A Weekend of Seconds

This past weekend was spent on seconds, yes, that's right, not firsts, but seconds. All the same it's still new stuff that I am learning as I go. For starters I planted my second garden ever. My first was March-July 2011 and it was pretty impressive, if I do say so myself. I had nice squash, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and purple okra (still have some of the same okra producing)!









































These are pics from the late spring/early summer time period. My husband, put a lot of time and energy into this garden. We have 4 raised beds that our 4x16 ft. The area is 45x22 and had to be fenced in as we have a large deer population that would enjoy feasting on it. We had some problems with birds getting tomatoes but we covered with deer netting and that took care of the problem. Our squash ended up being taken out by stink bugs, as they were horrible this year, but we got a pretty good crop prior to them killing it. My husband owns a pest company, but I am keeping the garden all organic. It's only been treated with neem oil and gets a great organic fertilizer called John's Recipe. Applied bi weekly. Its wonderful for the plants but smells like dead fish. My 4-year old hates it!!










So garden number 2, is actually my second attempt at a fall garden, as I tried to plant some stuff about a month ago, but with the terrible heat, I lost pretty much everything except for one pumpkin plant and 3 winter squash. Friday I went to The Natural Gardner (if you live around Austin, I highly suggest you check it out, it's a great place even to just walk around, they have chickens, donkeys and goats as well as an amazing vegetable garden and little gardens set up all over). I was able to pickup some broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and cabbage there, plus some green bean seeds. Saturday my amazing husband helped me till the beds, fertilize and plant (he eats no veggies, so there is no benefit for him). Then Sunday I went up to round rock gardens in search of a couple more squash. No squash but I did get some Bibb lettuce, Swiss chard, a couple varieties of mint and some sage. Still wish I had more squash, but hopefully the ones I have will do good.

The other thing I worked on over the weekend was my second ever sewing project. I bought a sewing machine about 2 weeks ago and am attempting to teach myself how to sew. My first project was a reversible apron for myself (as I love to cook and I hated the apron I had).

























I thought it came out pretty good. So project number two got underway, a dress for my youngest daughter Whitney. The fabric I originally bought to use, was not enough, I realized after the purchase I was reading the pattern wrong (again self teaching, so mistakes are bound to happen). Still loved the fabric, so I bought a matching solid to make the dress and then used the other fabric to do the pockets and create a trim at the bottom. I have not completed the arms and neck interfacing and hemming yet (and am a little intimidated by that part), but hopefully will be done in the next couple days. It's not going to be perfect by any means, but I'm enjoying it and Whitney loves it, so that's really all that matters to me.