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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 16h

Knitting patterns with cats... Stranded Cat & Mouse Beanie Stranded Yin Yang Cats Beanie Cats on a Roof Beanie All available on Ravelry at www.ravelry.com/designers/jo... 🧶

Cat and mouse beanie has a family of mice around the hat with the front mouse facing off with a cat.

Stranded Yin Yang cats beanie has cats staring at the moon on one half and cats staring at the sun on the other half.

cats on a roof beanie has cats attached to a hat with a spiral design to represent a roof, and one cat sitting, one cat sleeping, and one cat stretching.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

I originally did it because I wanted a way to get in there without slogging through 5 ft of snow! Also, the house can heat the greenhouse and the greenhouse can heat the house...

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

The first one was in South Lake Tahoe where we had very little sun through the pine trees, but it still made life better. The second one is in Oregon. The photo with snow was when we first built it with very few outside garden plants yet. We haven't had that kind of snow in a few years now.

A greenhouse attached to a log cabin among tall pine trees in South Lake Tahoe

Inside a greenhouse showing the plants in the greenhouse and the doorway into the house.

Inside view of a very overgrown greenhouse with a large passion fruit vine on the left wall which is the house wall, and fig, feijoa and persimmon trees along the right side. The door into the house is just out of sight on the left, and the door to the outside is behind the camera.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

The book I mostly used was the Solar Greenhouse book by James McCullagh. I've had an attached greenhouse on 2 different homes over the last 30 years or so. If I was a lot younger I'd be trying a pit greenhouse.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

My knitting groups are busy knitting blue wave hats so I thought I'd better get one done. If you haven't seen these they have a morse code message in the dots and dashes above and below the blue wave. My message is pretty tame - just 'vote blue'. Some of them are quite creative though. 🧶 #bluewave

A blue wave hat featuring a round of curling waves in blue on a pale blue background. Pattern is by Lake and Prairie on Ravelry.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

I have a greenhouse attached to the house. It is heated from the house with a wall fan, so even when it's below zero outside it doesn't freeze. The lowest it's been is 27 but that was when it was -20F outside & those temps don't happen anymore. Still too cold for basil though.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Today's garden column. The last one for this year. 21F degrees last night here. October 12th. 🌱 #gardening

An article about the end of gardening season, last minute garden chores and autumn leaves.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

That's why I never start anything I don't want to become permanent 😅

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Today's garden column, October 5th. 🌱 #gardening #cats

An article about drying herbs, and a cat that doesn't hunt.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I'm sure that's true but there isn't a drought in my garden.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

True, but I am so used to freezing weather when the leaves fall in my garden that walking through them wearing a t-shirt just seems very wrong.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The days are still in the 80s (F) and it hasn't frozen yet at night, but the garden thinks it's autumn anyway. 🌱 #gardening

A large stand of staghorn sumac glows orange and yellow in the sun.

Deep red leaves of a shrub whose name I have negligently lost (Philadelphus?), is backlit by the sun. To the left is a bridal Veil Spirea, still a dark green, and to the right, still flowering, a Rosa 'Salet'

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The native Phacelia in my yard is by far the most popular with the pollinators.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Thanks! I think it's my Australian upbringing. For the most part my humor has never gone over well in the US.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I guess we are going to have to get used to unpredictable weather - even more so now than it used to be.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Yesterday's garden column (September 14th). 🌱 #gardening

An article about how the garden did this summer (not that great), using shredded coir to top up my raised beds, making some strawberry and fig jams, and no persimmons this year.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Garden article for September 9th. 🌱 #gardening And last night our trail cam caught 3 raccoons starting on the lower apples 🙁

An article about gambling with the likelihood of frost, apple and hazelnut eating marauders, and hummingbirds that stay year-round now.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Here's my not-quite-a-garden-article for August 31st. 🌱 #gardening

An article mostly about recovering from surgery and how the produce from the garden helped so much.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

About 2 weeks for me too, since I saw the last one. I was pretty surprised though that it was a juvenile, still screeching at it's parents for food.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

I started growing them quite a few years ago when I was looking for a bean that would do well in our (then) cool summers. These always did much better than regular green beans.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Are you going to eat them all? Preserve them? Sell them? Give them away? A good haul no matter what the purpose!

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Just another reason to hate those hives being there! I had huge numbers of bumble bees before the hives came.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Lucky you! I've been waiting to see a bumble bee on mine but most of them have been starved off by 100 commercial honey bee hives parked across the street and I haven't seen a single honey bee on the tomato flowers.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

I have these too, here before we were, growing along the bank of the canal. They're always swarming with bees and wasps of all kinds.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

I've never had a cat foolish enough to eat the wrong plants.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

It's actually a canal that connects with the Wood River and then from the river out to Agency Lake. We see a few kayakers and fishermen passing by in summer, and my husband takes his canoe out most days. Definitely lucky!!

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

4500ft. I've NEVER had veggies grow this fast before. We had an abnormally warm March, with April & May not far behind. It used to be that June was when I started planting because it froze at night all the way until July. The soil is not so very deep. Lots of yard prunings filling the bottom.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

We're in for a couple of 34F degree nights but I think these peas, beets and onions will survive it handily. I've had to cover everything else. 🌱 #gardening

A dark gray colored corrugated metal tall raised bed with sprawling pea plants at the far end, and beet leaves and tall onion stems at the closer end. Growing in the ground in front of the bed is a red Flanders poppy. There are carrots too, but concealed by the onions.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

I just finished this knitted custom order of my 'Octopus in the Shallows Beanie' and really like how it turned out with a green top instead of blue. She wanted seaweed added with the octopus and I like that too. The pattern is available on Ravelry. 🧶🦑

A knitted beanie in shades of light to dark blue with a green grading to gray top and a maroon band with a cockle shell. A knitted sewn on octopus is red, with green eyes and a black pupil.

The same hat with a view of the octopus head and arms with 2 of them wrapping around the shell.

A back view of the hat showing the wave pattern int he crown and a view of the wrack seaweed on either side of the octopus.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

I'll have to look that one up. Thanks!

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Thanks! Next column will continue the raccoon in the strawberry bed saga, but I think we finally have outsmarted it. I love delphiniums but have not been very successful with them in our hot, dry summers. I might try again though. Fires around us too, but luckily not too close yet & not much smoke.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

I find it funny, rather than annoying.

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

I think she's only thinking of herself....

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JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Don't worry - she always gets her way.

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