Sunday Bits of Inspiration #90! (Cottage Core Bedrooms, New Rugs, Ground Covers, and Chaos Gardening)

We've had a busy week hosting dinners, doing yardwork, and I have started the deep clean of the house. Like a good spring cleaning, but in late summer. The yard still needs a whole lot of doing, too. Tis the season!

I picked up this new rug (yes, machine washable) for the sitting room. It ties in the green chair, a bit of orange for fall and to match the cabinet.

With Hemingway gone, there is a lot less drool, hair, and dirt being tracked into the house, so I have started a good clean before winter comes and is time to hunker down. That sounds like we don't care, but we care a whole lot. Miss that big guy every single day.

I am taking it room by room, with loads of time in between each room, as it is hard work - m washing windows, sills and screens, taking down all the chachkas to wash, redoing the shelves, cleaning baseboards, changing out the summer decor to autumnal things. Every single carpet in the house has been washed, and I bought a nice new big (machine washable) rug for the sitting room, as this is where we spend the majority of our time).

The rug is 6'x9' and on for a really great price. It comes in 3 other colour combinations and I l love them all. Would love to pick up that black/green one, plus the teal/multi one, too.

Sorry about the ugly laundry basket, it is all we could find to gather up all the fallen apples. My nephew wants them for his wildlife cams. Don't ask me why. All I know is that it is a good way to get rid of all these apples, better than throwing them in the green bin.

We were already getting a lot of fruit drop from the dry summer, and then the birds came. I was telling my brother that the apple trees and mountain ashes were full of baby crow like birds. He told me that they would be either grackles or starlings... so I looked it up. These guys had shiny blue heads, so were definitely grackles. They land in the trees to eat the berries and the apples, causing loads of apples to smash to the ground. Lucky that we are having (yet another) bumper crop year! There are still plenty of apples left for fresh eating and making into juice with our mehu-liisa juicer.

This popped up in my memories yesterday. I had just received my new greenhouse. I ordered it from a farmer/builder just west of town by a bit. He built all the pieces at the farm and then delivered it and built it here in the yard in just 3 hours. He provided the 4x4 foundation, everything included. Inside it is just grass at this point. He built it, the rest was up to me. It is 8'x12'.

We painted it white inside and out, put up burlap shade curtains, installed a rubber stepping stone pathway, and raised beds.

The greenhouse right now, two years later.

The first summer, last year, we had in ground beds. They were just okay. The plants took a long time to take off as the solid sides provided so much shade.

This year, everything is thriving, even the watermelons, as they are in these lovely pistachio green raised metal beds. These beds are on at a phenomenal price right now, btw, $80 less than what I paid! Argh, lol.

Gardening Bits

Here are this week's inspirational gardening bits to peruse and ponder.

My part sun bed full of Creeping Jenny ground cover.

I am forever looking for grass alternatives for either a lawn replacement, or in between stepping stones, etc... here are 12 low maintenance ones to try.

These 7 ideas for sustainable gardening. I've implemented all of them to some degree, but always room for improvements. Still looking for nicer looking water buttes/barrels/troughs. Ideas, anyone?

Country Cottage Garden Shed by Rocky Hedge Farm.

Check out this wee little white garden shed. Isn't it the cutest?

My chaos garden. The cosmos are just starting to bloom now. Has been an odd summer.

This article about Chaos Gardening from Martha Stewart. I made a chaos garden bed this year, will definitely do it again. I think that I will make sure everything works for the same season though, as when I pulled my bolting spinach and lettuces, I ended up with lots of empty spots. Which is great for replanting, new sowings, but you really have to work at figuring out what to sow in mid July, in a heat wave, that will thrive.

Picked these lovely carrots and a small beet for my lunch today.

These veggies that you can plant in your empty spots now. Now, some of these will not have time in our areas (say no to planting carrots and parsnips now), but anything that requires less than 60 days is fair game. Spinach on the island will give you leaves this fall, leave it in for the winter, fresh leaves again in spring.

Have no empty spots? Pull out anything just about ready to bolt, bolting, cucumbers getting powdery mildew (there is no saving them once they start to mildew), plants that did not thrive, in the garlic bed...

Flowers to take cuttings of now for more plants next year. Plus, flowers you can sow now for new flowers next summer!

I have these 3 piles of seeds for fall sowing, ready to go.

• Flowers to sow now for earlier blooms in spring (echinacea, beebalm, and calendula).

• Fresh crop of fall veggies ready to go in now, as in the article above (spinach, lettuce, chard)

• Veggies to sow beside the house and in the greenhouse just before snow flies (leaf lettuce/winter lettuce, carrots, spinach, and breadseed poppies).

How to plant, grow, and care for cannas. If you are on the island, or in a zone 7/8, you don't even need to do anything special to them. I used to take pot and all, haul it into the unheated greenhouse on the island, stop watering, and it would be raring to go in spring when I started watering again. I also had a customer who left hers in big pots and kept them on her deck, under the eaves, they just got bigger and better annually.

This is my bedroom. She is a little humdrum, though I love that wallpaper.

Homey Inspo Bits

These two articles with cottage core bedrooms really hit the spot with me this week, as I am working on my room by room deep cleaning. Loving some of the ideas for fall bedding, to cosy up the room a bit, make it more charming. My bed could use some cosying!

The cottage core bedroom in this article with 8 dreamy bedrooms is utterly perfect. Here are some bedding sets to achieve that look! I also love that whimsical bedroom.

Pinstripe bedding

Blue plaid bedding

Blue Gingham Sheet Set

Yellow Plaid Sheet Set

Pillowcase Set

Blue Gingham Sheet Set

Blue Pinstripe Duvet Set / Blue/white plaid sheet set / Blue Gingham Sheet Set

Yellow Plaid Duvet Set / Super Cute Pillowcases / Blue Gingham Sheet Set

*As an Amazon affiliate, if you purchase an item from one of these links, I make a teeny bit of money to support my blog. It does not cost you a penny more than it would if you went to the item on your own, without my link. Huge thanks : )

and then there is this cottage style bedroom refresh that is so pretty. Love the bedding so much. It would look amazing on my white country style bed, eh?

Here are some bedding ideas (below) in linen and cotton to help you achieve the same look. Love the waffle weave and gingham together. This white lacy dust ruffle is easy to put on the bed, this delicate lace ruffle, or ( oh my, be still my heart) this flax linen bed skirt.

Ruffled Linen Bedding Set

Linen Sheet Set

Ruffled pillow shams

Waffle Knit Blanket

Ruffled Waffle Weave Blanket

Reversible quilt set

Recipes

A few recipes to use up those apples and eggplants from your garden!

If you like eggplant, this recipe for eggplant salad sounds yummy! Plus healthy and low cal. I plan to give it a try : )

Sourdough rye bread - posting this one here for me. I must try a rye bread someday very soon!

I made this Sourdough discard apple fritter bread. for the (family dinner) dessert the other evening. I thought it was nice with a cup of tea, but hubby really like it a lot. It did not make his diabetes go off the wall either, always a goal with me.

This blast from the past showed up in my fb memories. The summer of 2021, when we had a heat dome and 2 or 3 heat waves. The only bit of green in our yard was this strip on the septic field. We still did okay... each year in the garden is a brand new ballgame.

Wishing you all great week - Tanja