My elbow still has no pain (woohoo!). My wrist and thumb do a little if I overdo it (like I did Saturday night knitting this sock). But stretching pretty much takes care of that too.

Next up? I’m thinking of knitting a shawl so I have something to enter into the fair in September. Current possibility is a Flower Basket Shawl with some of the Buffalo Gold yarn I have.

I am so glad I found this site right before I started my garden this year.

I’ve mentioned it before, but didn’t really go into too much detail.

For the knitters and crocheters, yes, it is a bit like Ravelry. Instead of patterns and projects, there are gardens and plants. There’s a database (all user-entered, just like on Ravelry) of plants with all kinds of information like how long it takes seeds to sprout, how long before you can harvest, or how long until flowers bloom. How far apart should you plant your tomatoes? It’s in there.

The site is free, but if you want access to some awesome features, you can become a supporter (I am one!). One of the best features for subscribers is the timeline. You can see at a glance when you planted your plants, and then they now offer estimations of when seeds will sprout, when flowers will bloom, when it will be time for harvest. I especially love that!

Now I know at a glance that my 2nd row of green beans will probably be ready around July 9 (again, this is an estimation, calculated from all the harvest dates other users have entered).

And those other users? You can become “gardening buddies” with others. Then their activity shows up in your “Latest Activity” area of your Gardening Shed. It’s a lot like the Friends Activity tab in Ravelry. There’s also the “Grapevine” where you can see everything that everyone is doing: adding gardens, adding plantings, posting journals, commenting on journals, giving thumbs-ups, and posting in groups.

Groups are the Forums of Folia. Got a question about anything? There is a place to post it, and someone will answer! In the groups I have learned that my tomato plants are just going to grow & grow & grow (they’re indeterminate varieties) and that the one I broke will probably be OK (it is). I also learned about trench composting – which is working great in my garden!

You can even now keep track of your harvests. Great for knowing how much to plant next year!

They’ve also got a nifty setup for swapping seeds and plants. I haven’t done this, but it would be fun!

Visit me on Folia! And if you’d like to join, go here. Add me as a gardening buddy when you do!

We may not be getting the rain ourselves very much, but we do often get one heck of a view.

The peas are champion climbers. Since the previous photos, I have added more rungs to their ladder.

And since that photo only a couple of days ago, I’ve added 2 more! They’re starting to flower now. Yay peas!

Last weekend, I made some trellises for my peas. They were getting pretty tall, and had fallen over in the last rainstorm. It was definitely time to give them something to climb on!

I didn’t want anything too big or fancy (like chicken wire) or too permanent. So I got some cheap wooden dowels and some cotton string.

I can just add a new row of string (at whatever height I think is necessary) when they need it.

The next day, they were already grabbing on tightly!

I wish I had a time-lapse camera out there to watch their tendrils wrapping around the string.

Several weeks ago, Madalyn and I exchanged our spring Pleasingly Perfecto Personal Presents. And we finally made a pact to take photos of them and post this weekend!

Madalyn sent me:

The cutest egg salt & pepper shakers! They are SO ME.

The eggs have an ever-so-slight blue cast to them in certain light. With pewter(?) leaf bases. They are just so cute!

And there were also a couple of hand-made birthday cards in the package. I will have to save these for some special people.

Visit Madalyn to see what I sent her.

It finally stopped raining, so the landscapers are on their way to grade our backyard and lay sod!

We’re getting grass! We’re getting grass!

Before & after photos to come….

I am so not a Crocs/plastic clogs person.

But last year, I bought a pair of Lands End Trellos to wear in my kitchen. We have hardwood floors, and it was killing my feet, knees, and back standing in the kitchen for long periods in bare feet or even my normal shoes or sandals. So I thought, “all the cooks on TV wear those hideous Crocs, maybe they’re onto something?” It’s kind of like having those gel mats for your feet.

Well, after cleaning inches of caked-on mud off 2 pairs of my tennis shoes, and 3 pairs of my sandals, not to mention my kids’ shoes too (we still don’t have our sod in our backyard, so it’s one big mudpit when it rains), I realized that the gardeners were onto something.

Gardening clogs. I’ve seen them in the stores in the garden sections, I’ve seen them in magazines. Martha Stewart probably even has her own line of them.

So my Trellos have been repurposed from kitchen shoes to garden shoes. I can get them full of mud and then just hose them off. No fabric to worry about getting stained, no leather to try to avoid getting wet. I can leave them outside in the rain. I can throw them in the wash machine if it ever comes to it (which I did over the weekend, and they made it through just fine).

Thing is, now I need a new pair for my kitchen!

The garden is in, and everything has sprouted!

We have 2 kinds of lettuce (well, really more, one of those is mixed), and some spinach:

Yellow onions

Peas

Green beans

Zucchini

“Better Boy” tomatoes

Grape tomatoes

Broccoli

Green Peppers

And strawberries.

We’ve been harvesting a strawberry or two every couple of days. These were the first 2, and they were delicious!

And you can always view my garden updates on Folia.