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6 ears fresh sweet corn, blanched and cut from cob
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled
1 cucumber, peeled and seeded and chopped
fresh basil, chopped
3 tblsp cider vinegar
3 tblsp olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
mix and refrigerate for 1 hour. Serve cold or at room temp.
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Every time I make slipcovers I swear never again. But slipcovers are kinda like childbirth. Once it's over you forget the pain. When you birth that beautiful baby (substitute slipcover here) in no time at all you are ready to do it all over again.
I've slipcovered a sectional sofa. I've slipcovered a beautiful chair. Five years ago when we moved into this house I scored an awesome set of vintage furniture for the screened porch. A wonderful mid-century set with a sofa and two chairs. But the cushions were trash. Immediately I ordered new foam and quickly covered it with simple white slips, intending this to just be the undercovering.
I was going to make nice slipcovers. I did start that project and got as far as one and a half chairs done. Then I stalled. and stalled. and stalled.
It's only been five years, but as of today I am the proud mother of brand new slipcovers for the sofa and both chairs.
It was a long, drawn out labor but so worth it. I'm ready to go again.
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I traversed the state of Virginia over the weekend, across and then back again to deposit littlepeach#2 at her grandmother's in East TN for a summer visit.
Mom and I found time for a few yard sales on Saturday morning and I found this old fabric, once a cushion cover. I've cleaned it up and this small piece is giving off big vibes of inspiration.
I'm still daydreaming about the possibilities so we shall see.
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The daylilies are blooming!!
The perfect perennial. Love full sun, tolerate some shade. Drought tolerant. Will grow in any soil. Produce enough blooms to go on for weeks. perfection.
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Time for my first update since starting my first batch of compost in the spinning compost tumbler on June 6. It's actually been just a bit over a week.
To review, I started with the bin full of a mix about 60/40 of green to brown.
You can see the bin is almost completely full.
I've been spinning it about 10 times once every day and I have missed only one day.
After 11 days the volume has decreased dramatically and the mixture now looks almost competely black.
I think I have a good mix of green to brown because it seems just wet enough without being too wet or dry. Also the mix does not smell. A bad smell would be an indication of too much green or too wet.
In an effort to be a good recycler, I try to save all my kitchen scraps for the compost. I also have a worm composter and that is were most of the kitchen scraps go along with most of my shredded junk mail.
Saving kitchen scraps could be a messy business but I have a GREAT solution for that. There are lots of catalogs out there with fancy, pricey containers for kitchen scraps, even with charcoal filters for the smell. Overkill.
Just save the scraps into a (recycled) plastic grocery bag. Stick um in the freezer. You can pull the bag out and keep adding to it until it is full. Then dump the whole frozen contents into your composter. The freeze/thaw process helps to speed up the composting by breaking down the food and frozen scraps DONT SMELL!
Here's the bag I've got going in my freezer right now. This bag is getting full and it's about time to feed it to the worms.
I'll tell ya all about my worms another day.
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What/who is eating my black eyed Susan's??
Must be some giant rabbits because the cuts are about 12 inches from the ground. I don't have deer, my yard is fenced. naughty bunnies.
I wanted to show my planter that is mounted on the gate to my backyard. It get's full sun and doesn't really hold that much potting mix. The perfect solution to this hot and dry spot is to plant sedums. I have a huge collection of sedums and I use them everywhere in the garden. They are perennials too!
My Voodoo lily is getting to be a giant. It's a beautiful shade of chartreuse green.
I plundered these beautiful urns from my FIL's house in Enid, OK. The giant urn is an antique greek olive urn. It is so large it had to be crated to make the trip from OK to VA. I am so thrilled to have them on my patio. Thanks Dad!
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I recently posted a picture of the compost tumbler that I "inherited" from my FIL but here is my baby again.
I am thrilled to have it, I have wanted one forever but I was just a bit hesitant to get one. My main objection is the cost. My tumbler came from here. There are many types like this on the market and none of them are cheap.
Is it worth the cost? You can pile up garden waste in the corner of the yard and do nothing to it and eventually you will have compost. If you are willing to wait a few years.
Can the tumbler make compost in 8 weeks or so as the literature claims?
I'm going to track it and see how long it takes. I'm going to post brief updates from time to time to let you know how it goes.
I started a batch on Sunday. The instructions say put in a mix of green to brown ingredients about a 50/50 ratio not to exceed a 75/25 ratio. My mix is about 60/40 of green to brown. MrPeachez mowed the grass so almost all my green is grass clippings with a few kitchen scraps thrown in like artichoke leaves and watermelon rind. To that I added a bunch of dead plant clippings that have all turned brown, some old, old coco liners, some old potting soil from last years pots and a bunch of paper from my shredder.
I've been spinning away and the mix is looking pretty good. The bin is full now, but by the end the volume will decrease by 50%. I'll keep you posted.
Now, after looking at garden garbage I'm going to put up a few pretties from the garden.
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It's been like christmas here, unpacking the items that we received from my FIL as he downsizes his life and moves to Williamsburg.
Many of these items were collected by my dear MIL. She had a passion for porcelain birds and I picked out several. I hadn't planned to bring home so many, but dang it, they are just so pretty.
This is just a fraction of what I took, which was just a fraction of what my MIL had collected.
Here are a few pics of just some of the other items now in my house and lookin' good.
During my FIL's military career they moved 37 times! Yes, my MIL had a rock collection. Moved it everytime.
This pretty chandelier is just waiting for installation in my laundry room.
My MIL loved porcelain flowers and sparkly crystal.
This lamp is lead crystal, I believe it is Waterford.
This next item is one of my absolute FAVORITE things that I got to bring home to keep.
Isn't it beautiful!
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