Java Day in the Garden

Yesterday I finally got off my tushy and transplanted the lettuce that had been growing on the deck into the garden boxes.  Though the 1 year old that survived the winter has been doing quite well in the planter box on the deck the little guys (10 in all) really weren't looking too hot.  Big mama was basically encroaching on their space!  So I planted them in the garden and hoped against hope that they would survive the night.  The best part is that they did!

Okay now for phase 2. Several of my friends have been saving coffee grounds for me.  The reason?  Because the soil where I live, even though it has been composted and prepped for planting is very base 7.5 to 8.  Thus a lot of my plants were stunted and didn't really start growing the way they should have grown.  So the acids in coffee grounds and coffee "tea" help the plants get that extra java jolt they need to begin growing like mad again.  I've found that for transplanting this is doubly true.  It's better than miracle grow!  So now my lettuce is perking up nicely.  

The next thing that I did was take pictures of my garden just so I would have a good record (and to add to my website http://stringarden.weebly.com)!  As I looked around my garden I saw early strawberries starting and the poor bell pepper plant that I thought I'd killed in transport home started new leaves!  Its great to see the miracles that are forming in my garden.  

Varmints!

So I’ve been working really hard on the garden for several weeks now.  I was so close to my first victory!  One of the strawberry plants that I’d planted had two almost perfectly ripe strawberries on it!  Success after two summers of attempting strawberries I was going to taste the victory!  I checked on my little victorious fruits at 4PM yesterday, they were happy, healthy and overall looking awesome!  Then I came back out at 5 and wanted to cry!  My poor strawberries had been eaten!  Just the most red scrumptious parts.  Two very distinct tooth marks could be viewed in the riper of the two strawberries.  Now I have two theories.  Both of them involve furry fluffy tailed critters weighing less than 10 lbs who love my fruits!  So, we will be putting chicken wire up around the planter boxes to keep bugs bunny out.  But really I believe that this is yet another squirrel conspiracy.  Those dang squirrels are there every time I turn around.  They make suicide runs at my car! They have attacked me from garbage cans!  They have stalked me when I’m out side of the building and then WATCHED me when I’m inside the building.  I’ve seen more squirrel porn than I care to admit.  Those little critters are not cute and cuddly, they are part of a conspiracy to eat vegetables and play as many tricks on me as possible to try and get me killed!  I have half a mind to set squirrel traps and see what I can catch or let my kids have bb guns and tell them that it’s open season on squirrel.  Then I take a deep breath and think about my poor vegetable patch.  Maybe it was a bunny, maybe it was a squirrel, maybe it was an act of some god trying to play a trick on me… (Thanks a lot!) but I can’t declare open season.  So, I’m going to protect my fragile veggies, and start my winter project early.  If I have the framework for a greenhouse already installed then I’m sure my winter garden will do SO much better this year.  Trying to stay positive… otherwise the varmints get it.

How it all began... or something like that

How this all started.  That's always the real question with any writing, blog, or general meandering of human thought or feeling or action for that matter.  Suffice it to say, it wasn't a dark and stormy night, it was a bright sunny and slightly breezy afternoon! 

Let me introduce myself. I'm Aine, (everyone say HI Aine!) and I have a problem... well it's more of a bone that I sunk my teeth into years ago and have continued to gnaw at jealously as time goes on. I love playing with string!  More importantly I love the art of spinning and weaving. Hopefully I will learn the art of dying some day to complement this.  The only problem is that I have limited knowledge and experience with these fields of study.  If you asked me where moreno came from I'd probably have to respond (uh... I THINK it's a llama... but oh look!  A sheep!) I'm not exactly ADD I just prefer distracting you while I look it up on the interwebs.  I'm actually OCD, mild, controlled, need order in my life OCD. I think it's for this reason that I like the spining and weaving. It's taking something from it's natural form of a pile of little bits and turning it into something beautiful, wearable, useable.  I mean seriously, the sheep don't have any use for that multi-colored died green and mustard yellow pelt that you shaved off last season! Over time I've makeshifted, modified, McGyvered and otherwise blundered my way through string production and weaving.  Enter Theia (This is not her real name and NO I won't give it to you!), she sat me down in a class an introduced me to this wonderful concept (drum roll)  CARD WEAVING!  I get this mental image of me holding up a deck of playing cards ala Wilma and Betty yelling WEAVE IT! This simple technique is FAR from simple but the designs! Oh the designs! And the colors and the textures!  AAAAANNNNNND then she started using terms that I'd never heard before, as I guiltily sit there listening to her talk to me about weaving I realized that I'd struck again, my knowledge has HUGE GAPING COSMIC HOLES IN IT!  (damn)  So, meekly I sit there and finally I break in and say, um... what I know of weaving, you've used terms I don't understand "What's a headdle?" Now considering I'd been using one for years, this was quite an embarrassing moment for me.  Later on, a kind of mirical happened (No I'm not talking about angels coming down from heaven and saving me from the lighning strike that is my own ambition) she agreed to be my teacher! This started me down a WHOLE different string filled yellow string road of string and weaving and spinning and string! 

So now you know where "String" comes from.  What about the "Garden"?  I have this sister, now you need to understand that I grew up with three brothers, biologically related to me, that have now scattered across the known world with two in the military and one in Oregon.  We talk sometimes, but my brothers and I are FAR from close.  However, there are these two AMAZING women in my life, We're going to call them Batman and Wonder Woman (Names withheld because it's not okay to post real names without the players permission).  Now just to introduce these two absolute AMAZING Heroes in my life, meet Batman.  Batman say hi to everyone!  Batman here is this wonderful contradiction of all those things that Bruce Wayne embodies.  Passion for those things that she's interested, a willing to try something new even if she doesn't end up liking it.  Batman ALWAYS has a gentle suggestion or an encouraging word.  She's a healer and a therapist and she's my sounding board when I'm having any range of emotions which my husband (We're going to call him Superman) can't handle at the time.  The man of steel is the man of steel in my life, but Batman often carries the utility belt of make the Aine better RIGHT NOW!  Then there is Wonder Woman!  She's beautiful, she's classy, she's amazing, she's all those things that I think I lack in myself and want to be.  Wonder Woman can cook ANYTHING and make it delicious, and she knows the science behind the art.  Her house is always beautifully laid out, she has the gorgeous hairstyles that makes her look amazing every day.  She is an artist, she makes these purses out of cigar boxes, (they truely are amazing).  She can dance, she can sing, she can do anything, and most importantly, even if it scares her she gives it a try.  Which brings me to her biggest and best talent in my opinion (you mean there's more?  Yes there's more folks!  For just 9.99 more you can get two... ahem sorry guys there is only ONE Wonder Woman).  Wonder Woman is a gardener, and she has this amazing green thumb!  I saw her out in her garden, playing in the dirt with this happy look on her face on occasion and for the last few years. So like everything that the ferret does, I decided that I would turn that frown upside down and turn my big black thumb into a little green one.  How hard can it be?  OH MY GODS! Soil content, acidicy, let's just say that I made progress and then things got strange...  Last year my crop was one MEASELY little summer squash and tomatoes that I saved from the deer.  Pathetic.  But just like any good Aine I got that bone and I'm not ready to bury it yet.  SO, why not share my pain... ahem passion with the rest of the world. Spread it around a bit.  At least then if I can laugh at my blunders, then the rest of the world has a chance to do the same thing.  So now you know why my blog is called the "String Garden."  I'm sure I will blog about other things, Quilting, Sewing, SCA, but mainly it's a forum for me to laugh with myself at the projects that don't go well and look on with pride as I share the projects that go swimmingly, and everything in between!

That brings me to my next point. I don't tend to take the easy route with just about anything.  I started spinning on chanille (any spinners out there know who bug nuts insane that is?) I cried, I groused, I threw it around a lot, I absolutely ruined 8 oz of beautiful purple chanille.  Then I tried wool.  (LIGHT GOES ON!) Hey! this is easy!  Well it turns out that if I'd known about the card length of different fibers when I'd baught my first drop spindle, then it would have been much easier years ago.  But now I spin with fair ease (so NOT an expert yet) and I'm hoping that soon I'll be able to face my nemisis... chanille once again.  With gardening, I did no research, I went and baught a bunch of seed packets in veggies that I like to eat and planted them.  I did attempt to add compost to the dirt, anyone want to tell me what happens when your dirt is 80% compost and 20% dirt?  Anyone?  Yeah not so much in the greatest of starts.  So now that I've faild by virtue of NOT being Wonder Woman and having this natural talent to make the world grow green.  I started to research.  pH? Water? these were novel concepts.  Didn't realize that the ground needed to have so much water saturation.  KEEP IT WATERED DAILY turned out to be DROWN YOUR PLANTS DAILY.  See, that translation, took me a while to learn the language.  I also started my garden in lateish july, and then in september the first frost hit.  BLAM!  no more squash, no more tomatoes!  No more... read dissappointment, upset and general wishing that jack frost could be found, caged, beaten over the head with his own cane and then summarilly left in the sun to melt.  (what?  I can be annoyed at the weather too!)

So here it is year... um... 12 with spining, 10 with weaving (3 months if you count card), and 2 with gardening.  I have lots of interests.  I hope you will share my journey into the unknown and laugh with me as I try to live up to my own expectations which are SOOO much bigger than those of Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman and the rest of my heroes combined!