Photo by Gayla Trail All Rights Reserved

In celebration of the advent of summer, my partner Davin replaced the chalkboard portion of this frame with a new one (the old had become warped from a year spent outdoors) and made the first drawing of the season. Our goal this year is to document all the drawings on the board with a photo. We didn’t do that last year and subsequently lost any record of some brilliant drawings.

Photo by Gayla Trail All Rights Reserved
This first drawing was inspired by the collection of pots set on the table underneath the chalkboard (the shadiest part of the roof). Here’s what it looks like hung above them. Most of the plants sitting on that table are greens, lettuce, and violas that have been shifted to less intense heat and sun regions of the roof as a way to extend their life a little bit longer. We still have a ton of lettuce going and can’t possibly eat it all at once! Most of the remaining plants are occupying space underneath taller plants that provide a little bit of respite from the heat and are in larger pots that stay moist longer.

I wrote more about making a chalkboard for the garden when we came up with it on a whim last year. This year we picked up two chalk pastel pencils at our local art supply store Woolfit’s that allow you to draw much thinner lines than a typical piece of chalk. They’re so great and easy to use that we plan to get more in a wide variety of colours.

More chalkboard drawings (2008): Swiss chard, We Want Sun, Rain, No Squirrels, Flowers, in progress, torture and waterboarding.