How Does my Garden Grow?

I may not be 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary' but it's been a good growing season this Spring, so I'll be 'Jane, Jane, can't complain'... lol

Feel free to click on any of these pictures to see a bigger, better one. :) Here's one of my yellow iris. They have seemed to be blooming out of control this year, and I don't think they bloomed much at all last Spring. Must be all the rain:


And lots of buds yet to bloom, too! Haven't seen much of the purple iris yet, the buds on them aren't even out of the stalk hardly, just little bumps where they will be. :)


I decided to try container gardening on my patio this summer, and went to Wal-mart and splurged on some containers, fertilizer, and potting soil. I did some research on the web (and everyone I talked to at work) on what kind of varieties to grow, and finally picked these three, all indeterminate plants, that will produce a good long time.

This one's the little baby of my tomato plant family right now, but I heard good things about it, it will grow up to be a large bush, and the tomatoes will be nice size for slicing... a Better Boy:


This one is a Goliath Hybrid, supposed to make medium size, early-ish tomatoes:


And finally, a Husky Cherry Red, supposed to be a good variety of cherry tomatoes that will bloom and produce all summer:



Now I can hardly wait until I can pick my first ones! The cherry tomato plant already has blooms. :p

I took an interesting idea I found on the web, and put a raw egg, uncracked, in each pot just before I planted the tomato plants. It's supposed to provide calcium and prevent something called 'blossom end rot' early on, then when the egg breaks down, the yolk provides sulfur and other nutrients. Don't know if it'll work, but at the least, it'll be fertilizer. Anyone out there have any other good advice for a novice tomato grower?

Spinning Pinwheels

Anyone remember this one? I started it way back in November, doing the center tesselated pinwheels at a retreat. Then I added the outer row of pinwheels a few months later, and just a month ago, the border of squares left over when I tesselated the center pinwheels:



Now I'm trying to decide if I want the last border/binding to be purple/blue or blue/purple. The purple and blue fabric is the same pattern, just different colorway. I have enough to do either a binding or a border of each, but I can't do them the same color. Which would YOU do?

New Block of the Month and Jewel Box

Well, my taxes are done, and isn't THAT a relief. I always procrastinate, but always get it done in time or slightly early. It's never as bad as I think it's going to be, so maybe next year, I'll do it sooner. :)

I also got the block of the month page for my guild done, April 2008 , and here's mine, done in fabric:


Does anyone know the name of the block? It's similar to the depression block, but the center's made out of squares, and it's not 'hollow' like the depression block. I've just been calling it 'diamond in diamond' for the way it looks when there's several of the blocks set edge to edge, like I show in the layout on the webpage.

And in other news, I've still been working on my king size jewel box quilt - I chose the center layout from the three designs I was playing with on eq. I've finally finished the almost 400 half square triangles I needed, now I'm making hundreds of 4-patch blocks, some strips are a color sewn to white, and some are a color sewn to blue:


I've got more strip sets to sew, more to cut, there on the top, and baggies full of these two-patch combinations waiting to be sewn into 4 patches. Finally did the math on how many of what I'd need for this quilt:


I haven't even started counting the 4 patches yet, but I'm nowhere near the 360 white ones I need. :) Back to work!