Garden update and knitting

In the garden centre this year, there were some decorative  pots of everbearing strawberry plants.   They were large plants, with 5 or 6 in a pot, and many of the plants had runners, with smaller plants already growing.  They were just a couple of dollars more than buying  a single, small, barely started strawberry plant and the same price as bare root stock (when you took the runners into account), that I hadn't decided to order in time for this year.  I purchased 2 pots, and between all the plants, I have a 4 x 6 foot bed of strawberries planted.  There will be a small harvest this year because of the mature plants.  This was my first strawberry and ohhhh, it was so delicious.  It was soft and sweet, not like the imported berries at all.

 On the long weekend, the gals I was camping with had all brought their knitting.  I was inspired when I got home, so I quickly knit up this little winter toque.  I had started it using handspun, but when I dropped a stitch in one of the cables, I ripped it out and began again.  It was easier than trying to figure out where that lost stitch was.  As well, I'd made a mistake on the second cable, which was irking me to no end, so I accomplished fixing that by ripping it out as well.  It's cute, soft and was surprisingly easy to knit as the pattern was super easy to remember.

The currant and gooseberry bushes have liked this spring weather.   They are all bearing decent amounts of fruit.   Since the white and black currant bushes were only planted 2 years ago, I'm pretty happy about that.  The red gooseberries are the same age, and they have berries as well.   My haskap berries were planted at the same time.  One has grown quite large and flowered a ton this year.  The second one is still small and only had a few flowers.   I haven't checked to see what amount of fruit has set on those bushes though.

 The Alliums are flowering.  They are so pretty with their deep pinky/purple globes shooting up from the ground.  There will be a gap in flowers as I don't have a lot between the Allium and the Rudbekia and Echinecea.

 The Woad is flowering though so yay for fresh seed.  I got enough plants from my 10 year old seed to have in my garden as well as pass some on to a friend.  I love the funky sign that I got from Erhardt.  I realize it's autumnal, but it looks cute along with the little whirly gigs and other bits of spinning things which not only decorate my garden, but keep the birds from eating the seedlings.  Before I put out all the tacky decor in the garden, the grackles and robins kept nipping off the tops of the green beans just as they sprouted, pecked away at the young lettuce plants and ate virtually all the strawberries, the first time I tried planting them.