In my previous post Garden Crafts: Pressing Flowers I shared how I have been preserving my garden by pressing and drying flowers and leaves. I thought I would take a minute to share with you some of what I did with those dried pressed flowers. I purchased some blank note cards at my craft store and applied Matte Modge Podge to the card, applied the flower or leaf and then sealed it over with more Modge Podge. I used them immediately to send thank you cards and a birthday greeting and learned they didn’t all travel well. To make sure the delicate petals don’t flake off make sure they are placed on a nice layer of Modge Podge and that they are entirely covered in Modge Podge to seal them in. After I learned this I included a rectangle of parchment paper to protect the front of the card from sticking to the envelope. I also used some elements from my spice cupboard by adding poppy seeds to give it texture and outline the delicate white petals.
Note cards created with dried pressed flowers.Note cards created with dried pressed flowers.
Now that it is autumn in Michigan I have loaded up my flower press with leaves I’ve collected. I am unsure if they will keep their brilliant fall colors but I am hopeful.
I am trying to collect enough flowers and leaves etc. to have on hand the materials to design more cards over the winter and perhaps try framing some to hang on the walls. I hope this has inspired you to “harvest” items from your garden in a new way. Enjoy!
I’ve dreamed of growing flowers that can be cut and used in floral arrangements. Unfortunately, my cats prevent me from having nice things including houseplants, cut flowers and nice furniture. The tuxedo cat is Simon (the destroyer of floral arrangements) and the tabby cat is Kimber (the destroyer of houseplants).
Years ago my mother-in-law gave me her flower press which consists of two wooden boards held together with screws and wing nuts. It contains layers of paper to absorb the moisture in the plants. I refreshed the old paper and replaced it with cardboard, construction paper, paper towels and parchment paper. I positioned the fresh flowers between the paper towel and parchment paper to both prevent sticking and absorb moisture. Of course you don’t need a flower press, a heavy book will do. You can speed up the process by using the microwave (YouTube tutorial here: https://youtu.be/IIb879Uhda8) however you will not be able to get them as flat as the flower press which is an important detail for some projects. I marked my calendar and tightened the screws after a week and removed them after two weeks. Your results may vary depending on the types of flowers and conditions in your home.
I was most impressed by the roses which flattened out and dried into cute little button shapes. The petunias surprised me by starting out red and ending up purple!? The pressed petunias were translucent, delicate and painfully thin. I was disappointed that the nasturtium lost some of the painterly effect seen in the leaves prior to drying. The small coreopsis petals hung together well and dried beautifully.
I decided that the best way to store these delicate beauties would be under sheet protectors. I filled the sleeves with card stock and gently placed the dried flowers, leaves and ferns into the sleeve. The static under the plastic was frustrating for placement but was just what I needed to keep them from falling out. Now I have a binder to help me store and collect the delicate specimens. Next, I will use Modge Podge to fasten them to greeting cards or position them for framing.
My bedroom has floral Audubon prints and I imagine framed pressed flowers will be a welcome addition. I hope that preserving the garden in this way will reminded me of the warm summer months when we are deep in a Michigan winter.
Every spring the chipmunks and squirrels divert sunflower seeds from the bird feeder and plant them in the garden beds and flower pots. I pull up a lot of the subsequent sprouts however a few make it through or I appreciate the placement and, in the fall a sunflower is born!
As you can see a space next to the trash & recycling bin sheltered this cheerful sunflower. A couple weeks later I came across this scene…
So the question that we toss around year after year is…do the critters plant seeds knowing that they are planting future food sources? or is it an accident? My husband is convinced that they have no idea they are planting future food, he thinks they are just setting aside seeds for later and this is a happy accident. I think…critters know setting these seeds aside will help them in the future and they do this by design. What do you think?
Let me know in the comments below.
[…] my previous post Garden Crafts: Pressing Flowers I shared how I have been preserving my garden by pressing and…
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This summer I did a good deal of gardening. I came across a large inexpensive planter and was inspired to grow an elephant ear bulb for the first time. I was intrigued by the idea that I could make a small investment (I think I paid around $7.00) and get a long lasting “pet” of a plant. My elephant started as a softball sized root ball and I put it in the center and planted Caladium around it.
Here is the planter after one month.
The planter lived on this ugly cement slab in my backyard on the south east side of the house. It required daily watering and regular feeding to get the leaves to measure up to 20 inches long and shoulder height (I regret I did not get a photo of it when it was large) but it was a cheerful companion in the garden and did a nice job of adding some lushness and covering up an ugly recycling hopper.
I understood that after a hard frost I could bring in the root ball and plant it again next year. I watched a couple YouTube videos to get some instructions. This was the most useful.
Here are some photos of what I found on October 21st in Michigan so I went to dig up my Elephant.
After the first frost.
Root ball dug up.
Here you can see the original bulb.
I wanted to overwinter the Caladiums however many were missing and the ones I found were slimy. If you look closely you will be able to see the multiple off shoots that grew from the one bulb that gives me hope that I will have a lot of plant growth next year.
So my Elephant is going to hang out in this box in the basement for the winter. I am going to check on it frequently to make sure it is not too moist or too dry etc and then leave it alone. Fingers crossed.
In Spring 2018 we added two dogs to our family of three humans and two cats. Of course certain chores accompany pet ownership and I am the person most often on poop patrol. I got this job for a couple of reasons, but primarily they all lead back to… I don’t want to step in poop. Interestingly this morning as I was scanning for poop (and sticks) preparing to mow the lawn, I noticed that there was a lot going on down there.
I attribute these mushrooms to years of mulching grass clippings and fallen leaves into the lawn and not to dog poop, but I could be wrong. Here is what I learned:
The Jack-O-Lantern mushrooms will glow in the dark faintly and make you very very sick if eaten.
The Stinkhorn Mushroom really does stink and looks like severed fingers after you mow over it in the lawn…gasp!
Meadow Mushrooms
I am giving this impressive collection its own slideshow so you can see how big it is and how cheerful in the lawn.
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Others I found..
I’m trying to refrain from putting in a silly amount of photos..
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So, to be fair those amazing Jack-O-Lantern Mushrooms were growing down the street from me and not in my lawn however they are so impressive I knew you would want to see them. I am confident that these are correctly identified because I asked my uncle John Trestrail and he is a poison specialist, he said don’t eat them. I guess eager mushroom hunters can mistake them for Chanterelle’s. There was at least one other mushroom out there that day but I could not figure out what it was, and I am certain that I may have mislabeled some here, so if you know better leave me a comment.
Back to the little stinkers…
So it felt wrong to introduce my menagerie of pets (and their poop) without including photos of them so here we go…
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Yes, all of the sweaters are knit by me, one of the perks of owning small dogs in Michigan. Cats are not any fun to knit for however, they do like a plush knitted square to sit on year round.
Next time you get a good rain, stop to study what is growing, it may be far more then you ever imagined.
So this summer heralded a lot of lifestyle changes for my family and, having more time than money I thought I would try to grow some vegetables. I was inspired by what I found in my shed: decades old EarthBox’s. An EarthBox is a planter that is designed to be filled with potting soil, fertilizer + lime, covered in plastic and watered through a tube. In addition to the three planters I already owned, I inherited three from my mother-in-law so I knew I could grow a lot of plants and have a generous bounty.
EarthBox’s being prepared for planting. I used trash bags and duct tape instead of ordering their specialized cover.
EarthBox’s on day one and day 31.
As you can see I was pretty determined to avoid weeding, and mowing around planters (been there, done that, no thanks.) I put down weed barrier fabric and bark mulch; to keep everything in place I used a handy edging system. This year we also added two small dogs to our family and keeping them away from my veg was important (read: don’t pee on the veg.) By creating a permanent home for the container garden I hoped I could allow the planters to overwinter in place and get refreshed with new fertilizer and topped off with potting soil, covered and replanted in the spring. I put the planter’s on 2×4’s, in case they needed to be moved and to avoid the drain holes getting clogged by bark mulch.
If you are a skilled gardener you may notice my naive belief that the tripod I constructed would be adequate support for SIX cucumber vines. I have never met a cucumber vine, I just know we like cucumbers and I quickly had to build another 8 foot tall tripod as well as a trellis on the deck railing to support the vines. In the end I think the vines grew about 20 feet long and climbed over 10 feet high.
Six Burpless Cucumber Vines finding their way up a tripod and trellis.
I also learned something about the difference between determinate and indeterminate tomato plants. Because the entire project was born out of a desire to have vegetables and do very little work I did not take seriously the invitation to “pinch” tomato plants. This failure triggered the construction of more 8 foot tall tripods to respond to a 12 foot tall tomato plant. No, not even at this point did I think about pruning, I think I was so delighted to watch everything grow. Eventually my daughter and I cut off the tops of the tomato plants because we couldn’t build anything tall enough to support the heavy fruits.
June 27th- My in-determinant tomato plant has a mind of its own, cute at first but then just crazy.
Taking Stock: What I Would Do Differently.
I put one bush style Roma tomato and one slicing tomato in an Earthbox. I think I would avoid this configuration in the future. The slicing tomato got huge and took all of the water and nutrients and the Romas did poorly. While I will want four tomato plants again I need to rethink who bunks with whom.
I planted one EarthBox with six bush style green beans. This was a lot of fun and I was able to pick green beans everyday and by the end of the week we had a healthy collection of beans to eat on Saturday. The plants continued to provide beans all summer and we would still be in October if a bunny had not taken out a lot of the plants.
I put six pepper plants in one EarthBox; this was pretty successful and I would have gotten more bell peppers if I had staked them better. One plant was badly broken under the weight of the fruit. I talked about my pepper projects in a previous blog post: Hot, Hot, Hot! In the future I won’t need to grow hot peppers and if you have any suggestions for what to plant leave me a comment.
In another EarthBox I planted six different herbs, and other then the quickly wilting cilantro this was a brilliant success. I also planted some Chocolate Mint and Dill in flower pots and was able to harvest and dry a lot of herbs.
The planter full of cucumbers was amazing and was so much fun that I would definitely repeat this set up next year, especially since I have the trellis and tripod already constructed.
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The biggest disappointment and hiccup in the process was running out of nutrients and the development of blossom end rot. The indeterminate tomato took a lot of nutrients and water, as did the cucumbers and because I am a low work, high yield sort of a gardener I didn’t think to begin watering twice a day and providing supplemental fertilizer until the plants were already stressed. Next year I will be sure to add a richer fertilizer when prepping the boxes and begin using a water based fertilizer about 8 weeks in or at the first sign of stress. The EarthBox website makes the claim you can get your entire yield from the fertilizer put into the potting soil before planting. Maybe that can be accomplished with their proprietary blend but not with what I was using. Both the tomato and cucumbers got yellow leaves but eventually responded well to epsom salt and miracle grow added with weekly waterings.
For next year I still have some questions:
When do I stop providing plant food?
How do I know when a plant will stop giving fruit?
If one plant appears done for the season will it harm the others to cut it off at the soil level? Or should I just leave it until I pack up all the plants for the season?
Do I overwinter with the plastic covering on? or off?
How many years can I reuse the potting soil before I should just toss it all and start fresh again?
If my tomatoes did not get as large as stated on the label is it because of light or nutrients?….or both?
I think the project was a success and it gave my family of three enough produce to keep things interesting and to put some food aside for the winter months. If any of my readers have suggestions or feedback it is most welcome.
I love growing hot peppers and the jewels in the crown of my garden this year are the Tabasco Pepper and The Gong Bao Pepper. The plants were beautiful however I suspect their location did not deliver enough sunshine as the Anaheim’s were short and less abundant. I grew four kinds of peppers that are prepared in very different ways.
Serrano- eaten fresh red or green in salsa
Anaheim- roasted and diced, added to anything you want to have a little kick
Gong Bao- dried and crushed to eat on pizza, pasta and soups
Tabasco- mashed and fermented into a hot sauce
I will share more about the hot pepper sauce we are planning to make with the Tabasco Pepper but today I thought I would share how I am preserving my Gong Bao Pepper.
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While the Serrano and Anaheim peppers are meant to be eaten green the Gong Bao are intended to be a brilliant red pepper with thin walls, good flavor and moderately intense heat. This plant was so beautiful and delivered red peppers in July and continues to produce into October. So that I don’t get overwhelmed I created some ristras.
Creating a ristra with needle, sturdy thread and gloves to protect my fingers from the hot juice.
This is a simple process of stringing the chilis together and hanging them in a dry airy place. In past years I have strung chilis by piercing them at their stem however when they dry the stems want to fall off and this can make the ristra more fragile. Here I simply pierced them in the middle of each pod and keep the needle attached so that I can add more as they ripen and are harvested. When full I tie it to some cardboard and start another. Don’t forget to wear gloves for this project the fresh chilis will emit juice when pierced with a needle.
Gong Pao Thai Chili ristras hanging in my family room alongside some rosemary and sage.
Eventually these will be dry enough to process into red chili flakes. The green stems are removed and the pods placed into a blender. Depending on the level of heat you enjoy you can remove some of the seeds for a milder effect. My husband likes to grind them with a spice/coffee mill and put it in a shaker so hot pepper can be added to everything.
In 2011 my husband James innocently brought home a Niagara Grape Vine and asked me “where should we plant it?” I thought our stark chainlink fence separating the front and back yards would be a nice structure to support the vine and, into the ground it went. On September 8th, 2013 we got our first (and best) harvest of grapes.
Niagara Grapes, West Michigan 2013
Niagara Grape Harvest
Niagara Grape Jelly 2013
Single Niagara Grape vine growing on fence in 2018.
It was a big project but I made some mediocre grape jelly which was tasty but runny. Most years we allow the birds (often Cardinals) to have the grapes (and raisins); the primary harvest for myself has been the VINE! Since I started using grapevines for projects in 2014 I have learned a few things about crafting with vines, here is what you need to know:
Supplies:
Gloves
Pruning shears
Measuring tape (so you know how big your wreath will be)
There is a sweet spot for working with grapevines. Too soon and you might as well be working with asparagus, too late and you are working with toothpicks. I have made both of these errors. This photo shows the magic balance between green vines and drier areas that are darker in appearance. If the canes are too dry they can be soaked in water to make them less brittle and if they are too green you can let them dry out a day, maybe two. Even if the canes break or splinter you can continue to make loops and wrap them up. When the globes or wreaths are dry you can adjust the vines to improve the overall appearance.
Grapevine Wreath
I usually start from the ends of the individual vines and remove leaves with my hands and then with sheers trim the tendrils away from the fencing and other vines to produce a pile of canes. I sort the largest canes for bigger wreaths and begin arranging them in circles using the longest most flexible vines to wrap around the bulk to secure the wreath.
Vines stripped of their leaves.
Wreaths set out to dry.
This year (2018) I got started a little too early and the vines were easily broken (like asparagus) but I had a lot of them so I pushed ahead anyway. As you can see one grapevine in a sunny location in West Michigan can give you a lot of material to work with.
Because in past years I have made a lot of wreathes, I was interested in trying some 3-D globes I saw on Pinterest. Off to the Dollar Tree I went for some beach balls. They worked well to hold up the vines while I wrapped them. In addition to these globes I made a smaller one freestyle without an armature; and some larger wreath shapes (since I already have some small and medium wreaths from last year.) It takes a couple days in the sun for the vines to dry and turn reddish brown. I fed my failed attempt to fashion a basket to Donald https://piratepieman.home.blog/2018/09/11/feeding-donald-our-hot-compost. It was so bad it couldn’t even be photographed well.
Grapevine wrapped beachball to create a globe.
Overlapping first few vines to secure the base shape.
I tried to keep the vine’s tendrils for visual interest.
2018 grape vine projects.
And once your shapes have dried you are ready to start doing some crafting. I have not fully sorted out what I am going to do with my new globes so if you have any suggestions please leave them in the comments below.
Examples of how to decorate your grapevine wreaths.
Autumn wreath embellished with pinecones and artificial flowers.
I gave a wreath to my friend DeLight and she created this glorious monogrammed beauty.
Winter wreath
Halloween wreath.
Look for my tutorial on making the Halloween Wreath here:
Five years ago a majestic Maple tree in my front yard was torn apart by wind and had to be removed leaving a tragic scar. I have never done any serious landscape work and found myself pretty overwhelmed. I wanted to hire people, my husband did not. He wanted to level it and plant grass and I wanted a garden with flowers. So, it sat untouched for years; which allowed the tree roots to decompose. Last year my husband and I (mostly my husband) moved the Vinca and turned the soil to kill the crabgrass and outlined the bed. Finally, this summer I threw myself into planting my garden. Lots of credit should go to the Better Homes and Gardens “Garden Plan Finder” https://www.bhg.com/gardening/garden-plan-finder/?psrc=MN_R804BRM1455GF I used the “Property Line Garden” https://www.bhg.com/gardening/plans/special-spots/property-line-garden/ as my primary inspiration however selection of the individual plants was inspired by plants that worked for my neighbors or my neighbors gave me, one’s I loved, and nuisance plants I could dig up for free.
Things went pretty well and while it was hot, sweaty, dirty work I started to enjoy myself. When I had other stuff to do I would ignore it and spend time in the garden. I lovingly watered and fertilized and the plants thrived. What I didn’t see coming was the heartbreak.
First Year planting of Property Line Garden West Michigan.
It started with the Deer; whatever the internet or plant care tags say, Deer will eat whatever they decide to eat. Bee’s, there are a lot of bees and much to my dismay cute little bumble bees sting (they are not flying pandas); and so do yellow jackets. Cicada killers are just scary, but didn’t sting me. Sadly, I fall into the category of people who have “moderately severe allergic reaction to bee stings.” And, spider bites, so throw in spiders too. And plants die, or threaten to die and because you love them you will buy potions and do research, trying to keep them alive but you may not know until spring if you succeed.
I am not sure I would begin calling myself a gardener anytime soon, however my garden continues to try to charm me with its finer points including the frogs and toads and caterpillars and squirrels munching mushrooms (which is seriously too cute) and even the spooky stuff is kinda cool (check out the stinkhorn mushrooms and benevolent garden orb weaver.)
Golden Wooly Bear
Stinkhorn Fungus
Black and Yellow Garden Spider
Cope’s Grey Tree Frog
2018 Polyphemus Moth Caterpillar
I’ll let you know if we break up in the spring, but like with most love affairs, I am accepting the good with the bad. The garden is beginning to get compliments (through the four feet of bird netting I had to put up to keep the deer out.)
2018 Property Line Garden
Pink Lemonade Sedum
Zagreb Coreopsis (front) and Perennial Salvia
Plants the deer ate: Day Lily, Red Twig Dogwood, Pink Lemonade Sedum, Purple Cone Flower, Phlox, Artemisia.
Plants the deer have not (yet) eaten: Sprinter Boxwood, Russian Sage, Zagreb Coreopsis, Artemisia, Korean Spice Viburnum (not pictured).
2018 has been full of changes. In addition to the deaths of some dear friends and family, I have had to endure some challenging transitions. As a therapist, I am well acquainted with theories about grief and am practiced in how to offer support, but nowhere is it written you need a cement garden goose. In May, my mother-in-law Pearl moved out of the house she built with her husband in 1957 and into an assisted living facility. It was a chilly day early in the morning and I was sent with a list of things my husband wanted me to buy from the estate sale. I waited in line with thirty or more antique dealers and collectors (she had a lovely doll collection and an array of antique furniture and housewares) and I could see this cement garden goose standing amongst some chairs lined up on the driveway. Boy was I surprised to find myself getting worried that someone might buy this goose before I could claim it. Nowhere on the list was “one garden goose.”
When I met my husband in 1991 and started visiting his parents for dinners and swimming; this cheerful goose named Petunia welcomed everyone at the front door. It was dutifully dressed by Pearl or her grandkids for each of the holidays. When we returned to Michigan after 12 years living in New Mexico, our daughter took over updating Petunia’s outfit. I had no idea this lawn ornament found a place in my heart. While not normally a part of my aesthetic I did not struggle with my need to have it, and it came home with me along with some dolls and a quilt. It was great to see my daughter’s enthusiasm that it was coming to live with us. I think Pearl was as surprised as I was that of all the items in the house Petunia was saved from the sale.
This means now I have a family tradition to uphold, and I am taking the responsibility pretty seriously. Petunia’s wardrobe was a little worse for wear (Raggedy Ann’s handmade dress was torn and sun bleached and her country dress with straw hat couldn’t be saved) but Pinterest was a good source of inspiration. I rejected a lot of the outfit designs that gave Petunia arms, dressed her like a turkey or put her in snorkeling gear- come on SHE IS A GOOSE. But I loved the idea of a hula skirt for summer and she would of course need a halloween costume. I also rejected the idea of painting her. I liked that the grey cement melded with the tones of the weathered deck and the stone details at the front of the house; she looked right at home.
Dollar Tree was a wonderful place to find accessories to help me get started. Since it was summer I knew they would have a lei for her hula costume and I was delighted to find mini patriotic hats for the 4th of July (I have no idea what people need mini hats for if they don’t have a goose of their own.) I fashioned a hula skirt from some sisal rope I encouraged to unravel in tassels. I returned in September and found the sparkly witch hat and a toddler’s fairy skirt that fit petunia perfectly!
Dollar Store hat and skirt.
Dollar Store lei adjusted to fit and made into a hat. Sisal rope hula skirt.
Pearl’s Spring Rain outfit for Petunia.
Pearl’s Easter costume for Petunia.
Dollar Store Hat with an apron from Pearl’s collection.
Remnants of an aged Raggedy Anne outfit.
Pearl’s Santa costume.
Amidst all of the giving up and letting go this little project helped tie my family together. When everything seems quite serious and somewhat dark this silly cement goose reminds me not to take things too seriously and to smile. Petunia says “welcome” at my home now and she does a good job too.
Pearl (2013) the original owner of Petunia the garden goose.
I gave a wreath to my friend DeLight and she created this glorious monogrammed beauty.
I wanted to hire people, my husband did not. He wanted to level it and plant grass and I wanted a garden with flowers. So, it sat untouched for years; which allowed the tree roots to decompose. Last year my husband and I (mostly my husband) moved the Vinca and turned the soil to kill the crabgrass and outlined the bed. Finally, this summer I threw myself into planting my garden. Lots of credit should go to the Better Homes and Gardens “Garden Plan Finder” 
The Pirate Pieman 
[…] my previous post Garden Crafts: Pressing Flowers I shared how I have been preserving my garden by pressing and…