about the garden

i attempted my first ever garden this year.  what an awesome feeling when it is planted and there is all this hope and anticipation for what might come.  i loved it! :) 

i wanted to make some notes on how it went so i can improve next year.
(WARNING - probably really boring post but it's my blog so i can do that, right?)

before i begin, for your viewing pleasure, a little before and after:

the before

the after (from a slightly dif angle)

yay for a yard with grass rather than a big sand pit that has random spots of weeds  (i didn't find a "real" before picture that showed the loveliness that was our back yard for over a year, so you will have to trust me that it is much improved)

anyhoo, on to the garden notes.

what i planted:  (well actually my mom-in-law planted while i stood there and pretended to be useful)

cucumbers (3 of them from starters):  they grew like crazy and sort of took over the section, inter-twining with other plants.  i did cover them with milk jugs (bottoms cut off) at first to protect them.
--> next year maybe just one plant since i don't want to make pickles and only 2 of the 6 of us will eat them. 
  
onions (yellow bulb thingys): they didn't make it.  they started off great (as in the first thing to come up) and i cut some of the tops and added to my salads in june when my lettuce was growing.  later they were covered up by other plants and died off.  there were a few small onions that tasted fine, they were just teeny tiny.
--> next year put them all together in one square somewhere "safer"  (maybe next to the lettuce)

carrots (from seed):  they are doing okay.  i didn't thin them well enough so some are weird looking. i'm okay with weird looking though. :)
--> next year just thin better (do it earlier so it doesn't seem so sad to pull out the cutie-patootie little carrots that are growing, ha ha)

beans (pole kind, from seed): they seemed kind of slow to come up but once they did they grew like crazy crazy.  however, in july when everyone was harvesting massive amounts of beans i had NONE.  no sign of a bloom, nothing.  fast forward to september (as in two days ago: sept 10) i harvested my first beans and in another week or so i will have tons.

my late bloomin' beans

--> next year... i don't know what i could have done differently.  maybe i didn't water consistently enough?
(i was kind of a lazy waterer)

lettuce (a "salad mix" from seed): filled a whole half of one of the beds = waaaay too much all at once.  but it came up great and grew like crazy. 
--> next year only plant a quarter of a bed with lettuce and stagger planting times by a couple weeks maybe so it's not all ready and then done at the same time

zinnias (for pretty-ness and having cut flowers in the house and to give away) - these did awesome but kind of took over in some areas (they were partly to blame for my lost onions)  i was kind of lazy and didn't cut use them as often as i could have.
--> next year expand the flower options to a few different kinds.  if chad builds me another bed i could use one for just flowers

tomatoes (two different types, 8 starter plants around two large cages.  i covered them with milk jugs and they grew like crazy at first due to the greenhouse effect from being covered.  once they started growing out of the tops of the jugs i uncovered them and used blood meal to keep the bunnies away. their growth slowed way down and i lost one plant to the bunnies i am guessing.  in just the last couple weeks i have finally started getting ripe tomatoes.  there is a ton on there and i hope that i will be able to can some.
--> next year maybe try to find a sunnier spot for them, maybe they will ripen faster.

 peppers (two different types, 1starter plant each):  these were too big to put milk jugs on.  they never really "took off" according to my wise vast knowledge of pepper plants.  (not)  i have not gotten any peppers yet, there are a couple growing though. 
--> next year, try a different location maybe?  maybe a different kind as well.

other notes:  the grapevine (already here when we moved) didn't do as well this year. very few grapes compared to the last couple years.  need to prune it good this fall and see what happens next year.  anyone know anything about pruning grapes?  (we maaay have knicked it with some "round up" which maaaay be part of the problem)
planted a hydrangea (to remind me of home... i miss those big blue blooms so much!) but i don't know if it will make it.  it was clearanced out and i didn't plant it very quickly and then i think i planted it too shallow and the roots were really hard to loosen up.  i plan to mulch it with leaves and maybe put a bucket over it for the winter? 

so overall a really good experience for my first official garden.  i may just become a gardener yet.  my brown thumb has sort of a greenish tint to it.

and for grandma d's sake... a couple pics of some "helpers" who "helped" me pick some things this past week

elastic love

i finally found what i was looking for.







elastic thread.  (what? did you think it was going to be something more monumental than that?) 

i can not tell you how many times i have checked at wally world for this stuff the past few months. (and it's A LOT cause it seems i am there about 5 times a week, no lie.)  scanning the sewing area, meticulously checking the thread display, cause silly me thought that elastic thread would be with the THREAD.  silly me, neglected to think about the first word of said product. eeelaaasss-tic.  yep.  it was by the elastic. go figure.

anyhoo.  i have been itching to try my hand at sewing a few projects with this stuff so last weekend (two weekends ago? i dunno anymore) i dusted off my sewing machine and started in with my fabulous new find.

i made all this:

first off the easy peasy t-shirt refashion following this awesome tutorial

i took 2 of hubby's old t-shirts and sewed them in and then cut off the neck and sleeves.  wa-la. an 80's inspired "flashdance" t shirt (as my sis told me it looked like, ha ha) super easy, the only issue was that since they were cheapy t shirts was the graphics weren't really centered on the front so they ended up even more crooked when the t shirt was sewed in.  no biggie though, i just twist it a little once i put it on and it's all good.

next up was this skirt:

cue fabulous elastic thread

nice and wrinkly huh?

i picked up a 3X t shirt that was on clearance at wally world for only $3, hacked it off under the sleeves and ruched the top with my snazzy new elastic thread.

i followed this tutorial.  well, in the long run i did. first, i tried to add a tier to the top of it before i did the shirring because i thought it would be too short and i ended up sewing it together wrong but i shirred the top anyway and did too many rows and then it didn't fit, so i took it all back apart and just followed the tutorial like i should have in the first place.  lesson learned.  no close up pics cause it is far from perfect! 

and lastly i made these two "ruffly" scarves:

the one pictured above is sewn from a remnant piece of fabric i picked up at wally world for just over $1 (see, i told you i was there a lot!).  it was shorter than i wanted so i cut it in half and sewed the ends together and after that i sewed two rows with my handy dandy elastic thread to create a ruffly effect.  the edges are unfinished and look kind of raw but the fabric was really hard to work with, so i am just gonna "go with it"  rather than try to put a seam on it.

for this one, i took an old pair of flannel pants and just winged it. i cut the legs off, and sewed them together and then "ruffled" them.  the length is kind of weird so i may sew the ends together and make it an infinity scarf instead.  this one i am not so confident about.  does it look like i just wrapped a ratty old pair of flannel pants around my head?

so that was my weekend of sewing (along with mending a couple things for my girlies).  pretty productive, no? 

linking to some blog parties i follow:
Polly Want a Crafter
Between Naps on the Porch
A2Z Tutorials and Tips Tuesdays
Finding Fabulous (friday)
Tatertots and Jello (friday)

click on the links to see some fabulous-o stuff that others have linked up.  :)

benched

a quick little before and after of a project i did this fall

i "acquired" this bench for FREE (no, i did not steal it, i got it fair and square)

this is what it looked like (there was actually more moss on the top of it but i sanded it off before putting it in the house):

and after several months of it sitting in our back porch, looking rather sad i gave it some attention and now it is this:

just a little more sanding, paint on the bottom and then i hit it with some sandpaper again to distress the edges (gonna happen anyway in this household, just speeding up the process)

total cost of project:  FREE  (yay!)

now i just need to give that back porch some attention... (it reaaaalllly needs a paint job)

linking to: here and here

i {heart} baby legs

the real ones and those cute little leg warmers you can order here: official baby legs site
LOVE the idea of using them on my school girls arms at this time of year when it is chilly in the morning and then when it warms up she can take them off and forget them at school put them in her backpack.
however, having to be super frugal, the price does not excite me.

i thought to myself, "self, i bet that some super smartypants mommy out there has figured out a way to make them for way cheap."  i googled "making your own baby legs" and sure enough it turns out LOTS of smartypants mommies have figured out more than one way to make them.  i chose this way: ehow
note: i skipped step 1 - cause i had a pair that i never wore in my sock drawer, i also skipped step 6 - cause i am lazy and don't pin things when i sew if i don't absolutely have to.  (sorry mom, i know you taught me better than that!)
another note: the warning on that page cracks me up... reminds me of growing up and my mom would sew us clothes.  we would have to try them on with the pins in it to make sure it was going to fit okay.  ouch!

here are my before and after pics and "in use" pics :)

before

after

in use

still in use

see? she likes them ;)

linking to: