Vegetable Garden for 2023

What is my favorite day of the gardening season?  My favorite day is the 1st day digging into the garden for the the initial seeds of the season. It is about four weeks away. As we prepare for the 2023 Veggie garden, I was working on the design a few weeks ago.  As we stared some seeds, our excitement builds.  

The most important element to keeping our garden happy is the homemade compost we add to the soil every year.  happy to have soaker hoses in the gardens so the water goes only where we need it.  

Shown are a few of the early sprouts of our vegetables and Morrisonite in gold statement pendant.

Black Lives Matter

Free the People ROC is the group in Rochester, NY.  

 Free the People ROC

 

We need to support our brothers and sisters.

#bekind
#blacklivesmatter 
#blm 
#standup
#listen
#lovewins

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Celebration of Fruits

Happy Garden 

Celebration of Fruits in this happy garden.  The red & black raspberries are doing well.  Watering  them frequently helps.  Most years the first tomatoes are early July.  the wait on them had been LONG this year.  The darkness on the top of the fruit belongs.  these are Indigo Blue tomatoes from Harris Seed.  Surprised they are the first ripe fruits of 2020 on my tomatoes. We are growing 7 varieties of tomatoes this year. 

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My cucumber vines are extremely happy this years. They climb a trellis which is over four feet tall and they have completely overgrown.  This is necessary here in my Rochester, NY garden to keep mildew away and to keep slugs off my fruits.  Hope to have some to harvest in the next 10 days.  The two recent rains have helped with over 2 inches each in the past two weeks.  We use soaker hoses to keep the vegetable garden alts watered which keeps our water use to a minimum.  It gives a deep soaking on the roots of the plants and helps prevent issues from wet foliage. One of the smartest changes int he garden for us.  in under 2 hours we have the 12" by 35' garden watered.  during the heat wave we do this every other day. 

For every $100 you spend at a local business,  $68 stays in the community. Black Lives Matter!  Flatten the curve. Wear A Mask. Stay Safe.

Sterling Silver Pendant 

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 I Can't Breathe
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and read from fact checked news sources.  As a supporter I need to speak up.  Please join me.

May is Here with Warmth

 Garden

Lettuce & snowpeas

 Mother Nature is warming up this week and we will return to normal temperatures.Having been about 20 degrees below normal for about a month, it is slow growing in the garden.  My experience & knowledge has kept my plants alive.   I have small greens right now and harvested some voluntary Chard from the 2019 planting. this is an image form a warmer spring. 

 

Zinneas

Why I love gardening.... from my Grandma on my dad's side. Growing up I helped her in her gardens.  I have fond memories of her yard in the spring bursting with colors. Some of the flowers in Grandma's garden: roses, zinnias, geraniums, peonies, sweet potato vine,  pansies, petunias, snapdragons and many others.  She had a second garden at the family cottage up north of Alexandria Bay, NY in the 1000 islands. The flowers were in whiskey type barrels at the entrance to the front porch.  She was always happy to tell me the name of any flowers we saw.  My favorite up at the cottage was the wild snapdragons which were everywhere along the privet road.  An especially fun activity for me was walking up the hill with my father.  As I was coming back down with snapdragons.Grandma always put them in a glass on the kitchen table.

Gemstones

I sell rocks! Do you know a jewelry designer or small local Jewelry store?  As a lapidary,  I custom cut my own gemstones.  There are many one of a kind cabochons I sell both retail and wholesale.  Please feel free to contact me if you have a friend with a shop who uses one of a kind gemstones. .  The rocks I sell are available uncut as slabs for those who enjoy the lapidary work as I do.  Always happy to talk about rocks, gemstones and lapidary passion.  Links at the end of this post.

Challenges

As we move into the the third month of the Covid 19 pandemic here in my state I feel a bit unsettled . As an artist, I feel the isolation and the difficulty of how this is affecting so many in the USA. When will it end, I often ask myself.  The unprecedented way the federal government is handling this pandemic is appalling. I am proud to be in new York state because of the fantastic leader we have in governor Cuomo.  His leadership is an example of what we want to see in a time of crisis like this.  He has created partnerships with other states and together they are making decisions which will benefit the greater good of all those in the north eastern USA.  I am reminded of the feelings I had before & during my recovery after  my knee reconstruction 5 years ago.  The main difference is I felt the outcome was certain as long as focused on & worked my PT(physical therapy) daily.  To thrive we must focus on what we can control and the positive things we are learning daily.  We will survive this and we will be educated on what needs to be done the next time we face a crisis.  Stay strong, stay home, flatten the curve &  use your favorite video app on your phone or computer to stay connected with your family at this time.

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 In NY OMH Emotional Support Helpline: 1-844-863-9314

  help:https://omh.ny.gov/omhweb/covid-19-resources.html

May the spring season bring new growth and life into your world. 

Yes it is Spring

As an avid gardener my spring plants for the veggie garden do not wait for the frost to go away.  They are large enough for transplant but my muddy garden is not ready for them.  There are both plus and minus to  homegrown plants.   My tomatoes are six inches tall right now & they smell fantastic.   We may try to remove & dry some of the soil to help them.


My giveback at this time is hosting an artist chat once a week.  Started last week.  Sure feels good to connect with like minded creatives right now.  Hard to be in isolation as an artist. Making a few new wearable works of wire art.

Working on adding more of my gemstones & finished jewelry to the website.  Time consuming to edit all the pics need to show the detail in the pieces.  Please take a look and let me know what you like.  Have some quarts points on FB and a few pewter beads for you to do your own DIY jewelry.  There are kits from $10 each for earrings.

Find memories of sisterhood from the trip to DC & our Womens' March on Washington 1/21/17.  Met some great ladies and felt a sense of sisterhood and love from the gathering.

Womens' March on Washington 2017

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Please remember to be kind.  We will get through this difficult time as long as we are together.  PM if interested in the Artist chats.Stay safe & show your love to others via face time, zoom or other social distancing choices.

New Normal and Garden Update

Spring Garden Update

Patience is a virtue .  We are reminded of the importance of this virtue in the month of March . My garden is asking for my patience for my snow peas to sprout.   My bulbs are not waiting for April to show us it is spring. Thanks to the climate crisis the bulbs are earlier every year.  I have mini daffodils opening their blooms in my backyard garden.   Seeing the blooms at the same time as snowdrops lets me know the flowers are confused.

Plan to transplant some of my mustard into the ground next week.  need the ground to dry some before cultivation.



New Normal

This has been a difficult blog to write at this time in our nation .

 With the pandemic taking its toll on the world as well as the huge impact on my state of NY I struggled. Should I share my quandary and show how an artist reacts to this or stay silent?  This was my quandary this week.

common terms this spring new normal, pandemic, stay home flattenthecurve.  Not comfortable with this but surviving with my focus on the positive.  Creating art is not a daily occurrence.  Working to get back to my lapidary creations.    

The upside is the ability to appreciate things we used to take for granted.  A walk along the canal path with my sweetheart earlier this week & I have this beautiful pic of the sky.  we small business owners are hit hard by the changes we have all had to make.


We Artists are creating art - look for it.  Please make an extra effort to buy from local business especially artists to support small biz in your area.

Pond resident, Ferdinan announcing it is spring.  His winter nap is over and he is happy to sun himself in the top of this pot.

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Spring Arrives Yipee

Happy  for the arrival of spring this week.  3/19 is the first day of spring.  Late last week the snipes were planted.  the wait for their sprouts has begun.  The veggie garden for 2020 has been started.  Happy dance over here.

The beautiful sweet "fruit" to the right is what we will harvest from the garden later in spring.  Nothing is tastier than fresh picked snipes.  The first ones never even make it inside the house - they are subject to finger blight by me.  

We are practicing safety here in the workshop, garden and life.  Use common sense always.  Injury is never easy to avoid.  Safety glasses are always used when I create my work.Finger Blight : the condition used to describe the picking of fruits or vegetables before they are done.  also used to describe the theft of same fruits or vegetables.





One copper bangle and the copper earrings which are so popular right now.  Feel free to PM or reach out if you need one for your very own.  Custom color matching is always available.  Lapidary here so freeform cabochons are always ready to be set into the metal of your choice.





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Reminder order early for special occasions like Passover, Easter, Mother's Day.

February Family Memories

I welcome the end of this month because spring is in March.  As many of you know, I am an avid gardener.  Another annual event is remembering my Father & his Mother both of whom have birthdays the end of the month.  They both showed me strong family, love & tolerance for all. This year the month adds another family memory, the passing of my father's middle brother, Russell.  My Uncle Russell passed away & his service was Saturday, 2/22.

My Grandmother loved gardening and her flowers were a show of her dedication to nature.  This was obvious at her home in the NE area is the city of Rochester & the summer home her husband build in the 1000 Islands in St Lawrence county. One of my favorite flowers in her garden was the Peonies.  She had both the pink & the white flowering plants.This is the pink flowering type in my backyard garden.  When they first bloomed here my only thought when I inhaled the intoxicating aroma was of Grandma.



As I enjoy the sprouts of my tomatoes & bell peppers, I think of my family and the fantastic gardens at Grandma & Grandpa's house when I was a child. The Blackberries & Red Raspberries were always harvested by my sister & I.  Amazing that any of the fruits made it into the house by the color of our hands from the harvest of the super juicy berries.This is the view from the dock at the summer place several years ago.  The water lilies are wild there and helped me to have my own backyard pond.  the sound of the water takes me back to the cottage in the 1000 islands and many summer weekends with my father when I was a child.

Habitat for Humanity Women Build 2013

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Garden Design Day 2020 SEASON

My favorite day is the 1st day digging into the garden for the the initial seeds of the season. It is about 2 months away. to prepare for the 2020 Veggie garden, I was working on the design last week. Today, we ordered some seeds of a few varieties we ran out of from last year.

Harvest 2017

Bell pepper seeds will be planted today. Our garden is planted for success.  We use a three year crop rotation to rest the soil and increase production for the Vegetable.  Hoping Mother Natures helps this years by giving a good freeze for the 6 weeks necessary to kill the pests from last year. The yo yo temperatures and wet spring increased disease last year and made it difficult for local farmers to plant crops.


PBS article about the difficulties last spring.  "For farmers, record flooding and a wet spring mean many fields can’t be planted" 2019 Wet Spring PBS Newshour

Looking forward to the seeds sprouting and the growing to begin in my plants. Several inches of snow on the ground now & below freezing temperatures outside.  Yes it is winter in Rochester, NY.

1/19/20 NOW members

Last Month I was able to attend the Womens March in Seneca Falls.  There were three fantastic days of sisterhood in this historic area. This is part of our NOW, National Organization for Women,  group on the 3rd day of the event at the First Presbyterian Church of Seneca Falls.  Yes that is me in the feminist t shirt left of center.

Relatively new style in copper per customer requests for more copper please.  Also have copper bracelets, anklets, necklaces & tiaras.
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Planting the Vegetables

Greetings Everyone,

 This post I wanted to tell you all about the enjoyment of growing my own vegetables and planting them outside in the garden......... 

As is typical Rochester, NY weather for late March – outside warms to feel like spring and then cools to freezing-  changing daily.  It is definitely  more extreme with Global Warming. There will be some snow this weekend to welcome in April.  That is normal here so we must be patient with the weather roller coaster as the season begins.

I have just sneaked a peek at my seedlings and I’m surprised at how big they are.  They are coming along very nicely and are big enough to be recognizable - at least to those who know vegetable plants - with some being easier to identify than others.  The pots these are in are 4 inches to give you scale. Online there seem to be so many photos of newly sprouted seedlings but they seem somewhat redundant (just little green sprouts).

One of my inspirational flowers from my garden to show us Winter is done.  It is always wonderful when the snow melts and the flowers emerge into the landscape with their pop of fragrance and color.    

The seedling shown today are a beautiful array of shades of green.  I will thin them again and  eat the thinned leaves.  Home grown is always the BEST!  Any guess what these are?  

My work is organic and uses gemstones I cut and  precious metal wire for the OOAK settings I design. Show your love with a OOAK custom creation form Panda Wear for Grandma, Sister, Aunt, Wife, or Mother.  Panda Wear is taking your orders for Mother's Day.  Make the best gift, buy local and support the artists in your city or town.   

One of my necklace pendants showing off a stunning seashell set in 14 ktgf.

Natural Shell set in 14 ktgf.

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Not quite planting outside, yet.  The countdown to outside planting continues.  Very soon......  the beginning of April. 

May your garden be happy and your weed be few.