This and That (Gardening and Knitting)

I have been a “really bad rose momma,” as I told my sister lately. I have about 90 roses in the ground, and another 15 (I hope!) in pots. Knitting has just about consumed me, and I haven’t pruned, fertilized, or watered (well, I DO water the ones in the pots) for two years. You can get away with that here (coast of southern Oregon) for just so long.

This is “Princess Louise”, a sempervirens from “Jacques” France, 1829. It is a once bloomer, right about NOW. The plant itself is about 10 years old, and was actively cultivated for 5 of those years. It is on a fence on the property, bordered by very tall firs trees, limiting it’s sun after about 2 PM. I no longer do anything for it, it covers about 30 feet of the fence and is about 5 feet high. My mother’s name was Louise, my sister and thought this would be a suitable memorial. Apparently so.

And I am doing just fine with the blanket. Funny how doing a lot of knitting frees one to “just do it”. I wasn’t pleased with the resultant difference in width and length, with the inner doily as a starter pattern, it ended up just 12 sts difference.

I just spent some time elongating two sides of the blanket in a lovely lace pattern from Barbara Walker “Madeira Lace” from the first treasury, but added an additional K1 in the pattern . Worked swell.

And the vegetable garden, which I started in an area that had been a garden two years ago, is doing just fine. I simply could not get behind rototilling, so I have done this “modified” lasagne method. I dug holes just big enough for the plants and then mulched like crazy . I did do some real weed pulling for planting carrots, radishes and the like, but it was a small enough area I could handle it. (And actually DID it!). For a dog guard, I found this cool “insulation netting” at the hardware store, if they WANTED to run thru it and break it, they could, but it is a real visual border.

Of course ALL the zucchini plants I started came up, and I could not kill any of them. Watch out for me on your doorstep at night!