ANTHRACNOSE

I love the colours on these leaves, they are among my most favourite, which is why I love the fall season.
However, when one sees multiple fall looking leaves on the ground in the first week of July, closer inspection is warranted.  As you can see, it is some sort of fungus (of which there are many) to attack plants, trees, foliage of any sort and it has descended on my tree in the front yard.  I had ripped out all my strawberry plants earlier in the year as the leaves were looking somewhat like this, the rhubarb leaves to a degree, my lovely Virginia creeper, Midnight Lady with her lovely large leaves.

Fungus spreads literally with the wind as the spores go through the air landing on anything and  everything and if the site is nice, set down and destroy to whatever degree they can.  I am going to try spraying with some liquid soap, a gallon of water with a heaping tablespoon of baking soda.  This apparently changes the ph and the fungus will not set on the leaves sprayed with the baking soda, it does not kill the fungus itself.  I'll let u know how that works out, I have a pretty big yard to deal with.
I wanted to try and be as organic as possible before resorting to fungicides containing coppers and sulphurs!
In the fall, I will not leave any leaves anywhere in the yard!!  All to be raked (well the ones already on the ground have to be raked now and bagged to try and prevent the fungus from spreading).

• Anyways, always something new.
  I also did something yesterday that I knew was wrong but did it anyways, must have been the heat!!
  

  

  Never move plants around in the heat, esp flowering ones that are producing (in this case zucchini).  It looks like it might recover somewhat though.
  Radishes have gone to seed, the lettuce is done, the spinach has gone to seed.  What a heat wave can do to growing plants!
  Time to re-seed!

PRETTY IN PINK

PRETTY IN PINK

So, not everything is coming up roses but some of the flowers as usual are spectacular.  I love colour of these ones, every year I dig up the red ones and give them away, however some part of the root stays hidden for a comeback the next year.  You can just hear them with their ta da's!  as they show off their flowers.

Many cherry tomato's have self seeded from last year's toss into the flower bed, so I've dug them up and relocated them around the beds, I don't think they will do as well as they did where originally planted, however, it may deter the rabbits from eating my flowers.   I just spied some gorgeous orange tiger lilies in my neighbors yard, are the rabbits blind??

Re-seeded cherry tomato plants

 I wanted to see more green in the winter, so I bought these Dwarf evergreens, they spread nicely and maybe. . . . . .choke out those weeds!

This is another nice little specimen that I just bought, another dwarf that only grows to 6 feet high which is perfect as the hydro wires are close  by.

And of course what would summer be without the return of leaf miners.  Seen here on my little mock orange tree.  I will go out and cut off as many affected leaves as I can, however there are many types of leaf miners out there that affect the leaves in different ways, some just curl up.
My lettuce and other leaf crops are now up, now they say you can just inspect the undersides of the leaves and wash the eggs off.  Somehow, inspecting every leaf doesn't sit well with me, and I just know I'd miss some.

I have wanted a couple of these for some time now, actually ones that are birds or whatever but I found these on sale last night, they are out in the garden charging up, I couldn't take a pic, the light kept bouncing off of the globes.  They change colors so I am eager to see how they will look.














I just saw the cutest little skirt to make for Ryann out of 2 bandannas, I already have 2 new pink ones.  Going to give it a try, that is after I go and make this fresh blueberry breakfast cake.  yes it's noon here, however.
summer is here, now the days start getting shorter, can you believe it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Done!

Well, I managed to complete the nickel challenge quilt on time for Monday's pot luck, and my goodness what a great pot-luck spread these ladies can put on!!!
 12 of us who took part in the challenge brought in our quilts to show everyone, these ladies can quilt!!!!!! I felt honored to actually stand up there with them and show my quilt.  Everyone had completely different quilt patterns, from the Winnipeg sky line to geometric dazzling pieces that you just had to stand back and and admire the ingenuity of colour and placement.  I was a little nervous presenting mine as this was not something I had done before and in the presence of such seasoned quilters I didn't know what to expect.

They loved my quilt!! and not only that. . . .they thought I had been quilting for a long time and experienced in fabric art.  Certainly a response that I did not expect, but really honestly loved the response!!

I am holding my quilt and my husband is taking the pic, my Granddaughter is checking it out and decided that she likes it and wants it on her big girl bed!
All I have to do is quilt it now and that will be minimal as the quilt itself is busy enough, perhaps some swirls on the ends as they are longer to fit the bed (didn't need any kind of wall hanging!)
So on to the next project which is finishing up on a quilt for my niece Violet and I am behind 2 baby quilts, and of course those darn rabbits are still keeping me busy eating everything in sight.

Caught Red-Handed!

My yard has become a web of chicken coop wire towers and my garden is now surrounded with wire fencing.  As I was outside snapping a couple shots, guess who here was trying to scope out his supper!  He just froze in his tracks (although I am not sure why as they are such cocky little buggers) and really don't move too fast when they see me in the first place.
Anyways, what else can I do, I have researched some and maybe a male cat would put them in their place, people apparently sprinkle used litter in their gardens, omg!!  Hair is supposed to turn them off (like, wouldn't it turn anyone off, hair in their dinner)  hehe,  hair in their dinner, could be hare for my dinner soon.  There are various other solutions that people have come up with, seriously only a electric fence is going to work here.
Tomorrow is going to be hot hot hot and sunny, a good day to finish that challenge quilt as I hate the heat and the sun!
Cheers and does (anybody have a good recipe for rabbit stew?)

Rabbit War!

Last year the rabbits did virtually no harm except to one vine out front, this year they have chosen to eat everything especially with seasonings on top.  Lillies with peppers, all my dill plants!  I am now considering some kind of chicken wire boxes over the garden area most certainly.  We have had rain rain rain and more rain the last while, I was out in the flower beds today trying to accomplish something, I left the garden area 4 inches higher due to the lovely gumbo mud that we are blessed with.  I have dumped in more bags of sand and peat moss but it is still not great.  I decided to then prune the trees that required some cutting back, it was going quite well until the long pole popped back and snapped me in the left cheek leaving a nice little cut, thanks, I was about finished with that job anyways!
The only thing I can say is that after planting the garden all this rain is certainly good to get things germinating well.  More rain is in the forecast again tomorrow, fine because I am going into work anyways for a break!
The sun is supposed to make an appearance sometime on Thursday, it will probably bring out all the mosquitoes lying in wait in the grasses.  Nice!  hello summer.

does it get any busier?

OK, so it has been over a month since I last made any entries, probably due to the fact that I have been outside slaving away, digging and digging. . . .I have some weeds that were left to run wild when we moved here, so for the last 2 summers (the first summer I wanted to see what came up that was worth keeping, turned out nothing).  Weeds that multiply underground and look like parsnips, if u leave even a hair of a root it is like blowing a fluffy dandelion into your garden.  I am very popular with the robins though, they always hang around when I'm out there with my pitch fork!!
I am happy to say that almost all  of the perennials that I planted last summer have made another appearance!  I was very concerned, every day out there looking, poking and prodding  (all my retirement gift money is in those beds).
Last year after having my 4 raised garden beds made and filled with earth, I rushed my planting before the May long weekend and lost plants to frost, this year I waited, and I still have had to cover the plants twice already!!

So, lets get back to the perennials, the lilies have for some reason become a favorite food this year for the rabbits, I even got the cayenne pepper out, I may have some Mexican rabbits because they just gobbled them down!

I had my little helper here the other day, oh what fun did we have in the garden!  "Gettin dirty with Grandma 2012" was the caption, not sure why it didn't come through.  The time in the garden ended up with flinging of dirt after the chant 1-2-3 you're it!!  it was bath time after that!

So, this is why I still haven't finished my quilt.  

The get together for the summer is June 11th and the top has to be completed so I'd better get my act together sooner than later.

The days are getting much longer and that sun streams through our bedroom window, very early and because I still haven't made any darker curtains for that room, we are up with the birds.

So many things to do!  I had a good idea using palets for my strawberry plants, they are almost finished and then I can move the entire bed of strawberries to their new location (they have taken up an entire 4X8 bed. So I will post a pic of how that turned out as soon as I get the back on them!

Days fly by and it has been quite cold this past week, as well the mosquitoes have made an appearance in the grass.  We were spoiled by a virtually mosquito free summer last year so I am sure we are going to be annoyed this year.  

Well, that's it for now.  Cheers and carry on gardening or quilting or whatever your passions take you, have fun.

The Nickle Challenge (did I mention that I liked to quilt?)

The Nickel Challenge Quilt

These are some of the prints I chose as my part of the challenge.

OK, not like I have enough to do, but I thought I'd like to take part in the Assiniboine Quilters Guild, nickel challenge quilt, you know the kind where you end up with 144 pieces of 5" squares and are to come up with a nice quilt.  The top has to be completed June and completely quilted in Dec (lots of time).  The members who jumped on it right away brought in their beautiful quilts amazingly soon after we started.  Well, there were mostly quilts done with triangles, of course I wanted something different!

Here is a pic of some of the squares we collected together.  I thought about it for some time, thinking that maybe a Amish type of quilt, simple with a black background to pop out the colours.  One thing led to another and before I knew it, I had a plan.  I went through my stash and added the number of squares that I thought would give me the required size for the challenge.  I cut all of the squares in half, then I decided that I wanted to have some play with the fabric, something to give it life.  So I ironed each piece in half and sewed a 1/4inch pleat down the centre, I did this which was fun, I had materials hanging in the bathroom, on hangers

Then I started laying everything out on the floor, (duplicates together).

I started putting out the squares in a graduated color scheme, something I didn't want to play with because I know nothing about it, however I just went with what was pleasing to my eye.  Because I have duplicate squares, my plan was to reflect them in the other half of the quilt.  Above is half of the quilt.

This is how it looks layed out.  I think it has a nice flow, I just reversed the rows placing the first column upside down on the far side and continued to the middle.  I wasn't sure how it was going to look because the middle rows would be so close, but I like it!!

Now getting back to the fabric manipulation, I thought I would run a multicoloured metallic  thread up and down each row to create a wave effect.  So I started doing that.

It's hard to see but each row has a wave to it!

I am now in the process of joining each row together, starting with the two middle rows as the wave peaks there into a larger wave.  I expect I will just border with a nice black.

I will post a pic of the completed top soon (at least of the wave action part) as I want to get this completed to I can get back to the other projects I haven't completed.