I've been helping Kev turning over the gardens, gathering wood for the stove, and pouring over heirloom seed catalogs. We bought lemon cucumber and emerald green tomato seeds from Baker Creek which did really well last summer. There were plenty of platters of fried green tomatoes to eat. But, we're hoping to find a few varieties of red tomatoes to plant next summer. The plants we bought from Walmart did poorly except for the cherry tomatoes.

Halloween 2011

It's starting to get cold, so I bought Gizmo a new sweater to keep him warm - and save him a little from the pecking chickens. Now that the girls are getting larger and just as big as Gizmo, they are following him around and pecking at him. I guess it's a funny kind of justice since Gizmo spent a lot of time following the chickens around- to their annoyance.

Here is a gothic scene my talented boyfriend put together just outside our doorway. We didn't do much for halloween this year. Kev usually likes to a have a small get-to-gether with friends...watch pirate and/or spooky movies and eat treats like mummy fingers and drink witch's brew. It just seemed to come up too quickly and we turned around and we really didn't have time to do all the decorating and it seemed everyone was doing their own thing this year. I guess because halloween was on a Monday. But, it was kind of nice to have Kev alone and we watched a spooky marathon on A&E...or at least I believe that was the channel.

I finished my quilt top in time for halloween...or just about. I was so pleased since this was my first quilt...well not a quilt for a bed but more of a quilted table runner. I took this picture of it with my phone and emailed it to my fellow quilter, Gayle to show her that yes...I did finish it in time. When I looked at what would become my table runner, I then noticed that I sewed the final strip on...backward! Live and learn I guess.

Updates...The Girls

November 6, 2011

September 13, 2011

The flock is coming closer to laying eggs. We're figuring the earliest will be in about 4 weeks just in time for the holiday season. But, we still have some work to do. I helped Kevin put together some boxes for them to lay the eggs. They don't seem to like them other than to throw the straw out of them. Instead we're thinking of making the sides of the boxes a lot higher, so it's more difficult to throw the straw over the side.

Quilting progress

Hole in the Barn Door Blocks

Gayle and I joined a group of quilters which meets at the Sachem Public Library once a month. We've been working with red, white, and blue fabrics and have made 2 blocks so far. The "hole in the barn door" is one of them. Every time I make a block for the group, I make another in the civil war reproduction fabrics I found through Fat Quarters Shop.com. I'm hoping to make enough blocks in various patterns in coordinating fabrics in order to put together my first quilt. I'm planning on making it a lap quilt that I can cover myself with when I'm watching TV this winter. It will be called the "Civil War Sampler" quilt...that is once I figure out how to join all the blocks together.

Fall Has Nearly Arrived

It seems that with coming of September that the temperatures are finally dropping to about 60 degrees starting tomorrow. So, fall has finally appeared. For how long, who knows? According to the Farmer's Almanac, it's supposed to begin snowing in November and be fairly cold this year.

With all the rain we had this summer, many of our plants are about done producing and the fields are just about ready to be turned over and made ready with compost for the next summer.

Coming to the End of the Summer

Garden #1: Behind the House:
Beginning of a watermelon...it didn't get large enough for us to eat, but the chickens really liked it

Garden #2: The Field Garden:
We grew Emerald Green Tomatoes, a few varieties of red tomatoes, Lemon Cucumbers, and Green Beans here. It's coming to the end of the growing season. We really didn't give each plant enough room to stretch out. We'll have to space them better next year.

I'm showing off the pretty quilt I picked up in Macy's over 10 years ago. I'm hoping to one of these days make my own quilt.

Here are some borage plants. The blue flowers are really pretty and they taste a little like cucumbers. They're great to add to salads.

Chicken Updates

These pictures were taken on August 24th. You can see just how big the girls are getting. Unfortunately, we now have 13 chicks. One of the hawks that lives on the property had one as an appetizer just before Hurricane Irene came through this past weekend. Our new coop - a converted stable - withstood the storm and the chicks are really enjoying all the roosting space.

Nature's Bounty

Our garden has been very successful: zuchini thicker than baseball bats, lots of green beans, regular slicing cucumbers, emerald green tomatoes, and lemon cucumbers.

The red tomatoes didn't do very well this year. Kev and I plan on looking through the seed catalogs of heirloom seeds and see if we can find some good red tomatoes to plant for next summer. We're still waiting on the yellow strawberries. There are plenty of flowers, but no fruit just yet.

Hurricane Irene is on her way up the Eastern coastline and I'm hoping the rest of our harvest will be alright. I have quite a few lemon cucumbers not quite ready, but will be in the next few days if they're not ripped out of the ground by the wind and rain.

How to Make an American Quilt...or just one that looks like a pirate sleeps under it...

I'm getting very domesticated these days. Besides the gardening and raising of chickens, I've decided to indulge one of my old passions - quilting. Well, the old passion was more of a passing interest in Amish quilts.

My friend, Gayle, who for the longest time was trying to get me involved in crocheting and knitting by introducing me to books such as The Friday Night Knitting Club, hooked me on the Elm Creek Quilt series. I fell in love with Sylvia and all her friends as well as my interest in quilts and quilting was renewed. Gayle was excited and took great pleasure in pulling me through Joann's fabric section and helped me choose tools to begin.

A few weeks ago we attended a "quilter's circle" at Sachem Library in Holbrook. The "circle" was small which was good since Gayle (although has made a quilt before but wanted to really learn the right way of going about it) and I (who can barely sew a button) were not too intimated by the first block - the woven star block in red, white, and blue fabric.

I decided to repeat the pattern using some fabric in purples and pinks, but messed up sewing one area together and had to be redone. This week I started to look up some interesting patterns and decided on a pine tree pattern that went in a "home sweet home" quilt. It was a dismal failure. It was way too difficult, so I have my first UFO (unidentified fabric object). Instead I decided to stick to patterns with squares and triangles for awhile. So, I cut out a flying geese block, ohio star, and a friendship star block. I have to measure out my 1/4 inch sewing mark and then I'll be ready to sew them all together. I'm hoping to make a sampler quilt for myself...or at least a quilt top to be turned into one.

Kevin wants me to make us a pirate quilt for the bed, but I don't think I'm ready for that just yet. But, I am collecting fabrics in my new stash for when I get around to it.

Chicks, Chicks Everywhere

July 7, 2011

July 16, 2011

July 25, 2011

Kev said that raising chickens would help with our tick problem...and we'd get some egss out of it. For about a month, every time I'd go out to garden I'd have at least 3 ticks crawling up my legs. So, we placed an order from Murray McMurray mail order catalog for 25 white female leghorn chicks with one free mystery chick which could be any type or sex. They came the week of July 4th. Adorable!

Mulch and fish

Kev helped me the other day to put mulch - what was left from David's foray into the wonderful world of mowing the lawn (not something he has had a lot of practice doing) -around all our plants. I remember Kev throwing vegetable and fruit scraps into the soil as well as the usual grass clippings. But, I read an online article and Little House said that you can also use all those leftover tea bags and coffee filters. Kev said that if we bury the carcasses of all the fish that died in our pond (we think it may have been a lack of oxygen in the water and many of our goldfish passed on in the past two days) that the plants would shoot up.

I'll try to remember to recycle our tea bags, coffee filters, and food scraps, but I'm really not relishing burying all those dead fish in the garden.

ONLINE ARTICLE:

How to Make Your Own Mulch: A Beginner's Guide for the Lazy Composter by: Little House (http://www.wisebread.com/how-to-make-your-own-mulch-a-beginners-guide-for-the-lazy-composter)

Weeds

Lemon Verbena and Peppermint

Peas and Zucchini (and lots of weeds)

We've had a good amount of rain recently and the newly planted veggies have really shot up. But, what also has shot up are the weeds! Everything on the right side of the picture are weeds. I cleared most of those away today and planted what I believe to be carrots (I lost track of which seeds were which a few weeks ago) near the tomatoes and peas.

The zucchini plants are spreading out at a tremendous rate. I'm hoping that we don't get the blight that killed our zucchini plants last year. The leaves got all moldy and the plants eventually died. I did read recently that some people use chamomile tea and spray it on the leaves. I may try it this year if it happens again.

Almost ready

We're almost ready to plant the rest of the plants we started as seeds a few weeks before. Hopefully with all the rain we've been getting lately they should take as nicely as the plants we put in the ground last weekend.

Peas Were First

The peas were ready first. I had never seen peas from a pod before. Kev and I didn't wait to cook them. We just sucked them right out. They were surprisingly sweet.

Heirloom Seeds

Last year, I played around with a few tomato plants and herbs bought from Walmart and a few of the local nurseries. Over the winter months, I read a few books and magazines on gardening and I thought that I'd like to try my hand at growing heirloom veggies from seed. I did an Internet search and came up with a company called Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I was astounded at the number of varieties of different types of vegetables.

A few months back I purchased seeds for:

• Emerald Evergreen Tomatoes
• Stevia (leaves taste like sugar)
• Toothache Plant (supposed to enhance the immune system, improve digestion, and help with nausea)
• Borage (leaves that taste like cucumbers and are added to salads; pretty flowers, too)
• Lemon Cucumbers
• Yellow Strawberries
  

The tomatoes shot up right away. I lost track of which was stevia and which was borage. I guess I'll figure that out when they come up fully. Kev and I already planted the tomatoes and cucumbers, but we're waiting for the others to mature a little more before they go in the ground.

I then bought some small plants from Walmart and some neighborhood nurseries:

• "Early Girl" and "Beefsteak" Tomatoes (in a planter, but I think they will be transplanted in "the field" where they will get more light and growing room)
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Sweet Basil
• Eggplants - deep purple and ghost white
• Thai Basil - withering : (
• Lemon Verbena : -) smells divine
• 2 Peppermint plants that are growing all over the place
• Sage
• Thyme
• 2 Zucchini
• Peas
• Beans (from seed)
  
• 1 Cayenne pepper & 1 Jalapeno pepper plant
• 4 small Red Bell Pepper plants and 2 Green Bell Pepper plants
• Slicing cucumbers
• a variety of Carrots (which I'm not sure I even started from seed yet...00ps)
• Broccoli (from seed)
• Watermelon (from seed)

A friend of mine at work also gave us a bunch of garlic chives to plant.

This is all quite a departure from the few tomato plants and herb window garden I'm used to.

In the beginning...

I don't know what made me want to begin this blog except that I wanted to get more into the computer age as well as document something that I thought I'd never do.

I grew up and spent more than 25 years living in Queens, New York which was about 20 minutes by Long Island Railroad from Manhattan. I was in love with the city - from the Broadway plays to the clubs to the museums and all the great things the city offers. Like many people from Queens, I refer to "the city" as Manhattan. But, in reality, Queens is the city...just with more grass in places.

Year after year, I saw that my little neighborhood in Queens seemed to get more and more congested as well as the houses getting very expensive. So, after being married about 3 years (my second marriage) we decided to buy a four-bedroom ranch near Selden, NY. It was a nice piece of property so much larger than anything I would have every believed I would have ever lived on.

I began to dabble in growing tomatoes and planting flowers. But, most of the flowers were perennials so there was little work involved and somehow I didn't kill the roses even thought I forgot to water them often. I can't say as much for the wandering jew and other house plants friends had given my as housewarming presents. Oh, well.

When my marriage ended two years ago, my son and I had discovered that we had fallen in love with the wide-open spaces of Suffolk county. Although it would have been more practical to move closer to the middle school I worked at in Queens, I couldn't bring myself to leave. So, instead of moving closer, I wound up moving a little further out.

Today, my boyfriend and I rent a small house on a few acres of land in Suffolk county...long ago a horse farm. So, there is plenty of room for trying out gardening. Kev, originally from Long Island, has a real green thumb. I'm hoping that it can transfer by osmosis...