A most beautiful sweater that failed to launch and a straw bale update

I had the most wonderful plans for my new sweater, I loved the colour, the lovely stripiness, the pattern-Stripe Parade. I began to knit it with some Madtosh Merino Light on 3.5mm needles. That's pretty fine knitting-lots of stitches.

I measured, I swatched, I measured again. I knit enough to I could slip it over my head and put my arms through (it is a top down sweater) and it was too big. I did measure several times, I did swatch but something got lost in the translation. Shipoopy!!!

And that is the end of that story. I still love my colour combo so my knitting brain will have to cogitate on that one for awhile longer. You know, sometimes I think knitting (gardening) is sometimes a metaphor for life. Sometimes no matter how hard we plan and prepare, things don't always work out. So we have to rip back to square one, take a deep breath, dry our tears, regroup and press on. Hopefully we can learn something along the way. As my Dad would say, "you can plan the event but not the outcome" So very true!!

Chrissys Flower Garden

I did receive a most wonderful surprise though. Sally, the owner of the LYS where I enable like minded souls, received a large shipment of hand dyed yarns in many colours recently. They were all unnamed and so the task fell to her to provide them with suitable nomenclatures. I was totally surprised and touched to see this. Evidently I was told this but I must have been in a trance triggered by all the yarn fumes this yarn was emitting (yarn fumes are a known phenomena, ask a knitter). Thanks Sally!! Now it got me thinking, what with my preoccupation with veggies in the bales I had neglected my flowers for the garden. This would not do!

So off to the garden centre I went. If you zoom in on this picture you will see Mama Robin collecting plant material for her nest or maybe she is looking for worms.

Straw Bale Update

Arugula

Radishes

lettuce

tomatoes

eggplants

sweet peppers

 Oh my, the bales are hopping!! Everything is growing well and with the warm weather coupled with some much needed rain, the veggies are growing like gangbusters!

We picked a big bowl of arugula, butter crunch, red leaf and deer tongue lettuce for our dinner tonight and it was sooo good.

So far so good and it has been such an interesting process. We have had a 100% germination and transplant rate. Now, in the spring chicken to stewing hen continuum, we are both definitely quite right of centre. The bales are so much easier on your back and the weeding is minimal and super easy. We get this long grassy stuff growing a bit on the sides,but it just pulls out with no resistance. The best part is the produce comes out so clean, it is amazing! In the picture above, the greens had not been washed yet.

I planted some nasturtium seeds in front of a couple of bales as they are good companion plants. They popped up so that made me pretty happy!

I have two old wooden ladders under which I planted both a pole bean and a scarlet runner bean respectively.They are doing well. Beans like warm soil and with our unseasonably warm spells they germinated pretty quick. They are a great nitrogen fixer for my crumbum soil. We have been eating these french breakfast radishes from one of our in ground beds. Super tasty!

Lastly here I am!  I read so many interesting blogs and I always like to put a face to a name. I am just curious like that.

Yikes, I keep forgetting, a big welcome and how'd you do to my new followers! And a big thank you to all of you who leave such lovely comments and to those who visit my blog. It is reassuring that I am not speaking into Vacuumland  as Alan McPhee used to say (Remember him Isobel?)!

Have a super week friends!!

Keep smiling!

Chris