Bird Scare CD's

I'm getting so many tomatoes, I decided I'd better put my bird scare program into effect. ;)

From my internet research, there's several things that should work... flaps of fabric to blow in the breeze, glittery things like cd's, noisy things like piepans and windchimes, predator-looking things like fake owls or snakes. But the key, it seems, is to keep rotating the things, so the birds don't get complacent, like the birds you see that sit on the scarecrow's outstretched arms. So here's part one of my bird scare - a length of old peach polyester cloth and some old freebie cd's. Looks like a carnival, doesn't it?


And here's one of the new clusters on my Cherry tomato plant:


And (as if you haven't seen enough) ... ONE more:

Tomatoes part 4, eight days later

Here's the status of my cherry tomatoes - they just need to ripen, I think... :) There's another 8 or so little green-pea to marble size ones on this plant, it's making bunches of tomatoes. There's 5 here, all tight together in this little spot:


I have lots of blooms, two little tomatoes, and this ping pong ball sized tomato on the Goliath tomato plant:



Finally, the one tomato on the Better Boy plant (it was the smallest plant of the three I bought, in a little peat pot, not the ½ gallon container like the other two) but there's lots of blooms here too:

Quick Baby Quilt

Took a break from my jewel box quilt this week to make a baby quilt for one of my mom's friends. They provided most of the fabric, except for a couple of FQ's for the stars. I especially liked the pink with red strawberries I used for the nine patches. :)



Now I'm trying to decide if I want to quilt it with the walking foot in diagonal crosshatched lines down the nine patches or put on the quilting foot and make loops and hearts.

Tomatoes Part 3, Ten Days Later

Here's the progress on my three tomato plants. It's been ten days since I took a picture, and now they're all up over the first ring on the cages. :)



And here's the size of the babies from the Cherry tomato plant. You can't see the biggest one from this angle, but it's not too much bigger than the largest of these four. Blooms everywhere, on both other plants, and the Better Boy has one teeny tomato.

Back to the Jewel Box quilt

In spite of having tomatoes to get excited about, I haven't forgotten to quilt. But what I've been working on isn't really photogenic, nothing but two-patches. I"m making some of them from strips, and some as leader-enders, and it's taking forever! Here's 784 white-to-a-color segments:


And here's 520 blue-to-a color segments:


All these blocks, along with hundreds of half square triangles, are going in my king size jewel box quilt. I've divided my EQ drawing into 9 chunks, counted out what each chunk needs, and now I'm subdividing all these two-patch segments into baggies, putting an equal amount of each color into the 9 baggies. I'm just anal enough to want to make sure to spread out the reds and bright oranges and yellows, I didn't want a clump of any one color in my quilt. Is anyone else this nit-picky or is it just me? :D

Now comes the part I like best, sewing all these segments into blocks, and the blocks into rows. Should go faster!

PS. I have 6 little baby tomatoes on my cherry tomato plant now. :)

Tomatoes part 2

Ok, I know you're getting bored with tomato baby pix, but they're new to me... lol In five days, my two green-pea size tomatoes have become 5, ranging from a marble sized one to the new teeny ones. At this rate, I wonder how long it'll be before it grows cherry size and ripens? Anyone want to place bets on what day I sink my teeth into the first ripe cherry tomato?

Tomato Progress Part One

Here's my tomato plants, ten days later. From the left, Goliath, Cherry Red, and Boy. Sounds like Tarzan's family, doesn't it? :D


I just put the cages on them this morning, and told them they had a lot of growing to do to live up to the tall cages I'd bought.

And (drrrrum roll) here's a picture of the first two teeny tomatoes, about the size of an english pea. They're on my cherry tomato plant, the one in the middle. Blooms on all three plants, but this one will have the first fruit.

More Iris

Well, the yellow iris are still blooming, and now the purple ones are out too.


I have a lot of this variety, big purple petals with a zebra-looking vein pattern on the petals.


This year, the ruffled ones with purple edges are full of blooms too, they're my favorite. :)


And finally, my peony bush is just starting to bloom. For some reason this year, a lot of the buds stayed tiny and turned brown. I guess I need to make sure to divide them this fall, maybe that will help.