My Summer Garden

Every summer for many years my mother and I have kept a garden on the side of the house. We started out with a person-sized plot of tomatoes and herbs, and have expanded every year to a garden that is as wide as the space allows and continues for about a third of the length of our house.

A shot of the whole garden

This year, we have a lot of goodies growing:

This sage plant was one of our original plants. It is now the size of a bush (unfortunately, this is the biggest pic I could get, and it does not quite show off how enormous the plant is). The sage does not start to die until late November, and we usually have some fresh leaves left for Christmas. It is also the first plant to come back in the spring (or late winter).

The dill is actually just from last year, but the chives have been there for ages. This is the first year we are intentionally planting corn (in the past it has grown in cracks from bird seed).

We started doing peppers about a couple years ago, because I got really into making chili. We have had little success in getting them store-bought size, but they are still yummy, and we have a good variety (including some spicier plants).

We are also growing squash plants. We have done this on and off over the years, and it looks like they are the first food to come in this year.

Our cucumbers are, for once, actually climbing their trellis, and our variety of tomatoes (8 different types of plants, including a green stripey tomato) are already staked up. Hopefully we will get enough sun this year for them to turn red (unlike last summer). It looks like they will; the hanging tomato plant has already spent its yellow cherries, and the red ones are starting to be eatable.

In addition to my gardening, I will be finished taking Physics and Design classes on Thursday, and I have made excellent progress on what appears to be a cursed tank top:

After I found out there was an errata, which Knit Picks, who I bought the pattern from, does not list on their errata list, I found out the errata was also wrong for my size (in fact, just about the whole pattern was wrong for my size, a 42″ bust, which should not be considered XL). Fortunately, it was just wrong on the amount of ribbing, and it was easy to adjust accordingly. And then I messed up a cable:

Happily, there is no actual difference between the front and the back, so I will simply wear that in the back.

In spite of that mistake, the general fucked-upedness of the pattern, and the amount of purling (I did not realize when I decided to knit this round that the stockinette was meant to be on the inside, or I would have knit it inside out), the cables are very pretty. And in stitch count I appear to be around halfway through (in amount of yarn still unkint, it’s more like 5/14), so I should be finished in time to enjoy it this summer.

Once this garment is off the needles, I will be starting a Baby Surprise Jacket, for someone I know who is having a baby (because someone having a baby is an opportunity for me to try a new and popular pattern). Then, it will be time to cast on Christmas 2010, featuring a shawl and ornament for my grandma (whose birthday is Christmas Eve), socks for my dad, slippers for Grandpa, a stocking for my step-mother, wrist warmers or a spa set for my aunt, a neck pillow for my uncle and a scarf for me. I am still not sure what to make my mother. I want to knit her a sweater, but I don’t think I’ll have time, and I’ve already made her a shawl.

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