Thank you for the nice comments about the quilt.

Try this link... when I copied the previous one, it seemed extra long. If this one does not work, then I'll link to the page it came from.
http://www.artisticcreativepro...

The biggest hurdle, really, is just motivating myself to get it done. I am hand quilting it and have about a quarter of it finishes. I taught a couple of my children to do the seed stitch around the appliqué pieces, so they can help a little. Now that the outside things are coming to an end, I will make more time for this.

David, I was very surprised about how late they were, but I figured it was the late summer/early fall rains that gave the Cow Slobber an extra boost. I bought the Queen of the Prairie as dormant roots. I do not often have success with seed germination.

I threw out some Jewelweed earlier today... what a temperamental seed that is, requiring so many days of cold stratification, then so many days of heat, and then another cold period. And this is considered an annual, so roots are not available for this one.

Kim - you're so right about those late summer rains giving an extra boost to things.
How nice to hand-quilt. I like doing that kind of stuff in the evening. I usually do some knitting this time of year but I'm not knitting gifts this year (did that last year) - just knitting a sweater vest for myself. I have been doing some reading though that's been keeping me from my knitting but that's okay. Amazingly, I've been reading more non-fiction lately. Just finished "NeuroTribes" and am back to reading an book on GMOs.

Chillybean said:
David, I was very surprised about how late they were, but I figured it was the late summer/early fall rains that gave the Cow Slobber an extra boost. I bought the Queen of the Prairie as dormant roots. I do not often have success with seed germination.

I threw out some Jewelweed earlier today... what a temperamental seed that is, requiring so many days of cold stratification, then so many days of heat, and then another cold period. And this is considered an annual, so roots are not available for this one.

Queen of the Prairie also requires that cold/hot/cold strat nonsense. When I find seeds like that, I just winter sow and say to heck with it. Let nature sort it out.

BTW - the quilt is lovely. When I was a kid nearly 60 years ago, 4 or 5 relatives got together, gathered up lots of rags and remnants, and made wonderful, warm quilts. Many times they were very lovely as well. Obviously, they were always one of a kind. A quilt I got when I was 6 stayed with me and was used til I got in college and unfortunately used it as a ground cloth whilke working on my car.

DavidLMO said:When I find seeds like that, I just winter sow and say to heck with it. Let nature sort it out.

Yep, that's the way to do it.

From the seed packet for Queen of the Prairie:

Sow seeds just below moist soil surface at 70F for 3 months. Move to 30 F for 3 months, then bring back to 50 F.

Given when these bloom, this really does not make sense to me.

DavidLMO said:

Queen of the Prairie also requires that cold/hot/cold strat nonsense. When I find seeds like that, I just winter sow and say to heck with it. Let nature sort it out.

BTW - the quilt is lovely. When I was a kid nearly 60 years ago, 4 or 5 relatives got together, gathered up lots of rags and remnants, and made wonderful, warm quilts. Many times they were very lovely as well. Obviously, they were always one of a kind. A quilt I got when I was 6 stayed with me and was used til I got in college and unfortunately used it as a ground cloth whilke working on my car.

I am doubly glad I got the Queen of the Prairie roots than, and at least it is a perennial. If I had any later Cow Slobber, well, the chickens might have eaten it. The run area was expanded again.

Thank you for the compliment about the quilt. I want to do something like that with my fabric scraps. I know of an organization that will gladly take tops and finish them to give to the poor.

Kim - I once made a crazy quilt jacket for DD in her favorite colors - all shades of purple and different fabric types (all washable) - and then machine-stitched with gold metallic thread. That's been about 30 years ago and she still has it. I've cut down on the amount of scraps I generate these days as GDs prefer store-bought clothes. My GM would piece quilts and then have a church group do the quilting for a price.

Your quilt jacket sounds pretty. I need to get back to sewing after short break. I have some new fabric a friend gave me this last week.

This is terribly disappointing, but I guess it's better to know. We tested my grandmother's wedding dishes for lead. We didn't eat off of them much, but did use the platter slightly more often for roasts. A son wants to make one of the dishes into a clock, but I am not even sure that would be safe with the dust it would create when he drills a hole into it. He'd wear a mask, but there'd be clean up to do and then what do you do with the dust and pieces?????

Kim, should be simple with a product like one of these:

http://www.fiberlock.com/lead/...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0078KN7R8/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I80J8HA/

I had no idea such a thing existed. My son was so eager to start on this that he was a little upset at having to wait. He'll have to wait longer until we get the cleaner, but I would feel a whole lot better about him doing this. With him repairing old clocks he may come into contact with lead parts, so this would be nice to have on hand anyway.

Only reason I know is that my house will be getting lead-based paint abatement in the next few weeks and I did some research. Hope you post photographs of the completed projects.

Your profile picture is hilarious!!

Those wipes are a great idea, but we gave up trying to find them locally. Oh, people got all freaky just when we asked about them. Maybe we should have told them we ate off those lead glazed dishes, just to see the looks on their faces.

Hello from NE Iowa. Just got done reading through this tread. The wind is really hollowing outside. Suppose to be up to 50 mph today and tonight. I need to go out and see if anything has blown over during the night. I just put out a new bird house and a solar light on shepherds hooks a couple days ago. I forgot about taking them down before it got dark. I hope they haven't gotten broken.

I am so anxious for spring and warmer weather. We did have some nice days the past couple weeks which really spoils a person. Nights are suppose to be back to below freezing towards the end of the week and into next week.

I took a walk around the yard and noticed a lot of flowers starting to pop out of the ground. Can hardly wait for the blooms to show up. I have not even started cleaning up my flower beds yet. I have a lot of flowers to dig up and plant in small pots to give away or sell at farmers markets. Here are some pictures of my raised beds. I want to plant my veggies in these but need to get the Iris, dwarf iris, Star of Bethlehem, Sedum, and other flowers moved first.











I have 10 of these 4 X 8 raised beds and they all have flowers in them that need to come out before I can plant my veggies. I have an additional 8 beds in the back part of the garden that we put in last fall that are for flowers. These above beds are lined with hard plastic to protect my veggies from the treated timbers. The other 8 beds are not lined. We put chicken wire on the bottoms of all beds to keep the moles out of them. As you can see, I have a lot of work to do on just this one task, not to mention all my flower beds.

Hope you all have a great spring. I shall return.

Nice to have so many raised beds. I'm definitely jealous.

Thanks Cindy. I am so ready for spring. Here are a few pictures of my raised beds from last year in July.

Sunflowers were planted the year before and self sowed in these pictures. Not sure if I will have any growing in this raised bed area this year.


Along the back 4 rail fence I have daylilies planted. Along the right side are columbine and Lilies. Along the left side are Iris, Tiger Lily, and Spiderwort.






My dill reseeded so I doubt if I will have to plant any this year. I may have to transplant some. I hope to have my cucumbers growing on a cattle panel this year. I hope to have my tomatoes and peppers and potatoes growing in large tubs or 5 gal buckets at the end of the raised beds.

I do grow some veggies in containers because I just don't have enough space in the sunnier spot of my yard. I'm trying potatoes in Smart Pots, most greens in large pots, trying summer squash and zucchini in bit pots and I always grow a cherry tomato ('Reisentraube') in a large pot.

Jeanne - those raised beds are gorgeous. Been thinking about building some this year but I think our Midwest season is coming on strong (well after the forecast snow/rain this weekend). I'm itching to get started in my flower gardens too!

Cindy - I'm off to look up Smart Pots. I tried potatoes in garbage cans year before last - gorgeous foliage - piddly potatoes....

jersey - I was just reading information yesterday about using garbage cans for potatoes and the article recommended drilling holes in the sides of the cans for better soil aeration. This will be my first year trying them and I wouldn't know what works and what doesn't. I would have thought last year would have been ideal for growing potatoes as we didn't have too many hot days and we did have more rain than usual.

I picked up 5# of Yukon Gold potatoes yesterday. I plan to get them planted on Good Friday. I also picked up some bags of garden soil, potting soil, top soil, and dairy cow manure to add to my Iowa soil and then add to my containers for my potatoes. I have dirt in 5 gal buckets left over from last summer when I was redoing some flower beds. I will put it in my little red wagon along with partial bags of the above and DH will mix it all up real good for me. Now I need to get my tubs/5 gal buckets rounded up and holes drilled in the bottom so I can add my soil when it is mixed up.

I've been contemplating what type of soil/amendments to put in my Smart Pots (only 2) for potatoes. I have some well-composted oak leaves and have some organic fertilizer so far. I'm wondering if I need to add potting soil and/or perlite. Definite newbie here.