God Made Dirt, and Dirt Don’t Hurt

Finally we have dirt, or compost and top soil to be precise, but we have it. Now our garden can go ahead with out further delay. We will be putting our plants in the ground on the first of April, our friend Andy (and hopefully his wife Leah) will be coming down to help us move our 140 plants into their new home. This first picture is of our raised bed (s) I calculated (with my advanced maths) that it is about 190(ish) square feet. It took 2 and a quarter tons (4.5 thousand pounds) of compost and about a ton of top soil to fill it out. I spent about 4 days filling it up (it would have taken one or two if I didn’t have to go to work), and now it is satisfyingly full.



This next picture is where we will be planting our watermelons, cantaloupe, pumpkins, and possibly our artichokes. I gave it a layer of compost to amend the soil, and in hopes that it would kill the grass and weeds. But to my astonishment grass and weeds like nutrients too, and they quickly sprouted up through the compost. So we decided to cover them up with plastic and cardboard boxes in hopes that this will kill them (our thoughts were that it would block the light and get too hot for them). We will see how well it works next week.



This final picture is of where I will be planting my 40 sunflowers. I’m hoping that the fence will provide some support (and I can tie them to the fence if necessary), and be a wind break as well.



And the news you all have been so patiently waiting for…I finally bought a pottery wheel!! It should be here early next week, and I can get started throwing some new stuff. But more on that later…

When the Moon Hits Your Eye

I made homemade pizza pies tonight; actually I started them yesterday since the dough needs 24 hours in the refrigerator. All I have to say is that homemade pizza is amazing (I got the recipe from our friend Andy). I made two pizzas, one pepperoni and black olive, and the other was pepperoni and jalapeño (the jalapeño were really hot). Here are some pictures of them.





I will definitely be making pizza again (as soon as the garden gets going we will be able to have really fresh veggie pizzas).

RePlanted: Return of the Seedlings!!!

As promised here are the pictures of our seedlings after they were transplanted to larger planters. As you can see they take up a lot more space than before, as things tend to when they grow (not many things get smaller as they grow). Here is a photo of all of the planters before I filled them with plants



And here is one of them after I put a plant in each one.



I skipped taking pictures of the actual transplanting process so that it would look magical, you know "now their empty *poof* now their not!!” (actually I was so focused on transplanting the 144 seedlings that I forgot to take pictures). Here is a close up of some of our transplanted seedlings.



On the left you can see some corn, brussel sprouts in the middle bottom, pumpkin on the right, leeks on the top right, some heirloom tomatoes (from our friends Andy and Leah) in the middle, squash and zucchini in the top left, and there are some other plants that I cannot remember what they are at the moment. It’s a good thing I wrote the names on the outside of the planters when I transplanted them.
Tomorrow we are headed to OKC to listen to the curators of Momentum talk about, well I don’t know what but I’m sure it will be interesting. Then it’s to Pho Lien Hoa for some good Vietnamese soup, and then to pick up our art work from Momentum. Should be a fun night.

Enso Arts Spotlight Artist: Keturah

I mentioned that we were in an art show called Momentum in the last couple posts. We went to the opening last night and found out that Keturah won the Curators Choice Award (which is the top prize of the show). The work of art that won was her North Pacific Garbage Patchwork Quilt (which she spent like 4 months working on), here is a picture of it in case you wanted to see it again.


She won $500 and two plane tickets to somewhere of her (our) choosing. So a big congratulations to Keturah for winning top prize (now I’m going to try and convince her to spend the money on soil so we can really get our garden growing).

It’s Still Alive….!!! (Botanical Experiment Part II)

As you can see from the picture our seedlings have really taken off (they all most seem to have life of their own). I’m really excited about growing our own food, and trying our hand at preserving what we don’t eat. These little guys (and gals) will get transplanted to larger planters early next week (I will post pictures of the process because I know how everyone likes to see pictures (visual aids are great)). We still don’t have a garden full of dirt, but we have some leads on where we might get some (hopefully it will pan out because we plan to plant the plants on or near the 1st of April (and it would be nice to have some where to plant them)).
In other news we are headed to the opening of Momentum tonight to see all the art (I’m going mostly so I can eat some really good Pho (a Vietnamese delicacy in soup form)). Also, I’m hopeful that we will sell at least one of our motorbikes this month (mostly because the weather is starting to get really nice, which makes for good riding), and I can buy a pottery wheel so all of you can read something other than just about our plants (although I know how exciting it is). I also acquired a biscuit joiner, so you might have some wood working to look forward to as well as pottery (hopefully before the end of summer I will turn out some wood work (I just need to acquire a couple other tools, such as a router and bits to go with it)). I think that is enough parentheses for one day ( I have been told I use to many (I was also told that parentheses inside of parentheses are a bad way to write (so I wanted to try for a third parentheses inside of the other two to see how it will go over with my critic (my wife, oh that was one more than I thought I would do)))).

Wife's Lessons

After reading my beloved husband’s recent post and seeing his flagrant and unabashed use of parenthesis I thought you readers deserve something of an apology:

Picking up Momentum

Keturah entered us into a local show call Momentum, sponsored by the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition (OVAC). I didn’t mention it earlier (like when she actually entered us) because I don’t put much stock in getting into shows (probably because I don’t get into them that often). But now that we both have been accepted I am slightly excited (slightly more than slightly really). We both got all three of our pieces in the show (three is the maximum number of piece you could enter), so that’s pretty cool (I thought so at least). Here are pictures of the work we got into Momentum:











Here is some info on the show (dates, times, etc…). Come and check out our art and some other stuff (meaning other peoples art and some music (it should be fun))
DATES
Momentum Down tempo: Friday, March 4, 8-Midnight
Momentum Full Speed: Saturday, March 5, 8-Midnight
March 7-8, 5-8 pm: Momentum Gallery Hours

LOCATION
Farmer's Public Market
311 S. Klein Ave., downtown OKC
(map)

MUSIC
Friday: Dean Williams Band, OK Weather, & People, People
Saturday: 44 Teeth, Kite Flying Robot, & The Rockettops

TICKETS
Each night: $10 in advance, $15 at the door