Card Trick in Taupes & Gardening Update

Taupe quilts are very Japanese, and very restful.

Muted greens, blues & reds work beautifully to add some gentle colour.

It was quilted with lots of s.i.d. & feathers.

Mmm, nice definition on the back.

GARDEN UPDATE

• I've picked seven more spears of asparagus.
• DH rototilled the garden last fall and that was the best thing, ever!  It's all ready for me now, except for the wee challenge of a zillion thistle plants.  Those horrid things spread by runners that are easily a foot or more deep.  Every time a root gets chopped apart (by, say, a rototiller) each little piece of root sends up a new plant.  I'm currently on thistle-digging duty now.  That's not a hard job but it is a tedious chore because they will all come back.  sigh.
• Last year I tried to eliminate my problem of THE GARLIC THAT ATE MANHATTAN.  Well, hell.  I did not succeed.  Yesterday I dug up and transplanted 22 plants.  I dug up and heeled in seven huge clumps that are available to whoever wants them.  I tossed another zillion over my shoulder.  There are still many, many more little ones that will be haunting me again next year.
• After the garlic was moved I found my strawberry plants.  Yay!  And we have flowers.  More yay!  Strawberries won't be too far behind.  I need to frame this strawberry bed with something, though.  The babies are starting to show up everywhere and need to be corralled. Removing overabundant garlic, only to replace it with overabundant strawberries, is not helpful.
• I ripped out some raspberry runners that were trying to move into the cutting garden.  I put in a delineator row of bricks so I can stay diligent about where they are allowed to live.
• On my way home from retreat in March I bought myself a pot of tulips.  I planted that out in the garden - hopefully they'll be so grateful I didn't leave them dried up in the pot that they'll bloom for a few more years outside.
• I figured "what the hell" and planted a Sweet 100 tomato seedling under a cloche.  I have several more seedlings in case I've murdered this one.