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December 31, 2008

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The Last Post for 2008

It’s that time of year again. I’m supposed to write some kind of rundown of the year highlighting the ups and downs. Look to the future. Make resolutions. Count my blessings. Recap events. Write some kind of list, maybe? But the brain. The brain is dead. The brain was worked overtime for too long and has nothing left to give. I am a shell of my former self. I’m not depressed, just depleted.

But never mind all that. I’ve been a broken record of “poor me” lately to the point of embarrassment, but in a few days I am off to refuel. I should have done this ages ago but the schedule wasn’t permitting, nor was the money, and then there was the sudden realization that something had to give. Now or never. And so I’m off to recapture a bit of the summer that was lost staring at a computer screen for too many hours. Off to spend a few days refueling, refreshing, and experiencing all of my favourite things: sun, warm breezes, ocean, PLANTS, fish, greenery, grasses, rocks, birds, taking photos, seeing, smelling, listening, walking. I’m not a sit on the beach vacationer. I can’t stand the idea of lounging around with a whole new world to discover. What I always seem to need more than rest and relaxation when my perspective is swayed by exhaustion and depletion is to SEE things, have small adventures, and experience those little moments of wonder that bring me back to who I am and what I value most in life.

Funny how plants got me here in one way, yet they are also always a big part in finding my way back.

Oddly enough, by chance and luck, we are going back to Santiago de Cuba. I never thought I’d go there again and yet I am. I’m pretty excited about it for about a million reasons and am absolutely crazed with anticipation about getting to see some of the things we missed or had to pass over too quickly. One of the things that comes immediately to mind is The Cactus Garden. I had to run through it like a maniac last year. This time I hope to spend lots of time looking at each plant and watching the teeny, tiny hummingbirds flutter from one agave flower to the next.

If you’d like to see some of the pictures I took last year I have some plant photos here and non plant photos over here.

I hope you all have a great holiday and get a chance to spend some time filling up with the things that inspire you most and keep you in touch with who you are. Until next year!

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December 29, 2008

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Book: A Tale of 12 Kitchens by Jake Tilson

I bought “A Tale of 12 Kitchens” by artist and designer Jake Tilson just over a year ago and have been trying to find a reason to write about it on the site ever since. The book isn’t particularly about gardening or cooking from garden fresh food, although it does have brief sections describing the author’s family food gardens and a section about homegrown herbs that I will describe later. Regardless, I’ve given up looking for a valid reason and have decided it fits, however loosely.

I initially bought the book to take with me on a train trip to Montreal. At the time this cookbook meets travelogue was the perfect accompaniment to a colourful Fall journey. I particularly love traveling by train and the ride between Toronto and Montreal is my ideal. It’s long enough to really dive into a book or spend ample time daydreaming through the window at beautiful passing landscapes but not so long that you can smell the scent of hell’s inner depths wafting from the toilets every time the door is opened, or that your knees start to ache forcing you into awkward positions in an attempt to get some relief and reminding you that you are old and could drop down dead at any minute. That’s what it was like that time we thought it might be fun and “productive” (I’ll read two books and finally finish that knit hat and by arrival I will have conquered the world!!) to take a 12 hour train trip to New York City. Or was it 14 hours? Or was it forever? Maybe I’m still on that train. Never. Again. So help me god. But the trip to Montreal is perfection. It has this way of deluding me into believing that train travel is the only way to go anywhere, period. I’d go once a season if I could afford it. Come to think of it, three seasons; I’ll skip winter. There’s a reason why I live in Toronto rather than beautiful Montreal, home of the brutal 1998 ice storm.

When I opened the book to take pictures I was surprised to find leaves I had collected on Montreal’s mountain and tucked into the pages for safe keeping.

In my travel experiences food is always tied into the delight and adventure of discovering new sights and smells. Whenever I think about the places I have been I can’t help but think about the food I ate. I can often remember exactly what I ate and where I ate it. Cooking and eating, like gardening, happens within context and always comes with a story. I like to look at cookbooks but for the most part I only like the ones that say more than, “Make this dish. Here’s how.” One of the reasons I love this book is because Jake Tilson has managed to combine a cookbook with a travelogue in a way that is both instructional and inspirational. I feel like I am reading a story or am invited along for the journey and I can experience the book on that level without ever making the recipes. In fact, I have had this book for over a year and have bought two additional copies for friends but had not made a single recipe until just a few weeks ago. It’s like two books in one!

We tried the pancakes on page 104 and they turned out to be the best pancakes we have ever made, hands down. His idea to whip the egg whites first made “cakes” that were amazingly light and fluffy, especially since we used spelt flour, which often turns out flatter “cakes” in my experience. We ate the pancakes with black currant jam.

How we eat and what we eat, especially while traveling is wrapped up inside all kinds of interesting packaging both literally and figuratively. One of my absolute favourite things to do when I visit any new place is go to both the local markets and the larger commercial supermarkets if they have one. I love to see what people eat, how they buy it, and how it is packaged. I often bring back cans of completely average products or candies and wrappers that are completely different than anything I have seen at home. As a graphic designer Tilson has a love for food packaging and has filled the book with labels and photos of food purchased around the world. Each page is a visual treat with all kinds of cookbook covers, shopping bags and packages I have never seen before.

One of my favourite pages in the book (choosing one is no small feat) shows fresh herb packages that he designs and sends to friends from their family home in Tuscany. All of the herbs including bay leaves, juniper berries and fennel flowers are harvest on the property. Yum! I also give away some of my freshly grown herbs and do package them up, and while I have designed packages for pickles and tea sets I have never done so for the herbs. Looking at the book again has inspired me to go that extra mile with next year’s herb.

I can hardly wait.

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December 20, 2008

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Herbal Pillows for All Occassions

I have already stated that I don’t care for the Holidays, and yet there are a few staples that I do enjoy: cooking and eating good food, making bath products for friends, super tacky over-the-top decoration, and sewing little herbal squares. I’m not sure what it is about the last one. I suppose it started out as a small gift for friends just like the bath products, but now-a-days I get a hankering to make them almost as soon as December rolls in, even if I don’t give them away.

The basic idea is simple: sew a square and fill it with herbs. The applications, depending on the size and what you put inside, are nearly endless. I grow a lot of herbs and inevitably there are a few that I always have in droves. Making an assortment of herb pillows for different applications is a good way to be sure the extra doesn’t go to waste. I figure, I go to the trouble to grow it and dry it, the least I can do is use it up.

Here are just a few ideas that can be applied based on the same basic principal:

Herbal Bath Tea – Mixed herbs inside a large muslin square with a little added oatmeal makes a healing and relaxing bath.
Brain Pillow – A large 6 X6″ cotton square filled with lavender or dried rosemary and some rice or flax seed can be used as a headache pillow, the weight of which feels nice on tired eyes.
Sleep Pillow – A bag made of scrap cotton, terry cloth, or silk fabrics and filled with lavender or dried hops makes a good relaxation pillow. Stick it underneath your own pillow to help you fall asleep at night. I collected a load of hops this year to test its’ ability to ease the insomniac into sleep, however I seem to be allergic to the stuff and get sneezy whenever I am near it. I finally get why I’ve never taken well to beer. Maybe it will work for you.
Dryer Bag – A small 5 X 5″ square filled with lavender can be put in the dryer to give freshly washed clothes a light, fresh scent without the chemicals.
Closet or Drawer Sachet – Fill up a small square with bug repellent herbs such as catnip, wormwood, lavender, rosemary, peppermint, juniper, fir, or cedar. Great for friends who have moth problems in their home.
Cat Pillow – Fill up a 6 X 6″ square with dried, homegrown catnip. My cat goes crazy for these little pillows and has been seen cuddling with them on many occasions.

Sachet d’Espice – Just a fancy way of saying a small open-weave muslin or cheesecloth square filled with culinary herbs (aka bouquet garni). Gift your friends with your favourite soup and sauce herbs that can be submerged directly into the pot like a giant tea bag and removed when cooked.

These little squares are so simple to make, all you need are some very basic sewing skills. They’re a great way to use up scrap bits of fabric too small for much else. Keep them as simple and easy-sew as you’d like or get fancier by embroidering or silk screening designs, adding ribbons and strings, or sewing in decorative edging.

Making Herbal Dryer Bags

The following instructions outline how I make the dryer bags, but you can apply these steps to any of the items listed above. Be sure to see the Herbal Bath Tea project for recipes and further instructions. I’ve listed a lot of materials and tools below, but you can easily get away with making these bags utilizing far less. A bit of fabric, a needle and thread, and some lavender flowers are enough to turn out a simple bag.

You Will Need

Dried lavender flowers (about 1/2 – 1 cup per bag)
Scraps of cotton fabric (Old shirts, sheets, towels, pillowcases, bits from old projects…)
Quilting ruler
Rotary fabric cutter
Scissors or pinking shears
Sewing machine (These are simple enough to hand-sew too)
Thread
Point turner (Knitting needle, chop sticks, or pencil will work)
Piece of scrap paper
Scotch tape
Pins

1. Cut two 5 X 5″ or 6 X 6″ fabric squares. You can do these in two pieces of the same fabric or mix and match with contrasting fabrics. I make quick work of cutting the squares using a quilting ruler and rotary cloth cutter but a pair of scissors will do the job too.

2. Pin the right sides together and sew a 1/2″ seam around the square, leaving a 2″ opening on one side, big enough for filling. Cut off the corners on a diagonal using scissors or pinking shears to help reduce bulk. Cut around the entire square with pinking shears (optional).

3. Turn the square right-side out and iron flat. Use a point turner to push the corners out.

4. Open up the hole and fill the square with about 1/2 – 1 cup of lavender flowers. Getting the flowers into the hole can be a pain but is easily done using a paper cone. Make one by rolling a scrap piece of paper into a funnel shape. Tape it to secure.

5. Pin the hole closed. Using a matching thread, sew a seam very close to the edge of the bag sewing straight across the hole to seal it up.

6. For a more decorative finish, sew a 1/4″ seam around the entire square. Use less flowers if you plan to do this since the extra bulk can make it difficult to sew. Try to keep the flowers away from the seam as you sew each side by pushing the flowers to the opposite side of the square.

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December 15, 2008

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Handmade Gifts for Gardeners

I didn’t intend to write another post about Holiday gifts this season but I realized that when I wrote the first post I left out the handmade items I found in my search. There’s some really great stuff there and it just seems like a waste not to mention them so here I go:

Please note that items are listed in U.S prices.

1. Notes to Grow On – $25.00 A set of 7 letterpress cards depicting reproduction herb prints. Each card includes a packet of herb seeds attached to the back. Really beautiful.

2. Dandelion Coaster – $6.00 This company makes a bunch of botanically-inspired coasters but I have a special affinity for dandelions.

3. Reusable Vegetable Bags – $20.00 A set of 3 reusable, washable vegetable bags that you can take grocery shopping or out to the garden to collect your harvest. Made from a lightweight but sturdy fabric that won’t affect the scale at the grocery store.

4. Black Fall Flowers Long Sleeve Shirt – $25.00 A silk screened shirt depicting what looks to be tansy or Queen Anne’s Lace.

5. Plantable Wine Bottle Tags – $2.50 A nice way to give a bottle of wine, although I’m sure you could attach one of these to just about anything. They make full-size cards as well.

6. Tiny Budding Leaf Earrings – $60.00 I LOVE Abigail Percy’s botanical jewelry so much… I wrote about her Flower Silhouette Necklaces a while back. These bud earrings are equally beautiful.

7. Dig It Pendant – $10.00 A vintage 1930′s garden book illustration sealed between glass using lead-free solder. Comes equipped with a chain for wearing.

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December 12, 2008

9 Comments

Gifts for Gardeners (To Make): Music to Garden To

Remember mixed tapes? The format is all but dead but I’m still keeping a tape player on hand and have hoarded a box full that were given as friendship letters from loved ones over a decade ago when it was still our favourite way to say we cared. CD and DVD are the obvious tangible format of choice these days, but maybe it’s just my age (old) or the way my time is distributed but I’ve lost the love for making mixes. I can’t even muster the effort to half-ass it let alone take the time and care I used to in not only choosing the songs, but carefully transitioning tracks with my “disco mixer” and designing original sleeves for every tape. It’s kind of sad really, and at times a form of creativity that I miss. Although, I definitely have not lost my love of music or my desire to share it. I’ve just lost the ambition to share it in a time-consuming and artful way.

But this week I’ve been thinking about gifts to give to gardeners that one can make; gifts that consider the “giftee”, are thoughtful and require some effort to make, but do not cost a lot of money. I won’t condescend to you by framing this idea within the context of “In these trying economic times…” because frankly, if I hear that phrase used as a reason to be frugal, or god forbid, scale back a little one more time I am going to lose it. As an aside, how many times since this so-called recession/depression has been formally confirmed have I seen newscasts that propose to teach us, the apparently idiot public, how to spend less and scale back presented by some doofus laden in bling, suggesting that we simply “Spend less money”? GAH!

Anyrant, listening to music while gardening is a great way to enhance the experience. I don’t do it often because sometimes I enjoy the sounds of the garden itself as a part of the total experience. You know, the trucks beeping as they back up or the mockingbird calls at the community garden backed up by the constant hum of The Beer Store coolers.

It’s all a part of the ambiance. The soothing sounds of Nature.

The great thing about listening to music while gardening is that you can match your gardening mood or tasks on any given day to a suitable soundtrack. You can listen to aggressive and fast music when you’re on a rampage against compacted soil or a booming aphid population. Or when you just need to release some pent up anger. Or you can choose gentle, calming music on a slow day when you’re in the mood for reflection, connection with your garden and affectionate contemplation.

So rather than simply giving a mix to a friend of music you like, why not get more specific and choose your favourite songs to garden to? I know you’ll have your own favourites — please do share them in the comments — but to get the ball rolling, here are a few of mine:

Nick Drake “From the Morning” – I often think of this song when I contemplate the affection I feel for my gardens. “Place to Be” is a good one too. Or “Horn.” Really, anything from the Pink Moon album works.
Stevie Wonder “Joy Inside My Tears” – Anything from Stevie Wonder’s soundtrack to the film “The Secret Life of Plants” is an obvious choice but when I thought about Stevie Wonder my initial thought was actually “Joy Inside My Tears” from the excellent, “Songs in the Key of Life.”
Stevie Wonder “Don’t You Worry Bout a Thing” – I don’t mean to make this “Stevie Wonder and Friends” but this is a good upbeat song that reminds me to chill out, take things in stride, and in the context of gardening feel a certain appreciation for the struggles I have overcome.
Nina Simone “Ain’t Got No, I Got Life” – Here’s another one in the Things-suck-but-I-still-kick-ass category. And at least I have my garden.
Public Enemy “Louder Than Bomb” – Yes, I do think Public Enemy is completely appropriate when gardening. Because when Chuck D wrote, “My posses always ready, and they’re waitin’ in my zone” he meant plants and the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map, right?
Nina Simone “Save Me” – This is for when you are drowning in an aphid infestation.
The Roots “The Next Movement” – This song never fails to lift a bad mood and get me moving.
The Rolling Stones “Street Fighting Man” – This is one of my favourite “tearing shit up” songs.
Elliott Smith “Tomorrow Tomorrow” – I fell in love with the XO album during a particularly miserable summer and always ache to listen to it around June/July. Listen to this song and remind yourself that the forgiving thing about gardening is that there is always another chance to try again next year.
Feist “Mushaboom” – My friend is going to give me crap for listing this (sorry J) but COME ON, she talks about pining for a place to start a garden when you’re living in an apartment without a yard. I can’t help but relate.