Oxiding and Garden Break

Friday I spent much of the day glazing and oxiding a load for the kiln. I love the finished effect of oxiding my work but I don't enjoy the elbow work in getting the look I want. It is pretty simple in technique, simply brush on the iron oxide mix, let it dry, then rub, rub, rub with a damp rag taking off as much of the oxide as desired. It's a messy job and my wrist gets tired so I take lots of breaks.

 The tiles on the right have been rubbed. The ones on the left and below are awaiting the rag rubbing. Then all will be loaded into the kiln to be fired with the glaze load.

Because it was so beautiful outside I kept popping out to the yard to water the garden, dead-head the daisies, pull some weeks, etc. This is our wild-flower garden right now ..... We've added an extension so we'll be doing some more planting soon.You need to click on the garden photo to see the wild flowers.

Garden and Cards

 Having space left in my last kiln load, I quickly rolled out, stamped and shaped several embellishments for these cards that I recently became addicted to making.  The fabrics are cut from upholstery samples, stitched and mounted. Then the surprisingly time consuming but fun job of choosing a piece of clay to stitch in place.

We've had our little garden for over a year now. I'm not an avid gardener but my thumb is gradually getting a little greener. Above is a shot of the cilantro that is nearing the end of its season. I'm hoping I'll have some coriander once those flowers go to seed. 

Below I experimented with Picasso to label my garden! My broccoli never became larger than bite size before going to flower. Maybe it needs more sun. The dill too is starting to go to seed as the weather warms up, the peppers are just starting into their season and the arugula keeps getting a second and third life. Oh the arugula didn't make it into the photo. It is below the peppers. 

On the other side of the house the black ti's are showing off these gorgeous flowers!

And back to the garden side, my little cherry tomatoes are yummy but something is happening to the leaves. Anyone know what it is?

South Park and The Garden

Ever since we moved into our house in South Florida we've been trying to make the yard special; another room of the house. We had a landscaper redo some of our yard shortly after we moved-in about eight years ago. But much of what was planted didn't suite the location or perhaps we didn't water enough. My husband is big on environmental issues and doesn't like to water often. He has since spent a lot of hours reading and learning about native yards. I thought he could just go ahead and landscape our yard himself, but he thought it best to find a landscaper who works with native plantings. He was right, and after much searching we found someone who put in the time and lots of effort to get our yard just as we had envisioned. Well, actually not as we had envisioned because it turned out much better than either of us thought it could! Below is how our wildflower garden looked when it first went in. I was happy!

 

But it has grown more than I imagined it could!

On the south side, which used to be totally plain and unused lawn, is where our landscaper created a surprize with lots of native plantings. I had mentioned that I would like to some day have a veggie/herb garden so she created this fabulous space where we can gradually add our little garden and in the meantime the native plants will grow without all the water that most landscape plants require.

My first experiment with the herb/veggie garden is doing pretty well. It looks like next week we should have our first green pepper and perhaps if I wait a little longer, first red pepper! And we are finding new uses for fresh basil .... our latest favorite is as a topping for baked potatoes with a little olive oil and pepper.

Thanks to Jane our landscaper! (Indian Trail Native Nursery)