2021 Garden

 Now that November and cold temperatures have arrived, our garden is gone.  I plan to start some indoor gardening to keep seeing green during the Winter months, but here was this year's garden:

We tried using bamboo poles in teepee shapes with netting stretched between them to support vertical pumpkin vines.  As you can see, it didn't work.  The pumpkin vines are too heavy for the netting, so we'll try it for beans or peas next year.

We grew 2 kinds of pumpkins:  mini decorative pumpkins and jack-o-lantern pumpkins.  These photos were taken after our first frost, so the vines had started to die.  We got 6 large pumpkins and over 40 mini ones from our garden.

I learned this year that mini pumpkins are edible and are not just cute decorations.  Using my 4.5 quart instant pot, I put the trivet in the bottom and added 2 cups of water, then cooked 4 mini pumpkins at high pressure for 10 minutes.   The peels came right off after cooking, the seeds came out easily, and each mini pumpkin produced around 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree.

I had to take close up pictures of the pepper plants because I grew them from seed started indoors in February 2021.  I was so glad they actually survived and produced peppers!  Most pepper plants we've grown in the garden in the past have been transplants from home improvement stores and we were lucky if one pepper grew from each plant. 

 These plants produced 4 - 6 bell peppers each, which is a first for us.

We experimented with walls of water or "Cozy Coats" we ordered online from Amazon.com this year.  I probably put the plants out too late and left on the insulation all summer.  They actually helped the plants survive the early frost we got in September.  We'll use them again next year.

Even though I accidentally stunted the tomato plants by keeping them in coconut coir too long, not realizing it has no nutrients, the tomato plants survived and produced a large crop.  I was even able to share seedlings transplants with my Dad in May, since I had also started them from seed in February.  The basil plants came from a nursery since they don't grow true from seed for me.

This is the aftermath of the romaine lettuce and arugula I grew.  The lettuce bolted during July and August, so I ripped it out.

This is a view of all the garden area with some of our backyard lawn.  That rotating compost bin doesn't get as used as I expected.  It had grass clippings that turned to dry straw and just never amounted to compost.  It requires more tending and attention than I'm willing to give it.

Favorite Things Quilts

 Working full time as a Technical Support Engineer for large Enterprise data center servers meant I had less time to craft.  During the COVID restrictions and distancing in 2020 and 2021, I turned to quilting.

I made "Favorite Things" quilts for each family member with various designs that show case busy fabric prints representing things we like.  

The design inspiration for my daughter's quilt was this Craftsman Style quilt pattern:  

She chose navy blue minky fabric with gold zodiac symbols for the backing.

The design for my son's quilt was just squares separated by sashing strips and corner squares the same size as the sashing.

We didn't photograph the backing, but it's the same gray as the corner stone squares.

My husband's quilt front was inspired by the "Key to my Heart" quilt as well as an ocean themed quilt I made in 2019.  

The back of his quilt uses the corner HST scraps from the quilt front to make pinwheel border strips for the Riley Blake 4 Utah National Park panels.  I think I like it even better than the front!

My quilt is based on the "Dazzling Diamonds" pattern from Missouri Star Quilt Company.  I saw a cute Halloween fabrics version of it in one of their publications as well.  It has a sort of retro 60s new age space needle vibe to it, so I used planet fabric for the borders and backing.

I took all 4 quilts to a long arm quilting store to be quilted since I don't enjoy machine quilting.  The shop I like to use for quilting is called "Quilts on the Corner" in Sandy, Utah.