Garden planning, soil, and compost

I am fearing the garden planning and layout process. In the past I was the typical gardener that would plant wherever it felt right, and sometimes come home with more plants than I could find space for.

While I will not be planting every type of seed I have this year, I will need to actually go through and make a list of what I will plant, when, what to plant after that, and make sure not to plant the wrong combination of plants at one time that would cross pollinate to plan for proper seed saving.

My brother and husband have offered to help me measure the yard space, and then help sketch out the layout. Numbers and I have a love hate relationship… I am sure it is something I could not do so easily on my own and I am happy for the help.

This will be the first time I have designed a garden layout as well. I will most likely map out the full yard, and then start planting on just the slope area to start.

Worst case scenario, I have to stick to just the slope, and plan out as best I can as I go.

My biggest concern is making some kind of stair steps for the slope in certain areas where the ground is quite steep. I have slid down the slope many times due to poor footing or loose dirt.

Another thing I am trying to do is make a list of all the garden projects I am considering. That way if I end up with the right materials at random, I can reference my list, and know what project it should go to.

I will have to narrow down the list of projects, such as if I want a fire pit, solar oven/dehydrator, rocket stove, pizza oven, outdoor canning stove, etc.. Because having all of those is unneeded and would take up a lot of space. I could also combine some ideas into one unique one.

One project I am working out is my seed starting shelves. Part of my urban homesteading quest is to try and find ways to do things for little to no cost. I feel a garden should not cost an arm and a leg. Even if I had a lot of money, which I do not, but if I did, I would still go about it this way.

Right now I am trying to see if building the shelves would be more cost efficient or if I could find low cost or free shelving that would work for that purpose. I am also looking into where to find good lights that don’t cost an arm and a leg. So far Aquarium lights seem to be the best option with the lowest price. I am still researching though.

This is the first time I have lived in a home with all electric heat. Our heating bill last month was $81, and this month was just shy of $200… I am used to a much lower bill due to having gas heat. This unexpected rise in our electric bill does mean the budget for the garden will be tighter unless something changes.

We are looking into what it would take to get gas ran up to the house and convert to gas heating. We have a wood burning stove out in the shop that used to be in our house, but we aren’t sure what it would take to hook it back up, costs involved, and if our insurance would be ok with it. Previously our insurance company had made a remark about the stove. I don’t think we could have gone through them had it been hooked up, but I do plan to ask them. Downside of course is if we did go with a wood stove, we would have to store a large amount of wood… Using up garden space, and I do hear there are some pretty poor suppliers for wood here locally. Still, we are looking into various options, since even with level budget pay becoming an option around April, the bill will still be quite high due to Winter usage.  Next month they expect the bill to be $225. I only mention this all because this is apart of starting a urban homestead. You have to account for unexpected rising bills and change plans accordingly.

I think we will also be trying the bubble wrap trick with the windows to help with the escaping heat in the house. I hear it works quite well.

Other things I will need to tackle are the bug and soil issue. Pill bugs, earwigs, box elder bugs, and ants are a big problem I hope to naturally get rid of before it becomes as big of an issue. I was not able to harvest one ear of corn this year due to infestation.

The soil needs a lot of nutrients added. I am sure the soil and bug combination made for slow growing plants. I am not sure if my compost will be ready in time but I will at least have mulch, coffee grounds, egg shells, and I will most likely pick up some compost tea. If I can get my hands on some manure from friends who have cows, horses, or chickens, I will add that to the compost pile to age. I really do hope to turn my soil into something people tend to call black gold.

I am very new to composting and I find I am not always able to turn the pile by hand every day. If I had a tumbler (Which I am considering making at some point) It might be easier to do before work. I like the idea of layering it and leaving it, but I don’t always have enough of one thing to make each layer. I am still trying to understand how that would work. Maybe I will get lucky and having neglected my compost pile will be fine.. One can hope.

Thankfully with the big silver maple tree I have, leaf mulch will not be a problem. I didn’t rake the yard this year either.

Being that the snow hit us randomly with over 7inches, I also didn’t get a chance to cover my grape vines in time, so I am hoping they will be ok. I do plan to plant those in the ground in the coming year.

Fertilizing and growing the natural way

This is my first year at my urban homestead. With Autumn on it’s way I am prepping my land for next years gardening adventures. I have been thinking a lot about what goes into good garden soil.
I like making my own natural fertilizers and I am still experimenting with different blends.

Right now what I have to work with is a bit of old coffee grinds, egg shells, used and dried tea leaves (leave it in the bag or on a plate if loose leaf, and let it sit until it dries. It can then be dumped into a storage container) As well as veggie water/broth from blanching veggies.

I hope to this year start my compost pile, though that will not be ready for planting come Spring I do not think with how long it takes to transform into something usable. Still, it will be great to have in the coming seasons.
I will be piling up the grass clippings for the start of my compost pile.

If had a larger garden this year, and could have bartered my fresh herbs and veggies, for some aged chicken, rabbit, cow, etc manure to add to the compost pile, I would have. That is something I may look into once my garden produces a little more than my current small garden does.

I would also love to use things like seaweed and kelp in my yard but would rather wild harvest if I could. I will most likely see if I can find someone in the PNW coast that would be willing to dry some out and send it to me for my garden. I’d prefer to know where it came from rather than not.

I also would like to gather some willow leaves and stems to make a “tea” for my garden. That will most likely be on my wildcrafting to do list in Spring as I do not think I know anyone who has a willow tree growing in their yard.

Another thing I need to look into for Spring is picking up some rooting liquid (as my attempts at using honey have been a fail for that) and the other things you need to root cuttings. I find plants I wish I could take home with me all the time. I think I need to get into the art of rooting. It seems simple enough but I have not had success with anything from cuttings so far. I also have not tried it the proper way yet either. I am always looking for an alternative way to do something.

Pest control is another issue I need to tackle next year. I have a big problem with earwigs, ants, pill bugs, elder box bugs *which are a hybrid bug*, stink bugs, and I believe that is it for the ones I have a big problem with here. A friend of mine makes his own natural, plant safe, earth friendly, bug spray that I think I might have to give a try. He says it will work on the box elder bugs. Considering they are really going after my big silver maple, I have to get rid of them. I won’t use commercial pesticides, though they would not work on the box elder bugs anyways.

Late season seed haul

So I did not get all the seeds I need for next year but I managed to get in a end of season seed haul. Let me tell you how I got 24 seed packets for $9.34

I started my quest for seeds a little late. I would be kicking myself if I did not find what I had.

So originally I was out to find seeds that you see in the dollar store, winco, walmart, etc… by American Seed, which is actually Plantation Seed, but moving on.. Everyone knows these little plain packets that are around .20-.30ea. Since I do not have a whole lot of money for seeds at the moment I thought this would be great for adding a few varieties, heirloom or not, to the garden.

Now one thing that is a downside about the seeds is they have a limited variety, but it works for creating a small edible garden.

After calling about 8 different stores I found Walgreens still had some seed packets left. When I got there I expected to find the normal american seed company packets but instead I found Burpee seeds on sale for .29-.34 cents! Yes, I pay a few cents more, but I know they are a reputable company.

I could have spent $37 for all of the seeds I got… It is amazing the deals you can find when you are in the right place at the right time. I am happy I can buy seeds out of season for next years planting.

So I snagged up 22 packets of seeds, and then 2 packets of lettuce tape that was normally $6.59ea for $0.98 each.



I have not used seed tape before but it seems really nifty. There is 22ft per pack.


This is my little seed storage chest. I moved my seeds to this when they were getting too big for their old container. Now having something that is air tight would be best, but this will work for me for now. Not all my seeds are in this chest; mainly the ones I printed out myself and saved.

I did not buy all the seeds they had left though I was very tempted to… And may even go back another time to see if there are any left.

They also had bell peppers, sunflowers, 2 other kinds of flowers, and anything else they were out of by that time.

Here is what I ended up with:

3pks of Peas “Cascadia”
2pks of Carrots “Scarlet Nantes”
2pks of Carrots “Little finger”
1pk of Radish “Crimson Giant”
1pk of Beets “Detroit Dark Red”
1pk of Garden Beans “Green Crop”
3pk of Cucumber “Space Master”
2pk of Watermelon “Sugar Baby”
2pk of Summer Squash “Early golden crookneck”
1pk of Summer Squash “Black Beauty”
1pk of Tomato “Super Beefsteak”
1pk of Tomato ‘'Super Sweet 100 Hybrid”
1pk of Marigold “Sunset Giant Mix”
1pk of Basil “Mammoth”
2pk of Lettuce (Tape) “Black Seeded Simpson”

The great thing about the seeds I got is that I believe all but one or two are open pollinated varieties and I can save seed from them. I am not certain, but at lest I believe they are mostly all able to be used to save seed if I wanted to.

I have not saved seeds from carrots or other root veggies before. I may still have to buy those until I get the hang of it, but the rest I should not have to buy again.

My husband is not sure I can fit everything I want into my garden. I will be using polyculture and intercropping techniques along with permaculture to use every inch of space I can in a way they does not hurt the plants. People waist so much useable gardening space by only growing one crop type in one area. You can improve the plant growth and harvest when you plant the right plants next to each other.

I am so excited to see my little seed bank growing!

Day two of renovation

I am so very nervous. We decided to take the leap and paint the kitchen cabinets. O_O
While I am quite excited for it, I am also nervous as hell that I will monumentally screw them up. The thing that my husband finds so amusing about this is I actually am an artist. I paint. I love to paint all the time… I just have never taken on a project like this before.
Not to mention the biggest home renovation we have done is patch, texture and paint a wall. Fix some crown molding,.. So nothing too big

The decision on whether to really completely change the cabinet look was tossed around quite a bit, but really was finalized when we found out we had to remove the cabinets in order to get rid of the horrid wallpaper. Mind you, this wall paper was damn near falling off the walls on its own.
They had put the cabinets up after the wall paper, and with the wooden pieces behind the cabinets, there was no way it would not be noticeable if we left it behind there. So cabinets are all pretty much removed but one right now.

I would like to mention that I do actually like the cabinets as they are. I like the look of natural wood. I just think it is so amazing we can actually change things in our home that we should take advantage of it and go a little outside our comfort zones to make it our own. I like wood floors and wood cabinets, though painting the cabinets will open up so many more options when we go to change flooring in the years to come. We do actually plan on putting in wood or pergo flooring.

Ok, back to the current.

Washed half of the hanging cabinets in addition to the walls that will soon be painted. I got one of the larger ones double primed. I was not happy with a single coat of primer. I also got 75% of another one single coat primed so far. I will have to get photos of the painting process tomorrow.

I am using this blogs post for inspiration for the cabinets. http://porchswingsnhoneysuckle.blogspot.com/2013/02/paint-and-glaze-cabinet-tutorial.html

Mine will be the same basic idea, though I am not using a stark white for the base. Since my glaze is antique, and not the same tone as hers, I thought blending might be easier if there was already a slight bit of color to the base.

I am lucky enough to have great friends who have let me borrow some tools and a ladder. My sister, brother, and my sisters boyfriend are being awesome with helping tear down and clean things. I can’t imagine how we could even begin to do all of this without  the extra help. There is absolutely no way we could have done anything to the kitchen without them.

We decided we cannot take down the second layer of wallpaper with the way it was put up without having to re-drywall the whole kitchen. Since it is already sealed, we decided we would patch it, spray texture as planned, and then paint over it instead. Not the ideal situation but pretty much the only option at this point.

For the cabinets I recommend using a faster method than a brush and roller. I am sure a sprayer would have been a million times faster. I am tempted to look into the prices of one for the final color coat before the glaze.

I still need to get the paint for the kitchen and part of the living room. That will be for another day.

For now here are some photos of what we have done so far, minus the cabinet painting progress.


My handsome man tackling that wallpaper like a boss. Ok, so in reality anyone who breathed on it could probably remove it, but that is not the point.


Ugly wallpaper number 3.. There was a total of 3 different wall paper styles. Don’t ask me what they were thinking.


All removed except for the cabinets and what is behind them.


Look at that mess! Would you believe me if I told you we swept it up into a snow shovel because we could not find the dust pan? Yea, we can be a little crazy.

 
My sister and her boyfriend are in the above photos. I would say they are helping, but I don’t know if this counts as my sister helping haha. She was actually a big help but I had to say that anyways.


As you can see the separation between the wall and the cabinets shows the ugly wallpaper.

We started a bit later today than we had hoped to. We normally work late nights so our sleep schedules are much different. We wanted to start around 3pm but we really only picked a few things out and actually got started much later than that :/ Yea… We are new to this. It is a learning curve. We will get it down though and it will be amazing sauce when finished!

It has been a long day. Did not get done until about 11pm. I am sore and tired but it is so worth it. Actually feeling like I am getting more things done in the day than the day before. I am still nervous but really excited to see how it all comes out. To go from not decorating our rentals aside from the mantle really… to decorating and painting… It is a huge change and a much needed one at that.

Buying the right house

Finding the house:
Finding the house was not easy but then at the same time ended up being really easy. I know, I just contradicted myself. I will explain.
My husband have been looking for a house on and off for the past several years. We have gone through different jobs between all the looking. Almost ended up in a house we could certainly not afford due to people willing to push funding through despite lack of funds… Thankfully the whole deal turned rotten and we got to continue on the path of finding a home.
After the previous experience turning sour, we held off on looking for a few years at least. The idea of buying a home was quite nice to us again at another point, so we spoke with a trusted mortgage lender who gave us a much different pre-approval amount than the first one had. This guy was more realistic and explained what we needed to do to build our credit, and what kind of income we needed to approve for a better price range.
We had some work ahead of us at that point. I needed a better paying job. Some small debts needed to be paid off completely. Other things always pop up to eliminate savings one finds. So finally we got approved a few months ago for a lower end price range, yet still quite doable.
We started the search yet again for a home that would meet all our internal home requirements, as well as my need for external yard space. We looked a lot of homes we thought were in our price range, but when we ran the numbers, if anything were to ever come up, it would turn into an emergency cash finding situation. We did not want to be putting out exactly what we both made a month, especially if either of us had to take time off, or take a pay cut. It seemed all the homes were starting in the price range we approved for at the highest end. Once again, our house hunting was put on hold.
Not even two weeks later, our awesome real estate agent posted up some new listings that were between $20k and $55k lower than our original home search. We were quite excited at the change of listings and decided to look at some of the possibilities. We looked at 4 or 5 homes that next day after confirming which ones we wanted to see from the list.
Walking into the home we now own, we loved it immediately. After seeing homes with less square footage, less land, and all the wrong layout, this was a serious breath of fresh air. It had pretty much everything we needed as well as some things we just wanted. It seemed every other home there was something major lacking in it to put a kink in it, and make it a deal breaker. Now, that is not to say this home does not need some work. Being that the home was built in the 80s, it does need some updating, but other than that it is perfect.
We decided not long after seeing the home, heck, we barely even finished looking at the home before I could contain my desire to ask my husband if he wanted to put an offer on it as much as I did. Thankfully we both absolutely loved it, and for the price, we knew it would not come across anything better in this market.
We put an offer on the house the next day. Lots of paper work, switching lenders yet again, and still staying on the projected close date somehow, we closed on our house this month. I am really grateful for all the people we have had helping us through this process.
One thing that I found to be quite different from the usual, was that the 2 hours and several inch stacks of paperwork you normally sign for the final closing, actually was only about 40 minutes with a decent stack. They must have come up with a more efficient method for cutting down the pains of signing your life away. I personally think of it is signing your new beginning… but that is just me.
I have no problems signing paperwork for the house, even with the cost of the house. The way I see it is you are going to be paying hundreds of dollars on rent every month.. Why not pay it towards a mortgage? It is all the same amount of money (sometimes) so why not invest it in a home you own, rather than a living situation that takes away your creative decorating abilities, as well as could go sour. As you might guess, both have happened for us. We are quite happy to now have control over our living situation more now than we did renting.
When someone becomes upside down on their mortgage and has to sell, no matter how nice they are as landlords, you have to move… and moving is not fun on the drop of a dime. That is not to say renting cannot be awesome. Both renting and owning has its up and down sides.
So, a little about the house itself.
Our new house sits on .18 of an acre, which is smaller than I had originally wanted, but it works out just fine with the way the yard is laid out.
It is just over 1600sf. Our current place is about 1100, maybe just over, so it will be great to have the much needed space.
3 bedroom, 2 bath. Master bath is a little small, but it will work for our needs, and there is room to expand if we ever wanted to renovate it.
There is office space for my husband, two crafting/lab spaces for me… one is not currently finished, the other will turn into a guest room most likely once the bigger shop in the back is finished for my personal uses. The detached shop was a huge bonus for me for so many reasons. It was honestly more than I ever expected to find.
The kitchen is much larger, though ripping out the wallpaper seems like it might be a frightening task here soon.. I think someone used wood glue on parts of it. Why someone would do that I do not want to know.
It is a single story house. We originally wanted multi story, but I am not complaining. The shop I will use for my creative projects in the back has a loft area anyways.
One downside is that the property just has a gravel driveway. No car port, no garage… So since we do not wish to shovel show off our cars every day in the winter, we plan to build a car port off of the house to protect from the elements. Considering every other house around here that was $55k more even did not have any of those either, it was an inevitability we would need to build one. I am just happy we have the space to do it, though it will be a new thing for us to learn to build.
Another small downside is no more gas stove to cook on unless we want to find out how much it will cost to run a gas line to the house. I am not thrilled with switching back to electric, but it is something we can look at changing in the future.
The house is in the city we want. It is in the area of the city we wanted. It is a little bit out of the way, but right next to a major high speed road, so really it does not take much longer to get places than it did at the place we were renting. The commute was a concern with my husband until we had to stay at a hotel not far from the new place for a week, thus providing us with an idea on the new commute times. He seemed relieved to find it was not as bad as he expected.
Every time I go to the house I notice things that show even more that this house was meant to be ours. We wanted a cherry tree in the yard, or two.. And finding out one of the previously unknown trees in the yard is in fact a cherry was one. The neighbor has a currant or gooseberry bush that is partially hanging into the yard was another. Currant bushes symbolize protection, and I plan to plant more of those as well. Seeing that one just told me that our house was already being protected, even if not fully on our land. The fact that the exterior of the house and shop were painted green, both of our favorite color, also was another sign. Not to mention wanting a big mature tree, and having at least 4… not to mention one being a big maple, which works as a wonderful shade tree. Shade trees help cut down heating and cooling costs, for those who do not know why they are important to have.
All in all the process brought feelings of excitement, nervousness, anxiety, fear, frustration, surprise, and happiness. It was a roller coaster, but one well worth it. Yes, we may have not bought a house as soon as we wanted to, but our needs changed, our budget changed, really a lot changed. I am also one to feel if one door closes, it is so another can open. Every time we hit a road block on this journey, it was so something even more amazing could happen. When one house did not pan out, the next was even better.. When one lender did not work out quite as expected, the next one had better rates… So really the bad moments were not so bad, just a bit nerve wrecking until the good news came back. I feel there has to be balance in everything. This process literally had the most equal balance of good and bad moments I have yet to see in a single event. I don't think it could have worked out any other way honestly.


My tips for finding the right house:
Make up a list of MUST HAVES as well as WANTS but do not NEED.  Knowing where you can compromise on is a really big deal. Understanding that you will most likely not get everything on your list is also important.
Another good thing to put down is if you do not have one item, what other item would you need to make that ok. For a good example, we needed 3 bedrooms, but both my husband and I needed work spaces.. So we said we needed 3-4 bedrooms, but could do fine with 3 if there was another office, bonus room, or dining area that we could convert into usable office/crafting space. We ended up having more space than expected, and his office is actually now in what was once a separate dining room.
Thinking outside of the box on space really helps.

Do you want something move in ready or are you ok with renovations? Do you have the required skills to do major renovations? For us, we are ok with cosmetic renovations, but we did not want a big house that needed walls ripped out, or bathrooms to be completely gutted before moving in. Yes, we may very well rip out the master bath eventually, but right now it is ok, and not an immediate need. The shop is a big job, but we will get help with that, as well as it is not something we have to finish before moving into the house. Finding the line for what you will or won’t do, not to mention the costs included in doing that, is something you really need to discuss before getting a house.

Get pre-approved for a loan. Know where you stand budget wise. Run the numbers over and over. Make sure that new mortgage you approve for supports your style of living. If you eat out a lot, or go clothes shopping all the time, you may not want a large mortgage. Know where you can save and what you have available to spend.
It is also not a bad idea to shop around for lenders.

Check your credit. We used Credit Karma, which is free, to get an idea on our scores before going in. The better your credit, the better the rates. If your credit is not the best, pay off debts. Make sure the debt to income ratio is low. Having open credit cards with no balance on them helps. Pay bills on time, etc.. Keep in mind it can take 1-3 months for a paid off card to reflect good on your credit. That being said, if you are really young and have no credit, that does not mean your credit is perfect, it means you have no proof you are dependable to pay bills on time… So you will need to build up credit before they will even look at approving you. Get a credit card, buy something, pay it off immediately, etc. It is never a bad idea to get advise on how to build your credit up.

Make sure you have been in your line of work for at least a year.

Make sure your realtor is looking in your best interest and not the sellers. Do not work with a realtor who is also representing the seller. It is really hard for someone to work neutrally between both parties. We encountered this with the first home we found. We did not have a realtor and were just working directly with their realtor and the sellers themselves. I highly recommend not doing this. The deal fell through and there was no one there to make sure the deal was fair on our end, looking out for our interest, as first time home buyers.

Don’t buy the first home you look at. It is really easy to get wrapped up in the excitement of looking at homes. Even if you come back to that first home and end up buying it, still look at others for comparison on what you can get. No one wants to regret buying the home they did. By looking at other homes you give yourself options.

Think about how much yard space or land you want. Do you want a tiny plot of land for low maintenance? What would you use the land for? Do you plan to mow a lawn or pay someone else to do it for you? For me, land could have been, and was a deal breaker for quite a few homes we looked at. I could have loved the house, but would have been heartbroken if I did not have at least a little space to grow something.
Another thing to think about when it comes to land is do you care if it is a shared space, fenced, or not fenced, or how much privacy do you want? Keep in mind that fencing does cost quite a bit. Do you have the budget to fence your yard? I was not ok with shared spaces. I like my privacy. While the new place has a fence, it is maybe 4 feet and chain link, so not much privacy. Rather than spend thousands on fencing, I am planting trees and bushes instead. Again thinking outside the box.

Does your state offer tax credits for your home? Sometimes there are tax credits related to home buying, home improvement, etc.. It is always good to ask about these and see if you can save some money by utilizing these. We have not spoken with our tax professional yet. We go through the same person each year since it is smart to have someone who helps when you are not single any longer. She helped us know what we should put on our W4s once married to insure we would not owe any money back. Things like that can really help make your tax season awesome. Our lender emails us helpful information about tax breaks and credits that we should ask our tax professional about. As always, save receipts, and any approved donation receipts.
  Since we are moving there is a lot to go through in the garage being that we won’t have one to store things in. Garage sale and donations will most likely be our course of action there. I found out not every used store donation can be counted towards your taxes, it is only certain ones… I thought it was interesting to find that out.

Find moving boxes at local stores rather than pay for them. You would be surprised how much the boxes alone would cost for the move when each box is $1-3… Our landlord had a restoration crew come in and rip out all the floors due to a bathroom leak. They packed up most of our stuff but did not unpack it. We decided to keep the items in the boxes for the next month in prep for the move. We saved boxes from our initial move here, and then plan to get some from the grocery store for the last few.

Make checklists and question lists for everything as you think of it. Trust me when I say things will easily be forgotten. It is best to keep thoughts as organized as possible.

Find out if your house is in a flood zone.

Decide if you want to be in an HOA or not. We did not want to be in an HOA, though some people do because it can help with the resale value of the home. HOA does come with fees though, so bare that in mind when deciding upon it.

Are there any extra perks for the loan or land if you live in one city vs another. For us, moving to the city we did had the bonus perk of irrigation, so we do not have to pay for the outside water. Being that I want a large garden, this was a big bonus for me not having to pay for the outside water expenses. This is not available in the other city we were looking in. Some areas also are limited on whether they offer 0 down or down payment assistance. There is a city near us that offered 0 down because they were trying to get more people to move to the area. Talk to your lender about what is available in the areas close to the one you want to be in. It might change your mind.

Commute. How far are you willing to travel for work? Does that distance change if you are near a high speed or state highway? Sometimes you can live farther out but commute time will be the same depending on the roads, speed limits, and traffic flow. We lucked out being near a high speed road. It allowed us to be farther out but not have a terrible commute time.

Gas or electric. Does it matter to you if the house has gas or electric heat  and oven? It mattered for me as I love to cook, sadly our home did not come with gas, though should easily enough be able  to get a gas line ran to the house. Something to think about when buying a home.

What internet and tv options are available in that area? Will there be a fee if you have to switch providers when you move?

How much time to do you have to search, close, pack, move etc?

I am sure I could think of a ton more things to ask yourself but this should suffice for examples for now.

Gardens, the welcoming of Spring, and paintings

It has been pretty busy for me for the past little while.  Been slowly stocking up on new shop supplies like bottles, jars, wire, etc.
There was a beautiful Super Moon out Saturday night. I was able to take advantage of the full moon and blessed all the little herb and flower seed packets I got recently under the moon. I planted those seeds Sunday. This is one of the trays of herbs from my garden which I am starting indoors.
Its a horrible phone snapshot but I wanted to show you what I have going on.


It has been a long time since I have had my own garden to tend to. Too long if you ask me. I did have two pots of herbs and some potted flowers last summer but I don’t really count that as much of a real garden. Almost no harvesting was involved, though yes I still had to water them.

Last years flowers.

I loved all the bright mix of colors. It was kind of a spur of the moment garden.
This one I have planted yesterday was a bit more planned out yet still a very spur of the moment thing since I had only thought about wanting one and then one day just decided to get the stuff to do it while I was at the store. I am glad I did :)


All the thoughts about different gardens reminded me of some beautiful terrarium pictures I had come across awhile back. I had thought of trying this at some point if I ever came across the right plants to put in them.

Here are some of the lovely pictures I came across.

 


They are all so very beautiful and inspiring. Most require you to spray them with water every day… while the ones in the boxes at the top I believe have air herbs in them and only require you to spray them once a week. They are lovely and I would love to have a bunch of these scattered throughout my house.

Putting them in large apothecary jars is defiantly something I would like for obvious reasons.


One of the things I love about the Spring and Fall seasons is all the extra creativity and inspiration. My muse and I are a lot more active during these months. I get more paintings done, more things made, get to enjoy all that nature has to offer.
In saying all of that, I have been working on the painting I have been commissioned to do again. Lots of work getting done on it now rather than small little bits and pieces. I knew it might get put on the back shelf during Winter. I am just am more inspired to paint during the Spring and do not wish to force creativity to flow when there is none for that subject. I have yet to train my muse to be there on command. I am not sure I will ever be able to… but at least I know when to predict it to pop up and help inspire me in the right ways.
Not only have I been working diligently on this painting, which is turning out quite wonderfully, but I have also started working on an old unfinished painting of mine. I had put it on the back shelf for quite awhile not sure what to do with it… I decided today that the lotus needed to be repainted. I already knew the yellow was not the color I wanted but was not sure what color I DID want. I decided on two purples and letting a bit of the yellow peak through. That’s what I worked on today. I also added a little bit of dark green to the outer edges of the lily pads.
This is what resulted from it. The painting is in no way done yet.


I am a lot happier with this color than I was the last. I did not even take pictures of the yellow lotus I disliked it that much. Everything is trial and error. It turned out it was good that I painted it yellow at first since it helped with the peek-a-boo color effect I really like.
Everything on this painting was done in acrylics except for the dragonfly wings which are real and from two different species of dragonfly. Dragonfly expired naturally and was not killed for the sake of the painting. The dragonfly’s body was painted, only the wings are real.
I still have not mapped out everything that will go on this painting yet. To be honest it is just kind of coming together piece by piece. I have ideas for what I would like to add to it but nothing is carved on granite yet. Fixing the lotus really does help me to think of more things that I could incorporate into it though.

I am sure I will get back to work on my Funeral Home for the Strange and Deranged this Fall. It is a Fall themed painting and was started but unable to be finished during the season.
This is a picture of Funeral Home for the Strange and Deranged. I need to take better pictures during the day with a better quality camera at some point.

There is a lot of detail to this painting that you cannot see with this picture sadly. Like all the different colors in the bark of the tree. Even this photo does not show it well enough but still better than the one above for the tree.

I recently  got some more colors of acrylic paint which will help with blending new different colors together. I have already started using them. I also got another brush I am having fun using as well.

My A Grave Night painting is obviously done and available for purchase. Its on 11x14 canvas done in acrylics. Email me at Lotus_Moon@hotmail.com if are interested in possibly purchasing the painting and would like more information.