Saturday, September 16, 2017

Mid-September Good Things

Summer seems to have moved on without the normal 6 weeks of heat with no rain.  It's been dry, but not terribly so, and relatively cool.  The garden and I are both relived that August is in the rearview mirror.

Above is a late hyacinth bean flowering on the fence.  I look forward to the burgundy bean pods every year, and diligently collect the huge seed for the next spring.

Ilex verticillata 'Red Sprite' is having a great year, despite being grown in a hypertufa planter.

 The kirengeshoma is opening on schedule.  Although the flowers don't last long, I love their puffy firmness.  They remind me of those orange circus peanut candies we had as kids.

Hardy begonia livens up the shady side of the garage.

Thanks to Matt Mattus's suggestion on his blog, I started using organza drawstring bags to protect the dahlia buds from the earwigs.  As ridiculous as it looks, the bags guarantee that I have pristine dahlias to cut for the kitchen table, and less kids freaking out about earwigs at the dinner table.

It's cooled off enough that I've been making hyptertufa troughs for the last three weeks.  These are only some of the planters curing under the deck.  I'll start opening them next week and will deliver the sold ones in October.

Be sure to let me know if you're in the north Jersey area and are interested in a trough.

Sunday, September 3, 2017

Sometimes I Make Things Other Than Troughs...(Part III)

My wife will be the first to tell you, I get weird over the winter.  When my hands are idle I go a little nuts.  Drawing helps, but sometimes I just need to make something, even if it's just a good loaf of bread.  Most winters, when it's too cold to work on hypertufa or woodworking projects in the garage, I'll make a small sculpture at the kitchen table.  If the sculpture is intricate and takes many hours of handwork with small tools, even better.

Above is a small faux-bois Gothic shelf that I made this winter and then gave away to artist friends as a housewarming gift.  The sculpture on top is gold-leafed heart made by the husband for his wife.  I love that my sculpture is the pedestal for this offering.

The sculpture is made of pine, wire and a two-part resin clay called Apoxy.  

The resin clay cures in about 24 hours so I have a pretty long open time to work with it.

The best part is underneath.