I came up with a different way to display a spider plant – the aerial way!

This past May 2022 I came up with a different way to display the typical spider plant with babies! Instead of letting it hang like a typical hanging plant, I used a couple of plant supports previously used for orchids. The stems of the new babies are quite thick and with some clips I gathered up all the hanging stems and created a more aerial display. From afar it may look like air plants. You can see from the image in May compared to the one I took in August that the baby spider plant doesn’t grow as big. I keep it trimmed to keep from weighing down.

I love this display as it doesn’t look too messy and it has an architectural touch to it. I searched online looking for any reference or image of this kind of display for spider plant and I could not find any! Is it possible that I came up with an original idea?? Would you display your spider plant this way? If you do, please let me know and share images!

Spider plant with babies displayed the aerial way. Photo credit: Marilou Strait. Taken May 2022

Updated photo of the same spider plant aerial display. Photo credit: Marilou Strait. Photo taken August 2022

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Chamomile flowers for tea

This year I decided to put more effort in my part of the garden and sowed a few different easy to grow plants in a mini greenhouse in early March. One of the plants that survived is the chamomile. I am pleased that I was able to harvest these beautiful and fragrant small flowers. I pick the flowers before the full heat of the noon sun. Since I only have one pot, I harvested several times allowing more blooms to grow. I used a 2-step drying process since I don’t have much room, a small harvest and pick the flowers at different times.

Step 1: Paper napkins secured on both ends to hold the fresh chamomile blooms.

Step 2: I transfer the dried flowers after a couple of weeks to a paper bag.This will allow the blooms to dry more. I reuse the paper napkin for the next batch of blooms to dry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I may only have enough for a cup or two of chamomile tea but it is nice to know that it came from my garden, and that is good in my books!

 

A Tulip Study in 3 Different Mediums

For the last little while i have been doing healthy and kid-friendly recipes, now it is time to vary things a little bit with some art – a study of a subject. In the past, I have done studies of one subject in the same medium. This time I did one subject, tulips, in 3 very different mediums – a photograph, a pencil drawing and a vector drawing. This just happened spontaneously and in retrospect, I believe it would be good to do this more often.

How To Do A Study of One Subject in Different Mediums

1. Take pictures. Start with a close up view of your subject and take pictures. – whatever camera you have will do. Take the time to compose it and in different angles.
2. Sketch. I carry a small sketch book with me and use it when there’s opportunity to do even a quick sketch using a printed photograph or straight from a phone camera. I find that sketching by hand really helps in understanding the shapes, proportion and subtle colour shifts and gradients. Do  more than one if you can.
3. Create a vector art without looking at your reference material (photograph or sketch).  Use the reference material only after you’ve tried digital drawing from memory. You’ll be amazed how much you can remember of the subject.
4. Fine tune. Now you can refers to the reference materials and make changes to your vector art.
5. Compare all your art work, just as I did here side by side.

Try it! You’ll get to understand more about your choice subject and as I found it, the approach I took in creating each art improved.

Container edible garden in the city

This is the way we garden for edibles in the city, by using containers! Luckily our condo tower has an accessible rooftop where we can garden on containers and raised beds with a useful composting bins nearby. We have totally eliminated putting organic (fruits, vegetables and eggshells) from the landfill and proud to say that we have been doing it for close to 8 years now.  Between the “greens” and “browns” from the other gardeners in the building, we manage to keep the composting bins in order. Here’s a sampling of our garden harvest this year.

Yes, you can grow lettuce in these small containers! These planters are usually used as balcony planters but we found better use for them for growing our organic leaf lettuce. Tip: Stagger planting the lettuce from seed to ensure you have a continuous supply through the growing  months.

Our raised cedar planter with tomatoes and cucumbers. If you have not tried fresh cucumber still warm from the garden, it is sweet, crunchy with tons of flavour!