It has been very busy here at our house. I buckled down last week working on the mending pile. I also made slip covers for my favorite rocking chair. I had this toile fabric stored away and finally got it out to make "Slip" covers for this chair.
I put the cushion on top of the backside of the fabric and made sure the print would be in the right direction.
Then I took my ruler and cut 9 inches around the cushion. Now I warn you I don't go by patterns or sewing rules, I just do what I think will work.
I pressed down around the edge and then sewed that down then turned it over again leaving enough room to run elastic through it with a large safety pin pushing the elastic through the hemmed edge.
I did it this way so I could pop it on and off for washing.
What is important is to make sure you see the print in the right direction before you cut and hem it.
The back of the chair I simply made a tapered pillowcase and put a hem at the bottom with a draw string.
My mind has been all over the place lately as I seem to have run out of year. We got a weather report that our temperatures were going to drop to 29 degrees. My last post you saw all our lovely vegetables growing so Yikes!!
We got busy and harvested our remaining bell peppers....
We spent several days trying to figure out how to cover our trellis garden to extend our growing time.
We figured it out as we went...
And by the time we finished we ended up with a patched up somewhat greenhouse. Charles put in a hinged door and we made the back upper half where we can pull down the plastic for ventilation on warm days and prop open the door.
When we first heard we would dip to 29 degrees we ordered a greenhouse off Amazon for $109.00...
So we found a location and moved some fencing we just put back up after the hurricane. See we have part of our backyard fenced off for our little dogs and part of the backyard for nature. The nature part is the birdbath and around the Shabby Cabby Camper. We have the arbor pushed back up and propped from the hurricane damage so it is still leaning a bit. The chipmunks, birds, squirrels and whatever comes to our yard know the dogs will not bother them in the nature area.
This area we are putting our greenhouse is where we grow turmeric and ginger.
The turmeric and ginger is about 2 months behind being ready to harvest. For some reason this year it was very slow to emerge. I always plant some in cups and transplant it after it comes up. I plant some in the ground and some in large pots. We are finding that the pots do very well and so does the ground but with the pots we can follow the sun and shade when needed.
We cleared the area and set the frame up over the turmeric. Well most of the turmeric and I transplanted the part left on the outside to the inside of the greenhouse floor.
This greenhouse is 7 feet wide, 7 feet tall and 12 feet Long.
The frame went up in 15 minutes and the cover took a bit of getting on because we could have used a third person to help pull the cover over but we managed. We had just pulled the cover over when I snapped this picture so it was not completed yet.
We added extra support to hold the greenhouse down in high wind. Charles put in metal T posts and attached a 2x2 to the posts and zip tied the board to the metal rods. We also secured both ends with shorter T posts. I transplanted the remaining turmeric and ginger to be inside the greenhouse and put down stepping stones to walk around to the backside. Each end has a zipper door. It also has three lower windows on each side. For the price it is a pretty good green house. I would recommend the extra anchors like we did with the T posts and boards.
Then we had to sort out the large pots that are very heavy and split them up between the two greenhouses.
We managed to wedge in peppers and onions, basil more turmeric that was in large pots, the Christmas cactus, some herbs, mint, sage and so on.... When the turmeric and ginger harvest I will re arrange the greenhouse. With freezing weather coming quickly we just needed to get the plants inside.
We could have just let them freeze and be done with it but we had been wanting a greenhouse for awhile because this will help us to not have to lift pots as much. In the spring we cover and uncover plants and take them in and out. Now if it will just take the storms.
Then there are the three lettuce cages. So I named them and cut and fit clear shower curtain wraps for them. I had to mark them so they can go up quickly and match the screws that will hold them in place.
So we stapled the north side and east side of the plastic to the cages and left the front, south side and top open so that is the only part that needs to be covered when the temperature drops for frost or freeze.
Charles put screws at the top so we could put the grommet from the shower curtain over the screw and secure it with a clothespin. I didn't get a picture of the clothespin but it works very good.
The old rabbit cage that grows lettuce I zip tied plastic to both ends then cut plastic to go over the cage and I stretch a bungie cord around the bottom to hold the plastic down. This way I can leave it open on days that are above 40.
So as you might be figuring by now, we did not plan very well for our food crops this fall. Well, we didn't, the whole season has been off. We had projects going on, my menieres disease acting up, a hurricane and so on. However, we always learn from doing things the wrong way so that is a plus. Gardening is an ever changing and evolving thing, each day, week, month and year are different. This keeps us on our toes and doing a lot of mental planning.
The mending did get done as soon as Katherine decided to give me my chair and that whole stack is not back in the closet.
I managed to do a little organizing yesterday and finally got my night stand drawer sorted out. That seems like a little thing but with all the moving furniture around this summer the items in drawers got all switched up and it has taken a lot of time to work this out.
We did another loaded breakfast to get us through one of our busy days. We cooked this same breakfast last week only Charles grated the potatoes instead of cubed them. Charles knows how to cook too and this pan seared thin cut rib eye steak, scrambled eggs and hash browns is Charles kind of cooking. :) I think he was making up for the previous meal I cooked of vegetables only....
I just ran out and took a couple more pictures before posting this. It has been raining two days now and I went around and placed buckets in different locations just to see how much water would go in a bucket.
We ran out of time to finish making the top frame for the plastic top to put on when it freezes in the lettuce cages so I covered it and clipped it down and put bricks on top. This has a wire top and Charles is going to build simple frames with wire an plastic to hook on top of this for freezing weather.
You can see the bungie cord around the bunny cage. It is not freezing temperatures as expected but I did not want 4 days of rain on the plants.
I have no monetary interest in this greenhouse, I am just sharing the name of what we got off amazon. As I said for the price I think it is a pretty good and easy to put up greenhouse. We can take the cover off in the summer as that would be easy to do.
We mainly did all this work because we just did not want to give up eating our fresh lettuce and veggies. I know it will eventually get very cold and we may not be able to grow them but we could get a early start on spring.
I will close and get some ironing done. I am behind in answering my emails again because I have not even turned on my computer until today. I can read your emails on my phone so I have read them but I cannot type well on my phone. We are under flood watch and are on day two of rain now and two more days of rain to come so I will be forced inside again. :) Oh yes, and now they are saying the low is 33 degrees, not 29. If they are wrong we are ready. :)
My plans are to do the ironing, pressure can the peppers (per Ball canning book), the house needs dusting and the floors could use some cleaning from all our going in and out. However I may wait until the rain is over for the floors, that might make better sense. I know Charles would love it if I baked something special and I need to do my meal planning since Thanksgiving is next week.
Grandma Donna
