Picture a Day #141 – Fresh Early Veggies

Posted on May 20, 2012 by joanienaz

It takes patience and faith to tend an organic garden with late-maturing vegetables. This year I planted corn and green beans, along with the usual squash and tomatoes. I crowded a number of other veggies into my container garden as well. I am glad that my lettuce and radishes are ready to eat now!

three kinds of greens!

I like to pick baby lettuce leaves, and the plants will keep on producing for weeks, as long as I fertilize them. Right now I have five different kinds of greens ready to eat, not counting my cilantro, which I have already nibbled. I also have radishes that need to be eaten before the critters get to them. One of my barrels had a little insect damage to the larger ones.

radishes with a bite!

So while I’m chowing down on designer salad with fresh baby greens and radishes, my other plants can take their sweet time. It’s going to be awhile. But that’s OK!

five kinds of greens!

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Picture a Day #140 – Pod Invasion

Posted on May 19, 2012 by joanienaz

This year a bumper crop of maple seed pods has landed in our yard. We have no maple trees ourselves, although I am definitely a fan of many different types of trees. I believe the pods are blowing into our yard from next door.

It’s been so windy that these marvelously adapted projectiles are all over the neighborhood. What the wind doesn’t disperse, the neighbors’ leaf blowers send in our direction. The seeds all seem to land in our yard. Maybe some of them will sprout.

I believe that these particular ones are from a Japanese maple. When I looked them up online, I discovered that these rather large seeds are the subject of two and three-dimensional art. I found numerous photos, drawings, earrings, and other jewelry!

I think they are fascinating. So I took a picture of one (not very representational of their numbers), and I drew several with Prismacolor pencil on bristol vellum. Fun!

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Picture a Day #139 – My Veggie Garden, Week Four

Posted on May 18, 2012 by joanienaz

It has been four weeks today since I planted my container garden, and a few days less since I planted my raised bed garden. My results have been fairly good so far. This week I tasted the radishes and baby lettuce from the containers. Yum! Today I planted more seeds, to make up for some gaps. I  have plants in all stages of development: some just sprouting, others easy to identify and growing fast, and some ready to eat.

I think some snails or slugs have been nibbling on my pole beans. A couple of sprouts disappeared, and I saw the shiny trails. But enough have survived, and are looking pretty healthy next to their corn companions.

My strategy in the containers is to fill them up. I like to eat small, tender veggies. In the larger garden I have a few rows, but things are pretty scattered so far. I will have to do a little more filling in there. The carrots in that garden did not come up, so I replanted the carrot row today. The sunflowers did not come up either, so I transplanted several, and only one survived. I have more to transplant, though!

Every year is experimental in one way or another. This year I am growing my first herb, Cilantro (aka Coriander). I picked several leaves for an omelette today. It was very fragrant, and delicious!

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Picture a Day #138 – My Completed Bowl of Fruit

Posted on May 17, 2012 by joanienaz

Here is my completed bowl of fruit. I touched up the shadows in this watercolor painting since my last post, and I added some warmer Cadmium Yellow to the pears. Now I am ready for my next project!

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Picture a Day #137 – A Noteworthy Insect

Posted on May 16, 2012 by joanienaz

Yesterday I went patrolling for insects in my garden. I knew where to look, and managed to capture this image of a ladybug hanging around some sunflower plants. I had seen one there the other day. Maybe the same one?

I haven’t seen any critters around my lettuce yet, but I guess that’s good news. Ladybugs like to eat aphids. So the aphids are on the sunflowers, but not the lettuce…yet.

Here is a ladybug photo I took in my garden two years ago, when I had lots of lettuce. Last year’s crop didn’t work out as well.

I used pastels to recreate this ladybug image. I was trying pastels for the first time since…well, a long time ago!

Today I used my new ladybug photo to create a 6×6 drawing with Prismacolor pencils. Now I’m thinking about using another medium for my ladybugs…

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Picture a Day #136 – The Power of Watercolor

Posted on May 15, 2012 by joanienaz

I sat down to work on my latest watercolor painting, the subject of yesterday’s post, intending to take the next step. Before I knew it, I was hurtling along. I wish I had paused long enough to photograph a couple of in-between steps, but I was inspired and on a roll.

I chose Ultramarine to add to the pears. Then I was ready to paint the bowl red, and I used Permanent Rose. I have been thinking about this for some time, and so I knew what I wanted to do next. I went ahead and added the red shade to the table, so that my pears are greenish, my bowl is rosy, and the table is pale orange.

So why not fill up the page and paint the background pale Ultramarine? This is not finished, as I still need to work on the shadows. But I think it is shaping up!

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Picture a Day #135 – A Bowl of My Favorite Fruit

Posted on May 14, 2012 by joanienaz

I’m painting with my watercolors again! This time my subject is a bowl of D’Anjou pears.

 First I drew my arrangement with Goldenrod Prismacolor pencil. Then I painted the pears with a cool Cadmium Yellow Pale Hue.

Next I used a warm Cadmium Yellow for the table. My next step will be a shade of blue.

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Picture a Day #134 – Happy Mother’s Day!

Posted on May 13, 2012 by joanienaz

To me, Mother’s Day is a part of celebrating spring. Motherhood is about nurturing life, and in the springtime it’s hard to miss all of the living creatures bursting forth around us, no matter where we live.

My mother loved flowers, and gardening gave her a lot of enjoyment. Here are some of my iris to help celebrate today, along with a carpenter bee, which barely held still long enough for me to capture an image. Reminds me of someone I know…

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Picture a Day #133 – Back in My Garden

Posted on May 12, 2012 by joanienaz

As the saying goes, “a watched pot never boils.” At least it won’t boil quick enough. Well, a watched garden doesn’t grow very quickly either, but while I was out of town this week visiting my daughter, my garden took off.

companion plants radish and marigold

Thanks to my husband for watering diligently! Now it is past time to do some thinning. The container garden is overflowing in spots (due to my over planting of seeds!). The raised bed is just getting started. Things are looking green!

shade-tolerant lettuce mix

I nibbled on the lettuce, and tasted the radishes that I thinned out. Yummy!

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Picture a Day #132 – Traveling California State Route 36

Posted on May 11, 2012 by joanienaz

During this past week, en route to and from my daughter’s house, I was able to add a section of highway to my list of routes traveled. I added the final leg of California State Route 36.

Trinity Alps

This scenic highway stretches from Highway 101 in Fortuna, Humboldt County, near the Northern California coast, to Highway 395 in Susanville, Lassen County, in far Northeastern California. On its way it passes through some of the most spectacular scenery in the state.

Mount Shasta

Until a week ago, the only section of this highway that I had not traveled was the portion from Highway 3 in a remote section of Trinity County to Red Bluff, along the Interstate 5 corridor in Tehama County. I have to say that this section did not disappoint me in its beauty!

oaks

It included spectacular views of the Trinity Alps and Mount Shasta in the distance to the north, along with mixed conifer forest, oak woodlands, and riparian vegetation along numerous streams. This was a very pleasant drive in beautiful spring weather!

Redbud

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