Roger Williams Park

Today we headed out to Roger Williams Park (which I never visited when I actually lived in Providence) and hit up their Botanical Center. I talked to one of the URI Master Gardners for a minute or two and she said they have been working hard to clean things up and take better care of it. The master gardners also made a bunch of ferry houses that were spread out around the garden. If I still lived in the area I think I’d have to go frequently and bring some knitting or spinning and sit around the plants while I worked.

The biggest greenhouse is quite tall, there were several others off to the right.

The big greenhouse is filled with lots of tall palms.

We enjoyed the pattern on the cut steam.

Pitcher plant flower

Ponderosa Lemon?

Giant thorns!

The outside gardens were mostly asleep, but some trees are starting to wake up.

Its official

I have no bees this year. I’m bummed out, but I’m not going to try to replace them at present. I will hope a swarm moves in. I knew it was going to be rough this year because the winter was so warm, and I saw the ladies out flying off and on though the new year. This means that they blew though their food and probably starved out.

Big Sewing

I’m working on a bit of a big sewing project, and using it as a chance to play with my gopro.

I spent almost 6 hours (including a couple of breaks) cutting out the fabric. I was sore for a few days from all the sitting down and standing up.

And some extream sewing.

I had to fiddle around to find the right size foot for the second seam on the zipper. I also had some problems with my bobbin tension two weeks ago and had to buy the right size screw driver to adjust it. Aparently the manufacturer doesn’t want you messing with the bobbin tension so they don’t include the right tool to do it (My machine has a horizontal bobbin which is a bit more of a pain to adjust) After that I got the flu. I’m getting ready to try and finish the project this weekend.

Now you are probably wondering what exactly I’m creating. Take your best guess and stick around for a picture of the finished object and details on the pattern and materials.

I made a Kite

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Last Harvest

I finally pulled my carrots.

I will probably blanch and freeze the big ones, and eat the baby ones now. I am also thinking about making a jar of firecrackers.

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I’ve started working though Lavern Waddington’s book, Andean Pebble Weave.  I’m on the second of four lessons, and the patterns keep getting more interesting.  Now I just need to figure out what to do with these little bands.

I’m up to something

 

But you’ll have to wait to find out what.  

Next year’s garden…

Its never too early to start dreaming planning for next years garden. I think I’ll go for a community garden plot again, but avoid tomatos. There is too much early blight to make it worth the effort. I might try to dig up and overwinter some of the artichokes, and I’ll be trying to grow them again. The plants are really cool looking and people at the garden are impressed with them. In the same family are cardoons. I’ve never had a cardoon, but its another cool looking plant. Because you eat the leaf stalks, it doesn’t matter if they get buds the first year or not. I’ll have to wait for my seed catalogs before I plan too much much moe.

Artichoke!

At least all my artichoke growing effort has yielded something. I hope the other plants will decide to join in.

They seem to have a bit of a pest problem, but the plants don’t seem to mind too much.

And I have some assistance in the matter.

My luffas are growing like weeds, but still only have two fruits on them.

They’re still attracting pollinators like crazy.