Remembering the Summer

This has to be the best spot. What a view!

I think I'm suffering from garden withdrawal. When you are used to going out 2-3 times a week it is hard to adjust to not going out at all. It is hard to get used to a different schedule. This is the first weekend that I haven't worked in the garden for months.

It is a really miserable day. Has been raining and raining hard for three days now. I can only imagine the pools of water at the garden now. I do need to make one more trip to spread some leaves, pick the remainder of the carrots and bring home any sticks. The leaves are beginning to fall in copious amounts so as soon as things dry up again (hopefully) I will try and get a few bags of them and tuck everything in.

We do need the rain but this is rather a lot of it but then this is Vancouver or the Wet Coast as I like to call it and if it didn't rain so much it wouldn't be so green.

I'm trying to get my studio all set up so that I can start to paint. I wish I was better at it but I do want to make a better effort to pay more attention, see more and experiment more. My garden photos are going to come in handy I hope.

I'd love to paint this! 

Days like this I like to reminisce about the beautiful summer we just enjoyed.... and for my garden.

Still Life

I love taking pictures in the garden, especially of the flowers and wildlife. I like to use them for my paintings as well. Perhaps a few vegetable still life paintings might be in order. Why not? I do wish I was a better painter. I tend to do a quick wash which I like and then start painting and tighten up and get bored with it. I find that I usually like the wash better. I see paintings that are incredibly detailed that they look like photographs. I do admire being able to do that, they are amazing to see. In our new place I will finally have a place to paint again in the winter months of course, when I can no longer garden.

The weather has continued to be quite dull with on and off rainy periods. The garden is doing well despite the rain and it promises to get nice again next week so hopefully will see lots of growth. It was pretty quiet and peaceful tonight when we went. Just a few brave souls out there puttering in their plots.

The gal who had my plot previously has three plots now and seems to be building a small city on them. The pictures of before and after are quite amazing. She has already built a fence, raised beds a greenhouse and plans to put in a little patio for her and her dog. I will post pictures of it when it is finished. I'm lucky, I inherited her old plot and it was very well cared for.

I threw in a few more sunflowers in the hopes that they don't get eaten by the birds before they can grow. Despite the cool wet weather things are doing well and I can't complain. It will be interesting to see if I can coax any eggplant to grow. The two plants I bought are doing okay but they have been under milk jugs until tonight. My cucumber plant is gone, eaten I suppose by slugs. I bought some copper but it was too late for it. I did put it around my seeds so hopefully something will happen. I have never been able to grow cucumbers for some reason and if something does grow I will have to put in some supports.

Apparently there are some wood chips now at the garden which were just delivered and are free for the taking. I hope there is still some there on Saturday morning. I would love to get some for my pathways. They are getting seriously muddy!