E-Scaping

I managed to get quite a bit of weeding done in my veggie garden yesterday. I really enjoy it once I get started. It’s hard to stop! The weather is still cooler than normal but it’s supposed to warm up in the next few days under mainly sunny skies. My garden will be happy but it means that I have to spend a lot of time watering by hand because we never put the soaker hose watering system in again this year. I’m trying to be careful to water the Irish moss and other ground covers that we’ve planted between the stones in the pathways too as well as the veggies and flowers. The peas have finally got flowers on them and there are teeny summer squashes for the first time in about 3 years. The tomatoes are monster plants and the biggest ones are taller than me now. The runner beans are running up my strings and the bush beans will be flowering soon.

The most exciting part of the garden is we got to eat a couple of scapes from the garlic for the first time.


Scapes are the curly stems of most varieties of garlic, except for the Silverskin garlic that you see most often in the grocery store. That was the type I usually planted but last fall I got a purple variety from the farmer’s market. For the first time we got scapes and they can be stir fried or steamed like asparagus for a mild garlic flavour. Yummy! Garlic scapes are selling out right now at the farmer’s market so it’s nice to have our own. You have to pick them fairly young because later they grow little bulbils at the tip, kind of like our Egyptian walking onions are doing right now. Did you know that garlics are all clones and don’t set seeds? They’ve been cultivated for 5,000 years and have lost that ability though they do adapt to different environments which is why there are actually two subspecies and many different varieties. I planted mine way back in October and probably won’t be harvesting them for another month. There’s a great website, Boundary Garlic Farm that has a ton of info on garlic: history, growing, cooking etc. They are in Midway, BC, and don’t ship product to the US which I find rather novel. Usually it’s the other way around. Heh.

OK, enough gardening stuff. I’ve finally photographed the Peeenk Cardi (aka Pink Eyelet Yoke Cardigan) and the Imperial Purple Socks in progress.


Not too exciting at the moment but it’s something yarny anyway. That’s the end of the second ball of pink Smart superwash wool and I’m nearly finished the body of the sweater so I’m now pretty sure I have plenty with 8 balls. I had to put stitch markers in to remind me when to work the seed stitch edging and it’s helping a lot. I’m knitting this pretty much by feel so the markers are a clue to my fingers to stop and change. I also put stitch markers in the Imperial Purple Socks to remind me to change from the all knit row to the k2/p2 row of the garter rib. I kept overshooting before I noticed and wasted a lot of time tinking back. Silly me. Speaking of reminding me, I need to make more stitch markers in larger sizes. All the ones I have work best with very fine needles.

Back out to work in the garden on this beautiful day before the sun heats it up too much.