Cris Fellows

I gifted a tablet of graph paper to my kids a few years back.   Apparently it was tucked away for some time.   When my daughter went to use it this Spring,  she came across this old map of the garden.   The plans then have taken many different turns and much of it bears little resemblance to the map.   So much fun in the finding and remembering.   Indeed a beautiful accident.

We have two that were planted about 10 years ago,  moved once,  zone 5b, partial shade.   They are about 4 foot tall,  leaf nicely with no apparent pest issues, but have never fruited.  I would take them out,  but they have a small footprint and aren't hurting anybody.   😂

It is so pretty.  The fabric drape, the weave, the findings...ughhh I love it.

Christmas present from hubby.  I love it.

I love my Fokin hoe!  Plus, it was hilarious albeit in ill taste, the interpretation others had of my ordering a Fokin hoe from Russia.  😂

I am not sure where on Ohio river your friends are.  Hopefully they will be unaffected by the train derailment and toxic spill in East Palestine Ohio.

SWANTS!!!  I made my son who lives in Minneapolis  2 pairs a few years back and he loved them!  I used these guys directions and thrifty wool sweaters as large as I could find em.  I wish I had a pic of him in them!
https://laughingsquid.com/how-to-transform-woolly-sweaters-into-sassy-pants-called-swants/

This is basically sourdough buckwheat bread.
It takes 48 hours but is not labor intensive at all.  Delicious double toasted as she suggests.  It is the first gluten free bread I have made that I am actually happy with.
https://youtu.be/8IQuDDOLoyI

Lulu Sims wrote:Hey Jonie!
We just call them pruners or loppers depending on the sizes. The loppers are affectionately called clompers when tackling the bigger jobs like clearing multiflora roses that get too full of themselves.

We call them nippers.  Which we totally understand,  but in non-gardening circles, the word nippers has been misconstrued to nipples multiple times, usually with much hilarity following.

William Bronson wrote:I've seen ideas about  using  human hair in a similar way.
Thing is, human hair from salons  or even barbar shops is likely to be filled with weird chemicals.
The people who don't use chemicals on their hair also don't go to those places much.

My son is a hair stylist, so I often take my own hair back with me or any recent that he knows are chemical free.  My hair grows like thistles (fast and prolific) so every 8 weeks or so I get a bit.  Mostly I throw it in the compost pile, or have tried throwing it around/in groundhog hole (no observable deterrence 😂).  But I will try digging it in.
We had straight city fill clay here.  First thing I did was find a free truck of horse manure, but it is heavy and hard to spread over large area.  We have, over the last decade, intensively used the area tree services who will generally drop for free.  They have to travel and pay to drop otherwise,  it's a great tradeoff. The first year I spread about 20 tree service truck loads over 3 city lots.  Each year I add more, although now we keep it to paths and add compost to beds.  The garden is prolific, but annual vegetables are still a bit fussy.  Our herbs (our main interest) are spectacular.