Quilt for Johnny & Mary

I thought I had posted this quilt but finally realized I did not. This is the king sized quilt I made for my nephew Johnny and his wife Mary. It took me a while to figure out the color scheme as you can see they wanted colors fading in and out. Turned out quite nice!

In the organic garden; 2019 planting

I have finally finished planting my garden. It is off to a good start. This year my fertilizers are alfalfa meal, egg shells, and potash. I will see how this works and then decide if I like it.

Tomatoes are near the far end of the garden this year as my rotation puts them there. I use the 1/3 rule of rotation because my garden isn't very large. You can see I have already gotten some grass clippings and have distributed them around as well. I will work to get in my tomato plant stakes in the next week.

The middle of the garden is full of my low growers, onions, beets, kohlrabi, carrots, bush beans, and zucchini. I usually run into the problem later on of my monster zucchini plants taking over more than their fair share of the garden, but I will worry about that later.

The far end of the garden is where the sweet peppers will grow this year. If you noticed my fencing is far taller than in previous years. Last year deer jumped the outer fence then basically stepped over my short fence to gobble up as much of my garden as possible. Add to that a devastating hail and wind storm over the 4th of July and my garden had areas that never recovered. I am hoping to avoid that this year with a taller fence and will use some tarps if really bad weather is approaching.

One last change this year is to  spread out my cucumber plants, then train them to grow towards the fence eventually growing up the fence. I think that sometimes my plants are way too close together along the fence line so maybe this will help them grow.
Gardening is especially good for the soul during troubling times. So get out there and take advantage of some gardening therapy. Happy gardening!

Irish Lap Quilt

This is a lap quilt with an Irish theme for my mom. 

Baby quilt

This is a baby quilt I made for a friend's new grand baby on the way. 

In the Organic garden - Sprouting Pepper Seeds

Hello on this blustery snowy day in February! Obviously I am not in the garden, but I am getting ready for it. My pepper seeds have mostly sprouted!! Very exciting for such a winter day. I usually start seeds in small containers wrapped in plastic bags sitting on my warming mat. Before I had warming mats I just put them on top of the refrigerator until they sprouted, then over to the window sill. Once the true leaves have sprouted I will transplant them to a reusable cup that I have labeled and drilled holes in the bottom for drainage. I do need to be careful the containers don't dry out, so I keep a good eye on them daily, and water as needed, very gently. 

I also save my plastic bags. I just air them out until they are dry and then I save them with all my seed stuff until the seed sprouting. Tomato seeds will be planted about halfway or at the end of March. Peppers are easier, but tomato plants can be more of a challenge if I can't put them outside at some point in early spring. The plants may get a bit leggy but then I just bury more of the stem when I plant them, so it all works out. 

Happy planting!!

Krista

Potato, Lentil, and Lemon Soup

If you are looking for a new twist on potato soup, this may be the one for you. It is light and delicious! Just the nice hot soup for a cold day. I loosely based it on one I saw in a magazine that included some lemon juice. It was a really nice addition. I hope you try it.

Potato and Lentil Lemon Soup

1 cup lentils                         

8 cups vegetable broth

1 medium yellow onion          3 medium carrots

3 medium potatoes                 ½ cup fresh cilantro

1 bunch kale, chard, or collard     1 tsp. salt

¼ tsp. ground pepper              1 T. minced garlic

1 tsp. ground coriander           1 lemon

(opt. ¼ tsp crushed red pepper)

* Place the cup of lentils in a pan with 3 cups of water. Bring

boil, reduce heat, and simmer covered for 30 minutes.

* While lentils cook, place vegetable broth in a large soup

pot, then add chopped potato, chopped collard or other greens,

diced onion, chopped carrots, salt, pepper, garlic, coriander,

red pepper desired, chopped cilantro, and the juice of 1

lemon.

* When lentils are finished cooking, add entire contents

with lentils to soup pot.

* Soup should be thoroughly cooked by now, but test to see if potatoes are soft to be sure. Serve hot.

* This soup freezes well.

Double Irish Chain Lap Quilt

Just finished a lap quilt for my mom. I will give it to her for Christmas. This is only the second time I have made the double Irish chain pattern. I really like the results.

Curry Cauliflower Soup

This soup was inspired by the delicious cooking of my good friend Taruna. It's a soup, but almost a stew because I cram as much cauliflower in it as I can. I hope you like it too! 

Curry Cauliflower Soup

2 Tbsp. curry powder                 1 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. ground black pepper                               1/4 tsp. ground red pepper

1 cup chopped onion                                                 1 cup chopped carrot

1 Tbsp. minced ginger root                                       2 tsp. minced garlic

1 1/2 Tbsp. olive oil                                                   2-3 medium potatoes

1 head of cauliflower                                         8 cups vegetable broth

1 can coconut milk                                                   1  14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes

1 lime

* In a large soup pot over medium/high heat sauté  in oil chopped

onion, carrot, garlic & ginger for 4 minutes. Add in curry powder,

black pepper, & red pepper. Stir for 30 seconds.

* Add in the broth and salt. Add in peeled diced potatoes & chopped cauliflower.

* Add in can of coconut milk. In a small bowl puree can of tomatoes and add in. Juice the lime and add in the juice.

Simmer 15-20 min. 

In the Organic garden - Tomato cages & Storms

 On the 4th of July we had a couple of storms track across our area. The second storm brought pea sized hail with extreme wind and rain. The damage was quick and disastrous for many plants. My Japanese lilac in the front of the house lost a large section which came down very quickly at the start of the storm. Our neighbor had a very large dead tree land in the backyard of the next neighbor, and my garden was really whipped into a frenzy of destruction.

This is the front of the house right after the tree lilac went down. You can see the hail starting to collect (the white stuff on the ground).

This is the poor pepper plant that lost all of its leaves. You can also see the smashed squash behind it. That's pretty much the look of the whole garden. 

   Only one of my 

cherry tomatoes fell over but for the most part they fared better than the garden.

Since the "A" frame I usually try to secure the cherry tomatoes with was not really working well

I decided to get some 6' galvanized fencing and build my own  cages. First I measured the circumference of the top of the pots and then gave them another 6 to 8 inches overlap. I cut them halfway in the rectangles in order to give me a wire to make the hook from. I wanted it to hold but not be so difficult to undo at the end of the season. 

I kept the tomato stake in the middle and only had two of them needing to be wired a little to straighten them out. My hand is small enough to fit in between the wires but you could easily cut some of the in between wires to make a larger opening if need be.

So there you have all 4 varieties of cherry tomato in their new cages. I hope that they will be more stable and give the plants more support too. I will hopefully remember to give an update later on. If you are wondering, I usually grow my cherry tomatoes in pots to keep all those falling tomatoes from becoming weeds next season. If you are wondering the varieties of  cherry tomatoes they are Yellow Pear, Sunsugar, Sweet treat, and Jasper. I start all my tomato seeds the end of Feb. or beginning of March inside the house. 

Now I will wait and hope my garden can recover enough to produce something. 

As always, happy gardening!

Baby Quilts

Just finished 2 little baby quilts. The top one was a lot of fun with the tessellating stars. The bottom quilt is a surprise for a Kindergarten class teacher. Each child in the class decorated a square to be sewn into the quilt so they would all be part of the gift. If you are wondering, I don't really follow specific patterns, I just pick blocks or colors and go from there. They all turn out different sizes as well.