bee creative

Vegetable love - an update

"My vegetable love should grow vaster than empires, and more slow."   Andrew Marvell

The idea of "vegetable love" has always made me smile. 

Hoping that we had the last heavy frost of the year on Saturday.  It was an incredibly beautiful day and a fair amount got done in the garden.

One project was moving primroses.  The primrose bed was in the shade during the afternoon.  Not any more!

What replaced the primroses?  Cabbages!  Also planted a little bit of lettuce.  Might stick a few radishes in too.  This is in the front garden too!  In general, the vegetables are really getting mixed up with the perennials, herbs and shrubs.    

I also weeded the area where the squash are going, planted a small asparagus bed, put the onion sets out, and planted a few shrubs that I was given. Felt like a very productive four hours!

Today  a bit more lettuce and some sweet peas were planted.  And I reorganized my vegetable seed/plant info.  I wanted to put my seed/plant list in one spot where it would be easy to update.  Taking photos of everything to help me keep track was getting a bit hard to manage.   The goal this year is to keep track of what is planted, when it was planted, when it gets harvested, and how much was harvested.   This is my solution:  The Victory Garden Plant/Seed list.  Just looking at my archives for "Vegetable Love" made me realize how much more complete my garden notes are this year. 

Inspire Me Thursday - Medical Art

It took me forever to get where I wanted to be with this project.   I wanted to use some science diagrams from an old text book, but  getting them where I wanted was a challenge!   The goal was to get them on fabric.   The problem was that I couldn't make mirror images and had to find another way to do it rather than use transfer paper. 

I managed to get one pillow done, but have 4 more to go for a set.  The text on the spine pillow says:

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well."

Vincent Van Gogh

It fits quite nicely along my back.

Recycled materials:  Fabric for pillow and for stuffing. 
 

Victory Garden in progress

Despite freezing temperatures and the occasional snow shower, the garden is growing.  On Monday I cleared a spot to put some asparagus in.  I also broke down and bought some Walla Walla onion sets.  My mother has  cioppolini sets (the ones pictured are from a crop I grew a couple years ago) for me too.  I already know I'll be wandering around the garden this weekend trying to figure out where to put one more onion in....

This past weekend I planted one of my strawberry pots.  Decided to try a little experiment.  One of the problems with strawberry pots is that they tend to get pretty dried out.  One idea I read to prevent this was to insert plastic pipe, with holes drilled in, lengthwise into the pot.  Seems like a smart idea, but I don't want to use plastic!  After thinking on it a bit, bamboo seemed to be an option.  I cut a bamboo stake to different lengths and inserted them into  the pot at different heights (a little crooked in the picture, they were straightened out).  When it's time to water, I'll water as normal, but then also pour water down the inside of the bamboo "tubes."  Be interesting to see what happens.   

Another experiment I'm going to try is growing potatoes in a trash can.  Directions at "Gardening with Ciscoe."   Setting that up will happen this weekend. 

It's also time to plant another round of greens, radishes and carrots.  And another batch of kale and cabbage since my little sprouts dried out and died.  On the plus side, it was very exciting to discover that the purple sprouting broccoli that was started last year made it through the winter and looks like it's really going to take off.  There is also more rhubarb to harvest.  One batch was already made into a crisp.   

I'm also considering the philosophical side of gardening right now and what my overall goals are.  I have  a family heritage of growing food.  Growing a garden to feed myself is something I've done pretty much my entire adult life.  It is so satisfying to eat a meal that been nurtured from seed to the table.  Now I feel like it's a responsible thing to do in the face of where our world is headed.   I really like the article that was written by Michael Pollan, "Why bother?"   Very interesting view points to ponder.  One thing I realized is that, when it comes down to it, gardening gives me faith.

On the goal side, I want as much of the 70% local foods to be grown in my garden.  I canned, froze and dried enough to get through the last couple months without buying too much non-local fruits and vegetables.  My exceptions were citrus and avocados from California.  It seemed more reasonable because there is no season for these crops in the Pacific Northwest.  One splurge was a basket of strawberries and an artichoke. The artichoke was yummy, the strawberries reminded me local is better and that I can wait. 

One thing I have been considering for quite awhile is chickens.  I'm thinking it's time to take the plunge.  I've been getting eggs from Mom and Dad, but I think I really want to be set up to have chickens here.  And then I'll have my own supply of fertilizer for the garden....

Riot for Austerity, 90% report card

I took the picture of the magnolia yesterday while walking through the park.  It was snowing. 

I took the picture of the rhododendron this morning in my garden.  A record snow fall for this area.  Just crazy, whatever the reason.

It’s been about a year since I stumbled across the Riot for Austerity challenge.  I’d already sold my car and started busing/walking, taken the challenge to not buy any newly made clothing at Wardrobe Refashion and had been working towards reducing plastic in my life.   The challenge to reduce my usage or resources to 90% less than the average American seemed like a good way to push farther into being more thoughtful about how I consume. It’s been an interesting and worthwhile direction to go. 

I’m not at 90% for everything.  Roughly I’ve reached the following:

Food:  At target for buying local (70%), about 15% bulk, and I buy a little bit more wet bulk (10%)/non local than I should. 
Water:  50% of average
Gas for heat:  35% of average
Electricity:  36% of average
Transportation:  5% of average
Spending:  6% of average
Garbage:  4% of average for the human contributions, 11% for the cat, and 15% for 2 dogs.

Some good results (calculated here) and some that could be improved.  Over the next couple days I want to look at these areas a little closer and see what I think I've done right and what I could improve upon.   Today I'm going to make a postcard and send it to Bill McKibben and his friends at 350.org.   I hope you will to.   

Happy Earth day to all!

Inspire Me Thursday - Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

How I loved this weeks Inspire Me Thursday prompt!  It's pretty much about how I'm trying to live and how I try to create.  As I was thinking about it, I couldn't resist thinking that it's important to me to be (bee!) creative what what I have.... 

There were so many things I wanted to do, to show.  I settled on reducing, reusing, and recycling in one project:

What I was reminded about from this project was how uninterested in perfection I am.  Colors and how they interact and textures are what really interest me.

Think I'll take a nap now....

Thinking and acting globally

I tend to feel that the most important thing I can do to make the world a better place is to live a life that is sustainable.  To buy local and organic, to not drive a car, to turn the heat down or turn the lights off, to spend my non-working time doing things that are productive (knitting, sewing, gardening), and to have a career that is meaningful (Not going to define that right now!).   

Over a year ago I sold my car and started walking and busing and I pledged to not buy newly made clothing.  It's been an opportunity to start countless conversations with people that I work with.  I think I'm at my best on a very personal level.  But sometimes I feel like I'm just skimming the surface of what I could write about when it comes  to the environment and humankind's impact on it.  There are so many passionate voices that speak out about important global issues while I tend to just focus on the local, the what I can do on a day to day basis  when I write here on my blog about environmental issues.

Today I'm going to stretch beyond that.  Because several of the blogs I read on a regular basis, Little Blog in the Big Woods in particular today, are tackling a bigger cause that needs to be shared with as many people as possible.  I've always felt that medical issues shouldn't involve profit past a living wage for people involved in the medical field.    But it's even more important that profits shouldn't be made from food and water when the expense is people starving.  Please read this, please talk about it with others.  Please think and act globally. 

Garden update

Had a few visitors to the garden this weekend.  This one was willing to sit still for a little bit.  Can't say that about the big old bumble bee that was wandering around!

I finally got my potatoes planted.  The potato list:

"Red thumb"-early variety
"Charlotte" –early
"Bintje"- early
"Huckleberry" –Mid
"Rose Finn Apple"-Late
"Ozette"- Late

I also planted some more lettuce, some radishes, spinach and carrots.   Spent a fair amount of time trying to decide where to plant my beans in a couple weeks.

The craziest thing is there is a possibility of snow this week!   Not normal for this area at all.  Of course is there normal any more?  My plums and pears are blooming right now.  One of the apples is just about to bloom.  Might not be much fruit this year....         

Inspire Me Thursday - Envelope

This is what I ended up with for a response for the prompt for Inspire Me Thursday.  I tried a few different things, but was happiest with this.

The cranes are made with security envelopes that were cut open.  The pattern on the inside of one of the envelopes reminded me of origami paper. 

My final collage was tucked inside a vellum envelope before it was scanned. 

It's a lot easier to see the images if you click on the photo to make it larger. 

Recycled items:  envelopes, a snippet of vintage text, and some scrap paper. 

Favorite photo from last week

In the morning I get off the bus at the top of a hill where I can look across a valley and over to part of the Cascade Mountain Range.  There was the most beautiful golden glow just between the top of the foot hills and where the clouds began....

From farmer's market to garden

Saturday was the first farmer's market for my community.  Not much in the way of vegetables: kale, onions, garlic, radishes and carrots.  I got some cheese and kale.  Rather than selling the leaves, one farm stand was selling the stems with the flower head.  I sauted them in olive oil and sprinkled a little salt and pepper on it. 

To finish off dinner I had a potato gatto- a lasagne of mashed potatoes with salami, cheese, peas and onions.  The potatoes, onions, and one of the cheeses were local. 

Yum! Yum! Yum!

Another new thing that was being sold at the farmer's market was "young" garlic.  I started eating my garlic this way last year.  As I thin the garlic, I eat it at whatever stage it's at. 

Here's some of the garlic I've thinned.  I had some rather large spots between some of the garlic where some didn't come up, so I planted some "spring mixed lettuce" plugs I bought.   I bought just a few lettuce starts because I can never get lettuce going from seed as soon as the local nurseries do.  These are organic too! 

I also put a few more strawberries in and transplanted my tomatoes.  The tomatoes went off with my parents.  They have a hoop house that the tomatoes can stay in until they are ready to be planted outside. 

Other garden news:  first blossoms on the plum tree, peas are up to 1-2 inches

Next garden chores:

*Plant potatoes
*Plant radishes, more lettuce and some carrots in planters.
*Transplant baby cole crops into 4 inch containers, they aren't quite ready for the ground yet.