Growings Luffa, May Update

 Well, I finally got brave and planted the luffa in the yard.  I was so scared that the harsh hot dry early summer weather we've been having would kill it and I'd have to wait a whole year to try this again.    I planted the first one in the first week of May, and kept the other one in the house until around May 15th, just in case we had a late frost.  By then it had started flowering in the pot in my house, so I wanted to get it outside.

They are along my wood fence, and I tied a nylon string to the boards to give the luffa something more to hold on to until it gets big enough to grab onto the wood.

It seems to be doing great.  Some kind of bug has chewed up some of the lower leaves a little bit.  It's probably the same thing that took a taste of my garden's broccoli leaves.  It has survived a huge wind storm that we had a few days ago.  The wind was strong enough to rip my neighbor's screen door off of the hinges.  The wind/dust storm pulled it off of the string entirely, but I twisted it back up and it's still alive.

The luffa flowers are  prettier than I was expecting.  It looks like an ornamental climbing vine with all of the pretty blooms.

You can see the tiny ants that are attracted to the little green structures along the vine.  They produce tiny droplets of nectar.

The rest of the garden is growing nicely as well.  We finished up the sweet pea trellis.  We used the cedar 2x4s from the previous garden bed, and I found some decorative wooden corner brackets at Menards to give it more stability.  It is attached to the wooden frame of the garden bed with Spax screws.

To read more about my luffa growing experiment, see my April post.

Office Chair and Living Room Makeover

We've had this office chair for about seven years now.  It was a five dollar DI find (DI is a store like Goodwill).  It's a very sturdy chair- all metal and wood.   I imagine it was someone's really nice office chair in about...oh 1991 or so. 

BEFORE

They probably made it to match computers back when they looked like this.  See how the blue cushion complements the shading of the power button?  It's symbolic.  Really I have no idea if that's even the power button...


 For years we've put up with it because it is very functional, but I've been working on redecorating my basement living room.  The blue didn't match at all, so it was time for a recover.

I found this chevron fabric at Hobby Lobby when I was in a larger town last weekend.  I bought 1-1/2 yards of it, and it was just enough for the chair.  I used some foam I had around to replace the seat foam.  It was harder to do than I hoped.  There was a sale on staples in 1991, so they used all of them on this chair, I'm sure.  I ended up cutting the blue fabric off the seat instead of removing them all.  I also couldn't figure out how to take the back off, so it has a slipcover instead.  That will come in handy next time something is spilled on the back of the chair.

 AFTER

But all in all I'm happy with it.  It matches my new green living room much better.

Remember my living room?  This is what it looked like shortly after we moved in.  The previous owner had most of the walls in the house painted this shade of brown.  They also left us this old brown couch.

BEFORE

Here's what it looks like now.

AFTER

The main colors are green, orange, grey, black, and light purple.  I tried to find a paint color that I liked that also coordinated with the red curtains, but I just couldn't.  I went with Glidden's color "Prairie Sage," but I had it matched to Dutch Boy paint because I like it better.  I think some day we'll switch to a grey couch, but for now I like having a couch that the kids can jump on and make forts out of without me worrying about it.

Felt Food

I finished up my felt pear toy play food.  I made it from the Book Big Little Felt Universe.  I've made the tomato and kiwi before too.  This one turned out pretty cute, even without making it slice-able like the book suggests.

And here's the banana:

And lastly the eggplant.  This one might be my favorite: