Wednesday, April 25, 2007

seems i'm not the only hungry one round these parts

again, i spoke too soon about the beets (isn't this gardening caper just a roller coaster of emotion?) seems they didn't like the sun so much. some round the clock emergency watering followed by a good day of rain, and i have thirteen beets looking fine and dandy, and the remaining three that i'd written off show disturbing signs of heaving themselves back to life. surprisingly hardy things.
bad news is that something has discovered my tender young beets and is eating the leaves. oi! snails! those leaves are for me to eat, not you! my snail trap is a miserable failure. i dropped a snail in to check that it worked. s/he wallowed about for a bit in the yeasty, sugary buffet, got bored, and climbed right up the side and back into the garden. i would follow up with a homemade garlic spray on the leaves, except that whatever went through the garden last night ate my garlic shoots too! completely gone! so much for companion planting!
this means war. torn between commercial garlic spray, iron-based pellets (don't hurt the earth-wormies, and add micronutrients) and nasty old-school pellets in a dish. and maybe some copper tape round each seedling for good measure.

on the indoor front, finally, something to show you. endpaper mitts.


in denim blue and plum merino (modelled with broccoli). brand names i can't remember (well, the broccoli was 'Marathon'). the yarns were two different kiwi brands. i knit the cuffs flat, because the 2.00mm dpns i had hurt my hands, and i don't mind seaming. you can just see the mock seam on near the cuff in this photo. the slightly darker line near the bottom of my arm. i also finished the mitts five rows shorter than the pattern said, and glad i am for that. because here's how much blue i had left (imagine me holding my hands about a yard apart. i was going to photoraph my scraps, but a yard of yarn is just not very interesting). i started with about 2/3 of a ball of the blue, for anyone else unwilling to fork out for a whole entire ball of yarn to knit these with.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Endpaper Mitts - BEAUTIFUL, oh I love those colours together so, so much. Fabulous.

re teeth splint - I am loving it after 2 days! It's so nice to wake up with a relaxed jaw. I had one a few years ago which went over my bottom teeth and I just broke it and ground holes in it until it snapped...this one goes on the top front teeth with a little platform thang in the middle (same as yours?) and the Q about the grinding of the teeth...because my teeth don't grind in the place that he would expect them to (eh? I had my jaw brought forward when I was a pre-teen so that may have something to do with it I guess) So the very back ones are fine but the front and sides are all ground and broken. So I have no idea but he ground some back ones down on the right and in two weeks he's doing some more after looking at the wear patterns on the splint. Eh, I just want my headaches gone and to be able to have my broken front teeth fixed sometime! =)

ANYWAY, this totally should have been an email, I will remove myself and my rambling from your comments space =P

Ali J said...

Hi. I've got a great way you can get rid of snails. Just put some paper out there (newspaper is the best) they love it. Put it out on the ground (just a few small bits). In the morning when you go out you should find the snails still on it devouring, just pick up the paper... and no more snails. They attacked my capsicum plants, and now I've had no more since. You don't need to do this all the time, just when you see them starting to nibble on them.

Lara said...

Ooh nice endpaper mitts! So handy now that it's getting cold - why aren't jacket sleves _ever_ long enough!!

Thanks for the lovely comment about the shelves on my blog by the way. I've never had any troubles with those strips taking paint off the walls, but then again i've never used them for anything _that_ heavy, so I'm not sure what happens when you do ;) That said I reckon they're pretty safe.