Knitting Season

It's that time of year again.

End of Summer Resolution

Just in case you wanted to look at the things that I've been making as of late, check out my art blog for regular postings of daily sketches and drawings. My new end of summer mantra is this:

So I'm hoping to post more because of that. I'm also hoping that this will be the right kick in the pants I need to keep up a good creative habit and not get too overwhelmed with school.

Red Bank/Erie Food Forest

The Red Bank/Erie Food Forest plot is a somewhat troubled site. Because it doesn't have any city water attached to it it is completely dependent on rainwater -- of which we've had very little for the majority of the summer. As of now, it looks really great and green because we've had rain off and on the last couple weeks. Yesterday we went out and readied the area for an art project that will combine the arts and agriculture. The round tilled area will be planted with a paw paw colony (a native fruit tree to Southwest Ohio). We removed a lot of rotting logs that were used for hügelkultur beds, weeded, leveled the area and then tilled.

The site will still continue to make use of berms and swales as a means of catching water and keeping it on-site.

As my time in the community gardens comes to a close, the Civic Garden Center has been fortunate enough to get a work study student from Cincinnati State College and our time has overlapped.

Peter has been gracious enough to keep extending my hours (to the end of the growing season?) even though my internship has technically ended. However, my internship has morphed into being a Field Trip Facilitator at the Green Learning Station. I now work with middle and high school aged children talking about compost, diverting rain water from sewers, and growing vegetables in gardens and on roofs. So far, I'm really enjoying myself. Today I was in the West End Community Garden working by myself. I've been working on getting their compost in order, and Peter and I have been working on getting the fence free of unwanted vining weeds (aka morning glory, bind weed, wild grape, etc.). I don't know why it took me so long, but it occurred to me that I had a macro-focus on the camera I've been using all summer long. And I hadn't been using it! How barbaric. The lovely/disgusting and oh-so-damaging tomato horn worm.

Locust.

Monarch butterfly ex-body.

Morning Glory and bind weed pretty bits.

I really can't believe I went 4 months without using macro-focus.

Tiny Asparagus

In the middle of August I collected some asparagus seeds from a female asparagus plant. A week later I planted them, unsure of what would happen: germination? failure? Anything was possible. So when the first asparagus germinated I squealed with delight!

Then each pot germinated, some starting shortly after the first, some taking a week longer. They're growing at the rate of about an inch every 24 hours. Wow!

In July I was given some Malabar spinach and it's growing steadily. It's not super prolific at the moment but at the very least I'll be able to collect the seeds and plant it again next year. This is what the berries look like.

I thinned some strawberries at work and took some home and these guys are doing really well.

And my basil is doing remarkably well too. I've been able to harvest a good deal even though I planted really late. Hello pesto!

My cactus set out a baby but it didn't do so well and gave up pretty quickly. Not sure what happened. This is what a baby cactus looks like on the mother plant.

All in all, my fire escape "garden" is doing well. I'm hoping next year I'll be able to have a garden in the ground. We'll see how that goes.

Site Under Construction

I've been feeling very non-commital to my blog layout and design lately. I'll be playing around with the look and feel of my blog for a bit longer until I've found something I enjoy. In other news, I just read Youth in Revolt by C.D. Payne and I highly recommend it. I haven't laughed that hard since I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson.

Go ahead and read it.