Karla's Cottage

Garden Love

 I'm ready to fill the house with pumpkins from the local patch, the grand fairies and I love to hang out there and spend our time picking the world's best pumpkin out. I like the white or gray ones, Sugarwings likes the small orange ones, and Dewdrop always goes for the very first one she sees.

This little orange one is a drawing I did with the finger painting app on my iPad.  I hope to do a few more paintings with the app on vacation soon with my sisses.  Sitting on a balcony and watching the waves is a perfect time for sketching.

Our garden produced some winners recently. This heirloom tomato was a perfect heart. Which we thought was about as special as can be.  Sugarwings isn't a big tomato fan, but she couldn't get enough heart shaped slices.

Then, what do you know, here comes an orange heart shaped tomato the next day!

Then, we find this.  Our garden loves us as much as we love it.

Sugarwings helped me harvest the potatoes.  But only one was heart shaped.  After all of the special ones we'd found, we were spoiled and slightly disapointed with normal taters.

How can you go back to eating plain old garden produce after you've been treated to this?

So, Sugarwings asked me to cut out french fries with cookie cutter shapes. I was slightly busy that day and almost said no, then remembered that I'd been so busy that morning that I had accidentally sent a thermos of hot water in her school lunch instead of the roasted chicken I was warming up for her. 

I always fill the thermos with hot water, swish it around and heat up the container while I wait for the food to get hot and then I am SUPPOSED to switch hot water for hot food. But this day, it slipped my mind.

So, I made time to fix her a special dinner with all of her favorite things to make up for it. (and her daddy delivered a replacement meal for her that morning, she didn't go hungry)

And really, those french fries didn't take much more time than cutting up regular fries, and were as she said, "The cutest french fries in the whole world."

 

What a year, wowzers!

For 2014's shiny new beginning, I thought I'd look back at 2013's biggest events for me, and show you some of my favorite photos.

Sugarwings starting first grade was major stepping stone in our lives last year.

In my mind, I always picture her like this.  Darn the calendar! The pages flip too fast.

I think the biggest event of 2013 for Dewdrop was the day she received this "fincess" dress.  She has hardly taken it off since October.

(we love that she calls 'princess' 'fincess', because her brother is named, Fin)

Of course, starting a sustainable food forest with a fairy playground on our land was a HUGE move.

When it was in full bloom, and veggies were popping up everywhere, it was the prettiest garden I've ever seen. And to know that this is only the first year, of a lifetime plan, fills me with excitement.

The year began with a longed for trip to Hawaii with my husband's sister, Terry and her husband.  It was the first of many visits with her.  I had a GREAT year of trips and visits with family and friends.

Wow, I'd say it was a record setting year for sistering.  My sisters came here to see me twice, and I went to Indy to see them.

I got to visit darling Guncles, seeing my little bro, Randy FOUR times.

Starting with the pure fabulousness of going to Karen Hillman's Cozy Cottage to teach a class as a surprise birthday gift for her friend. 

I got to introduce Fabulous Karen to Fabulous Randy, and it all led to a Fabulous Black Velvet Christmas party in Jacksonville. 

And seriously, I probably didn't say the word fabulous enough, that word was written just for Karen and Randy. It should never be used to describe anything else, it belongs to them.

I saw Terry again in California when I taught at Kim's Enchanted Affaire, where I met up with good friends that I love like family too.

Painting the mural for the event was a biggie, I loved working on it so much, that I really put myself into it, and every day that I painted was like a little trip to a fairy tale forest.  After the workshop, Kim mailed it back to me and it is now chopped up and stapled in the fairy girls' room

Before it was sliced up, I also used it at Birdsong 3.

Which was another big highlight of my  year.  Oh my, sooooo many nice people came to play at the cottage.  I can't wait for BS4.  Yep, 4, I can't believe it is coming up. I'd better get to planning, huh?

After the CA trip, I went to Disneyland with Terry. Then, for the Hippy Chick's college graduation, we took her and Sugarwings to Disneyworld in Florida. It was a Disney-rific year.

But I have to say that one of the best things I did all year, or maybe in the last ten years, was to take a summer off to be with the kids.

We went to zoos, parks, carnivals, boating, beaches, all sort of things.

We played dress up.

We blew bubbles.

We had craft days. Lots of craft days.

We invented a new game, called "Hoppity Hearts".  It is a bit like Hopscotch without the boring squares. 

Summer spilled over into fall, and we kept on playing.  We saw the Renfest twice.

Even Uncle Ryan came along, just two weeks after his heart attack. His illness was the bad spot of the year, but I have to say, it brought us closer together.


I also got to see good friends again in October on a trip to Georgia. (and yes, that same shirt I'm wearing has been in three other of these photos,I'm surprised it isn't in more. Looks like I got as much use from that shirt as I did from the Enchanted Forest mural)

It was also a year of parties and more classes. I had a small, Valentine workshop in the studio.

And then another group of friends came by for a Christmas ornament making workshop.

 

I was in a few publications too.  My Tiffany's mural from Kim's Affaire at Tiffany's the year before was in Mingle. I wasn't named as the artist, but I still think it counts, don't you?

And it was so special to me to see my Birdsong projects in Jewelry Affaire.  I was in that one earlier in the year for another project too. 

Fifi came out to shoot my cottage for Romantic Country.

And my pal, Carol was here to shoot the studio for Where Women Create.

I must have made hundreds of little birdcages prepping for two classes and an online class I have offered.

And I even did some redos on the house this year.  I made new slip covers for the sofa and pillows for the bedroom. Spiffed up, repainted, rearranged rooms, and recovered a wall.

Yep, 2013 was one for the record books. 

No wonder I'm tired...

 

Nathan Family Fairy Food Forest Fall Update

I hate to see the garden season come to an end.

This year was special with the creation of the Fairy Food Forest that my son and our Gypsy designed and grew.

We had some delicious meals plucked from its mounds.

And fresh flowers popping up all over. The wild flower mixes held varieties that attracted good bugs to eat the bad ones, and some plants were meant simply for bugs to eat, to them them away from a plant we might have wanted to eat ourselves.

This year was just a start. My son says it is a five year plan. This was the basics, more trees and edible shrubs will be going in next spring.

And our baby trees will grow tall and produce for us.

There are swales down one side, that trap rainwater so that it is saved in the garden, not washed down the hillside to the creek.  Next spring, more swales and trees will go in on the other side.

I'm hoping for more arching structures of vines too.  Peas, then beans, then cucumbers all climbed these one after each other.  I think the veggies liked the arches as much as I did. 

The kids loved planting and picking food too.  Both girls knew they could eat tiny, current tomatoes and mini strawberries whenever they saw one ripen.  The yard was organically planted, so no nastiness needed to be washed off before popping a tasty treat into their mouths.

It was nice to see little girls playing outside in the dirt and eating produce right off the plants.

Our kitchen garden, fenced off from bunnies, was a success too.  We are still pulling up carrots and beets.

And we have about 4,000 cardoon plants.  Those seeds really took off and I'm not quite sure what to do with them.

Sadly, we got very few large tomatoes this year, although we had small, salad sized ones daily.  I'd have liked some big, slicing tomatoes for sandwiches and some for making sauce to freeze too.

The raccoons seemed to like the few big tomatoes that ripened. Unless I picked them green and brought them in to finish, the animals beat me to them.

Even with a guard gnome.

This week, we had our first hard freeze. Before we'd even had a light frost.  In Kansas, you just never know.  Last Thanksgiving, I was picking fresh tomatoes.  Some years, we are done before October. 

Before the cold snap came, I was able to get these farewell pictures taken, and my kids planted some cool weather crops that weren't even affected by the freeze. We fixed a big bowl of salad greens up last night. It was lovely to have fresh lettuce at Halloween.

I wonder how long it will be til we are picking apples off this tree?

At the base of it, the kids have planted companion plants. It's a whole different look than what you'd expect from an orchard.  I'm learning a lot about it all, but I still have issues with what looks like weed problems to me.

I did my best to pull up grasses and baby trees, as well as some other pesky things that I knew we didn't plant.  My son said it was unnecessary.  You just "chop and drop", cut off the tops and leave them on the soil for nutrition. 

I was worried about seed heads on the things we didn't want growing there. He says it isn't an issue.

But I wonder how the good things know to reseed and the bad don't? Seems to me like grasses need to go before they go to seed. But he explained that, over time, the fruit and nut bearing trees and shrubs and other forest components work together and fill in so that things you don't want don't grow. Or if they do, it's just a bit here and there.  Apparently, it's not a perfectly manicured look.  It will be wild and unruly, and well, look like a forest.

For now, while the trees and all the plants are small, we are using the mounds for our garden veggies too. But as time goes on, they won't work there and we'll have to move them back to the "kitchen garden".

All of it has been quite the learning curve for me.  Luckily, our Gypsy has a thumb so green, it's practically neon. And my son has a deep love of growing food for his family.

The bounty is barely beginning.  Thinking about the years to come is quite exciting!!

 

 

What is the best part about the long descent from Fall to Winter? Thinking about the holidays!! I hope you'll join me here at the Cottage for my Christmas workshop where we will make 4 projects in one day.   Details in the previous post.

ps- if the weather and the garden cooperate, I'll be serving fresh greens from the food forest at our holiday luncheon on November 23!

Hoppity Hearts and Whammy Time

We've been spending a lot of time outdoors this summer.  Breakfast in the fairy play yard, bubbles in the Food Forest, swimming at the lake, and just plain soaking up some daylight and goofing off.

There has been a lot of side walk chalk involved in our summer fun too.  We have always liked hopscotch, but around here, everything needs to be cranked up a notch.  So, we came up with Hoppity Hearts. It's like hopscotch, but with heart shaped steps. That go on and on and on across the drive way.

And leave it to Sugarwings to add yet another element to a game.  If she isn't making up guidelines, she isn't happy.  So, soon a dress code was added.  Although Dewdrop refused to submit to the dress code, which is why there are no photos of her. All she was wearing was mud.  And lots of it.  While that was pretty cute, I didn't think a totally naked baby was blog material.

Boxes full of blueberry plants had arrived for the Food Forest, and Sugarwings gloms onto any empty box to transform it into part of her games.  And these seemed to be a perfect fit.

The weather has been perfect too. The forest and the work my son and our Gypsy have done is just blowing me away.

There is something tasty to add to our dinner every night, as well as a garden so pretty that I just want to go out and stand there and daydream instead of work.

I love the mix of wildflower seeds in with the veggies.  We have done pretty well bugwise, with the good bugs to eat the bad, and with flowers that keep the nasties away.  It seems to work much better than I'd thought, but we are having trouble now with some squash vine borers.  But pesticides don't work on those anyway, you  have to do surgery on the joints of the vine to cut the varmits out.

I've decided that I'm soaking up the fun, the beauty, and the opportunities around me this summer.  I'm taking some time off and saying YES to adventure.  Even if it is as simple as laying on our backs and seeing fluffy shapes in clouds. I'm also planning on taking the girls out at least once a week for a field trip.  And I'm going to try to travel with my husband more too. 

I swear, that little break from work while my wireless was wonky and my hard drive died, has given me a new outlook. I'm all in for summer now!  A little taste of leisure and I'm hooked. I tend to be a bit of a work-a-holic, but that is on hold for a while.

Summertime, LOOK OUT!  Here comes Whammy!! (Dewdrop can't say Grammie, she calls me Whammy, and I kind of like it, it sounds much more adventuresome than Grams)

 

Hugelkultur food forest update

When my son and our Gypsy started the landscaping, we trusted them to grow some tasty, organic meals for us.  We provided the land and the financing, and turned them loose.

What I didn't expect was the pure beauty that was created out there.

I have to admit, I didn't really get the concept of sustainable gardening.  Well, I knew what they meant and it sounded great, but when it came to grass or weeds popping up in the middle of the veggies, I really didn't get the need to leave them as is.

Or the vast mix of plants together.  I was raised by an avid gardner, and my dad was concise on his measured rows and spaced plants.  Of course, he also used lots of Sevin Dust, Miracle Gro, and weed preventer.

This way of gardening by passes all of that. There are flowers scattered throughout that repel bad bugs or draw good ones.

Food, flowers, herbs, all sorts of plants are grouped in "guilds" of related vegetation and the ground is completely covered to prevent erosion and to attract the right bugs, and lots of other jobs that they are busy doing.

It would never have occurred to me to plant a ton of clover around the baby perennials to feed the soil and keep the ground covered.

Or to add Borage to the melon patch.  It does something or another. But mostly is plain old pretty.

My son has collected exotic and heirloom varieties of plants, including this curly stick tree that will produce magic wands.  And the whole thing is irrigated by swales and trenches that are filled with gravel and look like trails. 

They are lined with the daintiest little wildflowers I have ever seen. As well as some grass that apparently should be left to protect the earth there until the trees grow more and create shade, then the grass will naturally die out, along with the other ground covers he has added to keep the dirt safe till things start to take off.

Until the trees get big enough to block some sun and the area truly becomes a forest, we are using the beds for our regular garden too. Tomatoes, peas, beans, heck, just about everything, is growing among the perennials.

In a few years, we won't be able to use this space for our annual plantings, because by then, it will be all fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, vines and other food producing vegetation.

This archway of branches  will soon be covered in kiwi vines and grapes, but for now, I'm enjoying the stark beauty of it as it is. And at night it is lit with twinkling solar lights.

The produce is beginning to come in, this year, just a few handfuls of berries, but next year, and the year after there will be more and more.

This is a garden that will grow over time, bigger and better.  It will not need to be tilled in the spring like my Dad would have, it will develop and change, but once established will take care of itself, with plantings that cooperate and take care of each other.

The mounds are known as hugelkultur, and make for a beautiful layout, as well as a healthy growing space.

Our regular garden is a masterpiece this year too.

It's lush, full, and delicious.

Daily, we have been eating every variety of lettuce you can grow, plus kale, chard, spinach, herbs, and other things that my son sneaks into salads.  He is quite a cook and also has been foraging in fields for wild thistle to saute as a side dish. It is every bit as good as asparagus (which we also have growing).

My Dad would be fascinated, I wish he was here to see it.  He'd wonder about the lack of rows, but I know he'd love the vast harvest we've been picking!  I do too.

PS- Don't forget that Google Reader is closing soon! If you are reading this from that site, you need to make a change real quick or your list of blogs will be gone.

I've tried Feedly myself and basically all you do is sign up and it will import all your Google Reader sites in the click of a mouse.  Very, very, very simple.Bloglovin is another good one.

You can also follow my blog through Networked Blogs and read it on FaceBook that way.  There is a list of different reader site buttons on my sidebar that you can click on to follow me in. 

Hope I'll still be seeing you around!

It's always good to be home!

It's great to be home from my trip! I always miss my family when I am away, no matter how much fun I am having.

I'll have some photos of my time in fairy tale land as soon as I get them edited.  Tomorrow is my 55th birthday, so I doubt if I'll get to them for a couple of days. I'd like to think that I'll be too busy celebrating... hint, hint, family!!!

These pics are a few of my favorite bright spots from this long, never ending cold spring that had a hard time sprunging itself out of winter. 

Along with this video of my son explaining a little bit about companion planting out in the Nathan Family Fairy Food Forest:

 

 

 

Fairy Play Area

Dewdrop comes along to help her parents while they work on the Fairy Food Forest.  But she gets bored and tends to wander off, so they built a baby cage Fairy Play Area for her.

Complete with a sturdy fence, and stumps to use for a tea party table, or to climb on, what ever mood she is in.

We plan on adding a chalk board on the outside wall of the chicken coop, but for now, the kids have a giant cardboard box to draw on. And use for a club house. Or nap time retreat, as Dewdrop does.

We had bought a slide too, then realized that kids would slam into the fence at the end of it. So we took it back and got a swing instead.

There has already been a couple of tea parties out here. I think that helped her get used to being penned up.  I wanted her to have happy thoughts about the cage Fairy Play Area from the beginning. 

I think it helped, she has been spending a lot of time playing away in there while her parents work on the other side of the fence.  And it doesn't hurt that her Daddy made it such a fun place to be.

Nathan Family Fairy Food Forest update and a very tempting mud puddle

Building a Food Forrest has been FUN!

There is a ton of work to do on the new garden area. But since my son has a family full of kids, he wanted to build a play area to keep them busy while he worked on it.  Here is the beginnings of the Fairy Park he is building for them.

Vines were gathered from tree tops in the woods behind our house, and he has built the frame of the play house for the kiddos with them.  Walls of it will be woven with smaller vines, and we've bought fencing to keep Dewdrop penned in.

The steps are in, he is making everything pretty as well as making an organic garden for us.   This whole area by the chicken coop is going to be the play area.

Planting has begun too.  Mr. Zen and his Gypsy Beloved are poking all sorts of seeds into the ground.

The peas will grow on this vine and branch structure.  After they are done, it will hold beans.

Cool, huh? I can't wait to see it covered in green!

Sprouts are already coming up under it.

It will be even better when the peas are being served in the dining room!  I  hope to have these as a side dish for Birdsong.

 

6 loads of composte have been unloaded and most spread.  And when we had some sick trees removed, the tree service offered to dump loads of mulch out here for us to use.  So far we've had a couple of mountains of free mulch delivered.

Some KU students came by for KU's Big Event, when thousands of college kids give back around the community to help with projects all over town.

They helped spread all the mulch mountains out.

Drainage and watering trenches are in the works, but for now, there is a big, tempting mud puddle.

The resistance didn't last long.

This will be a small retention pond, with a clay lining and a cute bridge over it. 
There might be some fishies to keep the mosquitos out, but for now, there are only a couple of mermaids there.

 

Progress despite the Kansas weather

We have had some spotty weather this week while we've rented the backhoe to prep the field for it's transformation to a food forest. 

But between cold and rain, there have been enough days to get some work done.  On the nice days, I've been slathering paint onto a 15' canvas for An Enchanted Affaire.

It's progressing, but still needs a lot of work.  I was hoping to get it done before my trip this week, but that is not happening.  At first, I thought I'd only work on it during nice days so I could open the garage door for good lighting.

But since there are so few of those, I'm going to have to plug in a space heater and keep the door shut.

As the work progresses on the Nathan Family Fairy Food Forest, we've all juggled turns watching Dewdrop.  This was Albie's turn.

 


As long as the weather cooperates, the kids are having a blast playing while the parents work on the garden landscaping and Grammie paints in the garage.

But we only have the backhoe for a week, and we've had as many bad days as good days.  It has a heated cab, so my son can keep going, but not during the deluge of rains or the snow that we have had. The weather has been so sucky, that the rental company is giving us an extra day for free, which helps a lot.

There has been a lot of progress, whether it looks like it or not, even with the bad weather.

We even have the beginnings of a crop!  Our Gypsy  planted potatoes for St. Pat's Day.  She has taken a wire tomato cage, lined it with straw, and filled it with dirt and tater eyes.  The theory is that the plants will poke out through the holes of the cage, and when the crop is ready to harvest, you just remove the cage, let the tower of dirt topple over, and pick through it to gather your potatoes.

Genius!

Speaking of St. Patty's, Sugarwings and her Hippy Chick mommy were both in the parade this year.  Here is her mom hooping it up, on the left.  Our little leprechaun was in the bus.  That is good, because it was COLD.

I'll be away for a few days, seeing the Guncles in Florida and visiting some friends. (details later, it's a surprise visit for someone) I could use some Florida Sunshine!!!

I've prewritten some posts, so please keep coming by to visit.

Making the most of our glimpse of spring and starting the food forest

We are taking advantage of this temporary burst of Spring to spend as much time outdoors as we can.  It's only supposed to be around for a couple of days, then back to cold and wet again.

(Dewdrop is loving on Twinkle's son Scruffy who went to live with our neighbors)

We've hung the banner I'm painting for An Enchanted Affaire in the garage and I hope to get all the backgrounds down before the cold hits again. Then I'll have to wait for a warmer day to come out and finish.

Its HUGE!  Much larger than the one I made last year for Kim's Tiffany event. If this was a few inches bigger, I wouldn't be able to fit it onto the wall.  As it is, the soffit is in the way, I'll have to paint the rest of the banner, then move it down and finish that spot that is bunched up right now.

We have also begun on the Nathan Family Fairy Food Forest.  By "me", I mean my son and his Gypsy Beloved. 

What's a food forest?  Well, it sounds like a good idea, but I'm a bit hazy on the details.  My kiddos have been researching for months to plan just the right way to do it, what to plant and how to do. Here is a definition from wikipedia:

Forest gardening is a low-maintenance sustainable plant-based food production and agroforestry system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables which have yields directly useful to humans. Making use of companion planting, these can be intermixed to grow in a succession of layers, to build a woodland habitat.

Forest gardening is a prehistoric method of securing food in tropical areas. In the 1960s, Robert Hart adapted the principles and applied them to temperate climates.

They will also be incorporating hugelkulture.

Which involves piles of dirt.

Well, more than that, but its complicated to me.  There is stuff in the piles and it self waters some how.  

A backhoe has been rented for the week, but a lot of it is hand work.  I've not done much to help at all, beyond watching Dewdrop a few hours.

But since I've got a deadline for the banner, I can't do much to help in the yard right now. 

I'll be posting more about our all organic, sustainable, permaculture, heirloom seed, food forest as it progresses and I figure it out.  All I know is that I'll have all the fresh salads I could want from it, and I've been promised pretty trails through it. Plus climbing vines (with edible fruits of course), lots of flowers that attract beneficial bugs, and a potting shed.

As long as its pretty and provides tasty fresh food, I'm in! 

All my husband and I do is provide the land and the finances to purchase the plants, and rent the backhoe. 

Hippies will work for beets and lettuce, so all the labor is free!

The plan is to eventually turn our acreage into a real farm, where my son produces goods to sell at the farmer's market, and maybe even have a roadside stand in our yard.