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The original plan was to plant lettuce this weekend. Well, about 2 inches of snow got in the way of that!
What's a frustrated gardener to do?
Play with her worm bin! And make a to-do list:
*Plant lettuce
*Weed garlic
*Finish pruning the yellow transparent apple tree.
*Pick up the branches from the apple tree that was cut down.
*Plant more cold weather crops (broccoli, kale, cabbage....)
*Get compost for garden.
*Hope that the sun comes out next weekend!
A couple weeks ago a prompt was given to create an art calender on Inspire Me Thursday. I really liked the idea because I make calendars each year as gifts for my family. My hope is to do something a little different for the next batch, so this was a good excuse to experiment a bit. Sorry Mom, you're getting a preview!
For this page I designed a calender layout in a graphics/photo program (Comic Life) and then added photos to some of the squares. I printed out the page and then added color with watercolor pencils and pastels. The flowers that overlap the date squares are from an old card. And of course it wasn't complete without pieces of text and a few illustrations from a vintage text book.
I think that this really gives me a direction for my gift calendars. I'll have to do something different for one of my grandmothers as she uses the date space to journal. Everyday she writes a little bit of something on her calendars. She's done this for years and years.
As I was thinking about Grandma it occurred to me that I wanted to do a calender for myself, which really was what the prompt for Inspire Me Thursday was to do anyway (more or less!). My thought is that I'll make it a goal to take at least one picture or scan an image for each day and then choose an image that sums up the day for me. I'll post these once a month I think.
Hmm...this layout is actually a nice one to start with. It's really a summary of pictures and projects from over the last year. The photo of the daisy in the middle is the image used for my first response to an Inspire Me Thursday prompt, which I have now done for exactly a year!
Happy second Birthday Inspire Me Thursday! Since Lola's second birthday and the anniversary date of my adopting Briar occurred in March, I decided to do "Two dogs," featuring something with both dogs that makes me smile. A few recycled items in this: I reclaimed the canvas (covered up a project I didn't really like), the black paper, and a map.
In honor of Lola, I decided it needed a few holes.
I've been thinking about gathering together whatever I'm reading once a month in some way. I think at least once a month I'm going to post a picture of my current stack of books and maybe a few of my favorite passages.
The top of my pile is my book for the bus stop. I'll probably be reading it for awhile. It's The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett. It's actually a perfect book for stopping and starting because there isn't much plot (at least not yet). It seems to be mostly a character study. There are many beautiful passages.
Next up is Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. There were many passages in the book that captured my imagination. Here's one of them, which is really a quote from another author:
"Virginia Woolf wrote, 'Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword." On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where 'all is correct.' But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, "all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course." Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous."
Hmm...that leads to some interesting thinking.
And then there is In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. I really enjoyed the last part the best, which is about what he feels is best to eat and how to eat it. The rest seems to be a continuation of Omnivore's Dilemma, which I really found interesting. In general, Pollan's writing really confirms my desires to eat local, even over certified organic. I've also become even more convinced that processed foods are not a healthy choice. I loved his advice to not eat any foods that your great grandmother wouldn't recognize. I'm happy to say I think everything in my 'fridge would be identified by my great grandmothers.
The rest are what I checked out from the library. Interesting things in all, but glad I checked them out rather than bought them....
Hyacinths salvaged from under the apple tree that my brother took down for me this weekend.
It was a tough decision. The tree was very old and full of character and yet over the last 5 years it's produced about 40 edible apples. The other issue is that it was growing up into the power lines. There are, or rather were, two large apple trees in my garden and it's impossible for me to keep up with pruning both. As it came down it was apparent that a lot of the tree was dead or dying. So it was the right decision.
The plan is to plant two small fruit or nut trees in the area where the old tree was. Haven't decided what yet. Maybe a sweet cherry, an Asian plum, or hazelnuts. At this time there are:
*A pear with five varieties grafted on the root stock. I'm espaliering this tree.
*Two European plums.
*A sour cherry.
*An apple ("King").
*Another apple ("Yellow Transparent." ) The other large apple.
*A quince (edible).
Other fruit: grapes, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. All that on a small city lot!
I cheated an bought some lettuce starts to plant. Not felling too guilty about this. The starts come from local companies that sell at the farmer's market and it will give a slightly earlier crop than my start which are still teeny-tiny. I'm going to put them in a planter which will later be used for cucumbers.
I didn't get as far as I wanted for this week's prompt. I was hoping to use the wallpaper on something or for something. So this is a bit of a sampler.
I'm going to use the original wallpaper as a covering for a kaleidoscope that needs to be finished.
I'd really like to experiment with using elements of the black and white version as a pattern for making a linoleum carving.
I can also see using the rubbing of the wallpaper that is in the living room to make a pillow. There is some computer printer canvas somewhere around here....
Here come the tomatoes! Here's what's coming up:
"Sun Gold," one of the few Hybrid tomato I grow.
"Matt's Wild Cherry"
"Yellow Currant"
"Carmello," the other hybrid. It hasn't sprouted yet. The seed is about 5 years old, so it might not be good anymore. It was the last to sprout last year though.
"Gold Rush Currant," a new variety for me. Hoping it might be as good as "Sun Gold."
"Italian Heirloom," another new one.
"Riesentraube," and another new one.
"Amish Paste," and yes, another new one.
I'll get some "Seattle's Best," from my mom (I hope!) and buy one Brandywine at the Master Gardner's sale (probably).
I did start my tomatoes in peat pots this year, with seed starting medium. Not the best environmental choice, but I just didn't have my act together to do anything else. Next year the plan is to have compost (worm) and to make my own paper pots. I draped a recycled plastic bag over the top of the seeds to keep some humidity in. In years past it would have been plastic wrap or the plastic clam shell container that baked goods come in. The seeds are placed under a florescent light bulb (about a foot away) that lights the kitchen with. It's probably not as fast as a grow light, but it works.
I've been doing some research on Sweet Potatoes (one of my new plants to try growing for the Growing Challenge). I think I'm going to try White Triumph. It's not recommended for northern areas, but none of the white ones were, and that's what I want to try growing.
Rained quite a bit last night and it’s pretty wet out this morning. It’s hard to say whether there will be dry enough weather to get out in the garden. If it does become an indoor day, I'm going to try sprouting some of my emmer seed to make sure it's viable seed.
I did dash out this morning to check on my peas. Yea, they are sprouting! I love how they push themselves up and out of the soil.
The kale (“Laciniato”) and cauliflower (“All the Year Round”) are sprouting too.
Checked my sorrel. It’s just getting big enough to start harvesting.
Looks like the Swiss chard that I wintered over is about to take off too.
The garlic needs to be weeded. I have poppies coming up everywhere. I love poppies so much that it makes it hard to pull the volunteers. Ah well, tough love. I love garlic too!
One variety of rhubarb that I have will be ready to harvest soon too. I’m not sure what variety it is, it came from my grandfather’s garden.
Also on the "to-do" list is bamboo from my mother to put in the ground, along with the one that has been growing in a whiskey barrel. This was a tough decision, but I’ve decided to risk the invasive qualities of bamboo. Why put the bamboo in? Well, it will quickly make a great screen for privacy from the neighbors. This is a clumping variety so it won’t spread super fast. I’m hoping to manage any extra bamboo by harvesting for garden stakes and picking the shoots to eat.
Hmm…I wonder if I could manage the snails the same way? Escargot anyone?
This week's prompt for Inspire Me Thursday was to make an inkblot and then add what you wanted to illustrate your interpretation.
I decided to use a page from an old magazine (the article was called "The matter of wiring your home") and some black ink. The image you see in black is exactly how the inkblot turned out. When I opened it up and looked at it, the first thing that came to mind was an unfinished heart. So I finished it up with a bit of watercolor and pastels.
I'm going to do more of these, it was a lot of fun.
I found a squishy tangerine in the 'fridge. Citrus are one of my "special" foods that I allow myself while trying to eat local. Which made me very sad that one was found a little past peeling and eating.
It could have been juiced and added to a salad dressing, or to a tomato sauce (supper yummy, add it at the last minute), but it was early morning and I wanted to use it while I was thinking about it. So I sliced it up and added it to my tap water.
Very, very tasty!