepper plants. The okra hasn't started blooming yet - it went in where the yellow squash plants came out when they got finished. We ate all the yellow squash, and the plants were done, so out they came and okra went in their place. That's one thing I love about square foot gardening - it has crop rotation built right into the system. I don't make up a planting chart or anything like that - when the lettuce is done, plant the beans. When the beans are done, plant something else in their place. 
     Also in this bed are some cajun red pepper plants. I've almost picked all of their peppers and used them in banana pepper relish. I like the bright splash of red in the jar with the yellow pepper rings of relish. 

 This is my second year with my square foot garden in this location - I built the beds last year. This year's crop has been much better. It's the first time I've tried a second fall garden - wish me luck!