The Garden in July

I am caught up in the garden after weeding Friday morning. There are a few spots in the garden—the strawberry patch is one—where bindweed is a problem. If I don’t stay on top of it, it will choke out the plants I want growing there. I also weeded the beans, the brassicas, and the potatoes. I mowed the garden perimeter and connected all the hoses. I think our rainy season has ended. It is time to start the supplemental watering.

I am a bit worried about my grapes:

The vines are still alive—there is some growth—but they should have leafed out fully by now. I did prune lightly in early May. I wonder if the roots are being damaged by the ground squirrel highway running underneath. In any case, I doubt we will get grapes this year. I’ll be happy if the vines survive.

The tomatoes look fabulous. Several of them have set fruit already:

We still have two ground squirrels in the front yard. The husband is watching for an opportunity to dispatch them.

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I’ve been meaning to share this photo:

This is the finished Blue Thistle quilt. I made this quilt twice, because I accidentally used two different shades of “white” Kona for the background on the original. I liked the effect, so on this version, I used a cream Grunge for the background. I could get around to offering the pattern for sale if there is interest.

This quilt has been donated to a fundraising auction for a friend of mine, Jenni, who is battling leukemia. She has a slightly different type of leukemia than I had, but hers has turned out to be fairly aggressive. Jenni has also had a run of bad luck not of her making over the past couple of years. The leukemia diagnosis was the icing on the cake. To make matters worse, she started her treatment only to have it postponed because she developed a heart problem. She is having a hard time of it and the community has come together to help her out.

If you would like to take a look at the auction items, or even bid on this quilt, the link is here. In addition, Nicole Sauce of Living Free in Tennessee will be hosting an online live event tonight. The auction features lots of fine items, including some that are handmade, so check it out.

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The husband and I have been working on getting seed oils out of our diet. Clean eating has been a years-long process that started with eliminating high fructose corn syrup (and sugar in general), moved on to wheat, and is focusing now on seed oils. DD#2 texted me the other day that she also is trying to eliminate seed oils from her diet. When I related that conversation to the husband, he said, “Congratulations—our children have turned out just like you.” I took that as the compliment that was intended.

Seed oils are things like canola, soybean, safflower, etc. Interestingly, those all started out as industrial lubricants. That right there should tell you that they don’t belong in our food. I cook with lard, butter, olive oil, and avocado oil, but soybean oil is sneaky. (Soy in general.) It finds its way into everything, including 90% of the food sold at “health food” stores. That “olive oil” mayonnaise at the grocery store is still mostly soybean or canola oil. I can tell when I’ve eaten something with soybean oil in it because my joints will start to hurt, especially my hips.

[Canola is a big crop here; in fact, the canola fields are just starting to bloom with brilliant yellow flowers.]

DD#1 has also done a lot of research into gut microbiomes in conjunction with her work as an pediatric occupational therapist. Some of her clients are children on the autism spectrum. She’s been taking a probiotic called Seed, and she got her sister interested in it. I ordered some, too, and started it this week. I haven’t noticed anything dramatic, but I’ll try it for a month and see what I think.