lulubeans

more rainy* day dispatches

the garden is not complaining.

and neither is this little bird.

however, the gray weather means that everything is taking foooorrrrever to dry.  my work room looks like one big drying rack right now.  after hitting the dyepots all weekend, i'm getting impatient. (and my drum carder is too!) 

the sun did sneak out for a little stretch yesterday, and small batches of freshly dyed fleece are making their way into my shop here and there:

blog i'm loving: 44 ways of looking at an apple (i love a good theme.)

*or cloudy.  whatever. either way, NOT sunny, and brrrr, not so warm.  summer, where'd you go?

our little garden

it's coming along, so i wanted to join in sara's  thursday "around the farm/garden".

we have lots of greens coming up. we planted tatsoi for the 1st time this year, plus a mesclun mix, kale, rainbow chard, radishes, carrots, beets, soybeans, peppers and a bunch of herbs.  we have a few varieties of heirloom tomatoes too, and i still need to get squash and cucumbers in there but we've temporarily run out of space!

our garden is a collaborative one this year.   we're sharing our space with our friends who live in our building's first floor.  it's great to be able to share space, seeds, ideas, work and, ultimately, food!  

with a few exceptions, we grow pretty much exclusively out of containers and raised beds because our soil, like most of the soil in cities with lots of old houses, is full of lead.  

 

i'm hoping we actually get a few strawberries this year... there's this little garden pest who keeps wanting to add the blossoms to her bouquets. i keep trying to tell her that she'll like the berries even more!  all of those morning glory seedlings were self-sown from last year's flowers.

 

i'm loving spending time out here, by the garden. and it's all the better when enjoyed with wool!

i've been keeping busy scouring and picking some recent fleecey aquisitions that i picked up at the lovely maine fiber frolic this past weekend.  i came home with nearly 13 pounds of fresh fleece (merino, border leicester, and a really cool romney X), one toddler girl who likes play "naughty baby goat" and one bigger girl who likes to be our family's patient but exasperated sheep dog.  sheep dog commands have entered our family's daily vocabulary and a double feature family movie night with babe and pig in the city is on the agenda. i love those movies!

the first salad

this year's garden is going to rock. i can tell.

 

 

i think the greta girl agrees!

we will have some more garden shots to share tomorrow.  

and that salad?  i have to tell you, it was SO GOOD!!!

magic

greta and i ventured out between bursts of rain yesterday to inspect our raised beds and....

 

 

...we have babies!!!  lots and lots of little green babies!!! the kale, mesclun, radishes and tatsoi that we planted on mother's day are sprouting.  it feels like magic.

 

also magic: new human babies!  i got to give these booties to a particularly incredible new little person this week.  

(rav link here, although i knit these in '09, set them aside, and promptly forgot all the details.  i dyed the yarn!  i know that much!) 

the garden has been good to us this year

calendula + cilantro blossoms
yesterday's harvest: kale, lettuce, cucumbers, hot peppers, cilantro, calendula, and one runaway tomato.
the main bed, almost a month ago. it's still a bit of a jungle out there.
girls shucking corn for dinner. i am loving all our borage. so are the bees!

fiber + flowers

it is absolutely perfect outside today and i have no business being inside.
however,  i am taking advantage of the sweet, quiet solace that is a play date at someone else's house (ahhhh!)   and adding some roving to my etsy store and uploading some pictures of odds and ends to my flickr page.
today's  roving  is more handpainted falklands wool, this time in a bright + cheery summery colorway.

click on the photo for details.

  i am really an amateur gardener (at best!) and have no well designed garden to show off, but i am very much enjoying each little thing that is growing and blossoming and ripening around my house.

 

i love how my morning glory vines look like plied yarn, and the cheeriness of zinnias is something that nearly always makes me very happy.

 

 
i should really get outside!
the dishes and the tidying and everything else can wait, right?

and now we garden

 

    Earlier this summer,  I applied for a plot in one of our city's community organic garden plots and was prepared to wait for at least a year for one to open up.   At the garden closest to my house, the wait list can be several years long.   I was so thrilled when the director of the gardens called me on Tuesday and asked if I would like to take over an abandoned plot!   I got to meet with her yesterday,  and I got to "meet" my new garden.  The space had been used as a classroom project, and the kids had planted sunflowers, beans, tomatoes, marigolds, peppers, cukes, strawflowers,  chives, strawberries.  And tomatillos.  So many tomatillo plants!   Even more the tomatillos than weeds, of which there are lots and lots and lots, even after I spent two hours pulling them up. 

 

 

    The really ripe ones in the bowl are going to get roasted later today for salsa.  I am hoping other families at the preschool or some of co-workers and neighbors are interested in taking home some of my tomatillo bounty,  because I can only think of a few uses for them.   Maybe roast and freeze?  Any ideas? 

      Now, this is Maine, and frost could be setting in any moment now,  which I sincerely hope does not devastate my assistant gardener,  who has appointed herself Pruner, mostly because it is very exciting to wield scissors all willy nilly-like, and also, I suspect, because she thinks the word itself is silly, what with its association with the prunes you eat and all.   My kid is Excited, with a captial E.    She has added "gardener" to her ever growing list of things that she will be later in life, and insists that she is not a gardener now, just  Pruner.   To give you a good idea of just how excited she is, she forewent picture books before bed last night (for the first time in her almost-five years!) and instead chose to snuggle up with Johnny's Selected Seeds 2006 catalogue.    It was heartmelting, yes.

           I am feeling abundantly fortunate today.   We are probably going to miss The Common Ground Fair this weekend,  which is kind of breaking my heart a teeny tiny bit, but hopefully I'll be able to plan better next year.   It looks like a cozy rainy Sunday awaits us here in the Northeast, and that is honestly my favorite kind.   Happy weekend friends!