In addition to my cat, weaving, knitting, spinning and dyeing, I love to garden. Well, let me be more truthful, I love to eat fresh fruit and veggies from the garden and admire the flowers that we grow. I do love playing in the dirt too, but the more I do any actual gardening the more the plants die. I do not have a green thumb! Thankfully my hubby does. So in all fairness, I am the idea person... he's the muscle.
The "rule" in Denver is not to plant anything before Mother's day. We have scoffed at that rule in the past and planted our tomatoes just in time for the last spring snow in May! Oops. So this year I did plant cold-hardy stuff like beets, potatoes, onion and lettuce in mid-April. But in the last few weeks we have been filling the rest of the garden out! We are learning to not be idiots and waste money because we are impatient.
We also have fruit trees...yummy yummy fruit trees. I grew up with apple, pear and peach trees on the property, so it feels much more like home if you can go out your back door and graze all afternoon. So when we moved to Colorado a few years ago that was high on my priority list. We kept the grape vines that were already in the back yard when we moved in and planted two cherries, a plum and a peach tree as well as a raspberry patch, strawberries, currant bushes, a bunch of lavender and an herb garden. But with the volatile springs here getting fruit from the trees is rather hit and miss. We have little baby cherries and peaches this year! No plums though. The plum tree is in on the west side of the house and tends to bloom too early. Cross your fingers that a late hail doesn't come and ruin everything like it did last year. Stupid hail
Finally, to add in some actual fiber content: My tickseed is coming back. Tickseed is a bright yellow flower that I used last year to dye this skein on lace weight superwash merino. How amazing is this color? So amazing, in fact, that this skein has already sold. I can't wait to get more flowers to dye even more!
I am currently threading my loom for my next project, a summer weight nursing shawl! I am using a cotton linen blend that is lovely to work with so far, although I am only about 1/10th of the way done threading the reed. I am documenting everything so that I can start a blog series on my weaving process. I bet you can't wait!