I think part of the reason the gardens are doing so well is all the rain we’ve had. While the end of May, beginning of June were super dry, mid/late June brought the rain and it’s just kept coming. This past week, we’ve had some really heavy downpours (other places in the province had tornadoes!).

Saturday rained all day, on and off. So it seemed like a good time to just stay inside and sew (really, it doesn’t take much of a nudge to get me to do that!)

I got started a little later than planned (no reason, just a really lazy morning), so I decided instead of starting something new (which was the original plan), I’d put together a couple more blocks for my red/cream quilt.

I absolutely love these blocks! And apparently Burton does too! While everything is cut and ready to go, they still take a couple hours to put together a pair. And the results are so worth it!

Each block is 16 inches, and the 8 I have done so far already cover half the bed.

Of course, it will be a bit smaller when they are all sewn together, but it should still cover the top of the bed. Then I will add border to build it out to about Queen-sized.

No matter the size, it’s definitely going to be a stunner! (and yes… I still have to fix one of my blocks!!!)

After the expenses on the house the past couple of months (windows and basement work), not to mention a rather large Missouri Star Quilt order that just showed up (I needed a backing for my Hallowe’en quilt and apparently I have no self-control in the face of sale fabric)… I decided it would be a good idea to do a No-Buy July.

Now… past experience would tell you that I’m generally not good a spend-free months in general. But July??? Its a really bad time because it’s when ALLLLL the garden stuff goes on clearance.

I was doing pretty good – until last week. Dave wanted to go to Canadian Tire to get some weather stripping or some such for the doors. (We have the energy audit coming up for our rebate on the windows and basement and he wants to make the house as tight as possible). I did very good and bypassed allllll the clearance plants they had at the entrance.

But Canadian Tire didn’t have what he was looking for, so off we went to Peavey Mart (It’s a farm supply store mostly, but they have some general hardware and such). And all their garden stuff was on clearance. I was very good. I didn’t come home with any more plants… but I might have bought a small green house.

And when I say small… I mean it. It’s advertised as a “portable” greenhouse. It’s basically just a shelf with a plastic raincoat.

It was originally $120, and was marked down to $40. As soon as we got home, I started putting it together. And let me tell you – if I’d paid full price for it, I would have been one unhappy shopper. It’s so cheaply made, it’s barely worth the $40 I paid for it!

But… it should serve my purposes for a year or two.

As you know, I’ve experimented growing from seed with very mixed results. My lupins and daisies were all started from seed at the townhouse.

My success with growing sunflowers from seed has been about 50/50.

The last couple of years, most of the perrenials I started from seed didn’t make it past seedlings. And all the veg I started inside this year – total fail. I ended up re-planting everything out there directly.

I’m hoping this little greenhouse will give me a bit of a leg up. It should help with one of my major problems, which is the squirrels! As soon as I move my seedlings outside, the squirrels start digging and making a mess.

This tray, and another on the shelf below it, are all that remains of the seeds I started in May. And you can see from the uneven soil levels in the trays that the squirrels had quite a go at these ones. I’m amazed anything is growing at all! (These are Black-eyed Susans, Lupins, Chinese Lanterns, Delphinium and Columbine). The squirrels absolutely decimated the ALL the sunflowers I planted.

I will start some more sunflowers. I think there’s enough time to get some grown and blooming before fall. And I’m going to go through my seed collection and see what else I can get started.

Despite the squirrels, things are going well in Edible Alley. Dave’s gotten to snack on another bowl of peas, and a couple beans.

The second sowing of carrots is starting to sprout, as are the chives and catnip! Certainly took them long enough!

And I’ve got baby cucumbers!!!!

Aren’t they just the cutest things??? I just love wee-baby veg!

And as great as that is… something weird was happening in the tomatoes. You will recall that I planted two grape tomato plants.

They came from the same nursery pack, they are planted in the same raised box, side by side, growing in the exact same conditions…but…..

For some reason the one on the left has all curled up, while the one on the right is growing perfectly happily. I looked it up and didn’t get many good answers…. too much water, not enough water, too little magnesium… But again… they are side by side!!!!

I gave up trying to figure it out and just pulled the curly one. The tomatoes came in a pack of three, and I have the third one (which was kind of a runt) growing in a pot. I’m going to transplant it into the open space now.

Gardening… it can be a real roller-coaster ride sometimes!

As you can see, it’s full-on daylily time here. And that isn’t even all of them. There are several more to come. I think I said it before, but if I could only have one type of flower in my garden, it would be daylilies. Because the possibilities are just endless with them!

And check out this beautiful mutant. It’s on the Purple D’Oro plant. Not only is it a lighter shade… but it’s got too many petals! Apparently this happens time to time with day lilies, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen it in my garden. It’s the only one on that plant too – all the rest have been normal.

Of course, I can have more than one flower in my garden so it’s not just daylilies. It’s also roses!

Quicksilver – the second of the climbing roses I bought for the arbour – has finally bloomed. At first, I wasn’t too impressed – the buds are a little on the raggedy side. But it slowly opened into a beautiful mauvey pink mass of petals.

It’s certainly going to be able to hold its own with Eden, it’s climbing mate on the other side of the arbour. She’s turned out to be a quite prolific bloomer, which I absolutely love!

The Honeysuckle on the catio has started to bloom. I was a little worried about this one. It got hit by a nasty aphid attack in spring, and all the buds it had in late May just died off. But this later batch seem to be doing much better. The yellow one I bought for dress form isn’t blooming, but it has started to put on some good new growth. I was getting worried about it too.

And I wanted to share how wel my little shade garden has come along.

Can you believe how much it’s grown in just a month?

And I’m normally not a big fan of Impatiens. I only planted them here to fill in a few of the empty spaces, and because I knew they’d do well in the shade. But boy do they ever pop!

And it’s a similar story with the front walkway garden, though it’s had a few more weeks to develop.

And if you want to go back even further…

Check out the catio at this time LAST year, and how it looks now.

It just shows you, it doesn’t really take long for a garden to get established.

Can you believe this fluffmuffin moved in an took over our house SIX years ago???

His gotchaversary is actually at the start of the month (July 5th), but when I took the picture on the right the other day, it reminded me of the one on the left. When I went back into my archives, I realized it was taken in 2017 – just a couple days after I brought him home.

Time sure flies when you love a floofmonster!

The weather the last couple of weeks has been just perfect for growing things. Hot, humid, with a good amount of rain.

Mid week last week, I went out to check on things and noticed several of the sugar snap pea flowers had given way to the cutest, teeniest little pods.

And no more than four or five days later…

I couldn’t believe it! They were ready for picking!

A respectable first harvest, and a nice little snack for Dave. He ate them all up as soon as I handed them over.

Elsewhere…

We will have a bean harvest soon.

A cucumber harvest is still a ways off, but it’s nice to see flowers on the plants.

And the new strawberries have been planted and are doing quite well. Certainly a good edible season so far!

From stitched butterflies yesterday to real ones today….

The butterflies have been somewhat lacking in the garden this year so far. The white cabbages are as abundant as ever, and I did see one skipper flitting about a couple weeks ago, but not much else.

Then last week, I was out checking on the garden as I do each day, and this little guy took a moment to rest on me.

It’s a Red Admiral butterfly, and a very ragged one at that. You may or may not know, but once a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, he/she usually only has a few weeks left to live. Their whole purpose is to fly, drink nectar, mate (and if they are females), lay eggs… then die.

This one is probably very close to the end of its life – given how rough it’s wings look. They literally fly themselves to death.

It’s a little unusual to see Red Admirals this late into summer (at least here). I usually see them more through May and June. In fact, I think this is the first one I’ve seen in July.

Hopefully the other butterflies will fill the garden soon!

Thanks to vacation, and time stuck keeping the kitties happy while the windows were installed, I managed to finish the butterfly!!!

It’s not the exact colours the pattern called for, but it’s close enough to butterflies and moths I’ve seen in my own garden, so I’m good with it.

Even though all those little Xs are done, the project isn’t. This one requires quite a bit of outlining. But it will be well worth it.

And I should be able to finish it by next Tuesday!

Stay tuned!

Unsurprisingly, I didn’t get any time to sew while the window guys were here. Saturday we had errands to run, but you can bet I took advantage of Sunday to get in the studio.

Both Burton and I wanted to get our Leader/Ender blocks together into a top, and into the “to-quilt” pile. There were 56 blocks, and while it seems like a lot, they went together easy peasy, and in just a couple hours, they were all together.

Isn’t it just wild? It looks even better than I thought it would. I added a plain border just to build it out a bit.

And that’s another one in the bag, ready for a weekend quilting session at Mom’s!

After a long, hot week, all 14 windows, and the sliding glass door have been replaced.

We have windows that open! And they have screens!!!! The cats and I are absolutely thrilled!!!

The team (just two guys) soldiered through the blistering heat all week. I am amazed with their work. They still have to come back on Monday to finish capping the windows on the outside.

They got four capped on Friday – don’t they just look so great?!?! And did you notice something???

No more awnings over the windows. The window guys helped me convince Dave that they didn’t need to go back up. It was actually the fact that they would have to be screwed into the window frames that did it.

Here’s a little side-by-side of the house when we bought it, and how it looks now.

I love all the changes we’ve made. Eventually, we’ll replace the siding. And when we do, I’d like to have shutters added to the windows.

And the absence of the awnings doesn’t just make the outside look better.

I love how much light those big windows let in to the livingroom! I did have to go get some curtains to close over the blinds because Dave was complaining about the glare on his tv in the morning.

And now that the windows are in… we can finally put up some trim and finally finish this room!!! (And Dave’s studio!)

All in all, it was a lot of money to shell out, but every cent is well worth it!

As I mentioned the other day, it’s been hot and humid almost all week. I’ve also mentioned it’s hard on the roses. But Eden (the new climber) is handling it amazingly well!

I think she may be my new favourite rose!!!!

Over in Lily Land

We have this lovely Asiatic lily called “Easy Dance”

And for Daylilies we have “Blueberry Candy”, “Ruby Stella” and “Happy Returns”.

Dave and I had to go get some wood at Home Depot (he needed to reinstall the a/c units to fit the new windows). Their garden stuff STILL wasn’t on clearance, but I said screw it and bought these two Blanket Flowers (and a Tickseed… not shown), because several of the plants I was hoping to get were already gone.

The White Obedient Plant I got from Home Depot at the start of the season is already blooming. This was a surprise, because the pink one I have doesn’t usually get going until late August.

And while that one was early, I feel like these ones are late.

The daisies I had at the townhouse always started blooming mid June. But these guys are just starting. I have two good sized clumps in the backyard, both along the fence, and come fall, I think I might move one out front. I also have a super frilly yellow version… it should bloom soon.

Another late bloomer are these Drumstick Allium. All my other Alliums always started blooming in late May. These guys just purpled up and started opening in the last week.

And these big, bold guys, are volunteers. They are growing between the driveway and the neighbour’s fence. On the other side of that fence is the neighbour’s veg garden. They are some sort of onion, though I don’t know what kind. I’m going to let them do their thing and save some seed. I think they would look really pretty in the garden.

And I’ll leave you with these pretties… Mexican Hat, False Sunflower and pink Lavender.