Garden – Page 3 – In the Vintage Kitchen: Where History Comes To Eat

Garden Update: Day 41

Published on May 10, 2012October 4, 2012 by In The Vintage KitchenLeave a comment

We have a bud, ladies and gentlemen! That’s right – one sunflower bud is on it’s way to flowering!

Funny enough, this is one of the little guys that sprouted long after the others. It’s only 14″inches tall while most of all the other sunflowers are now 3″ feet tall.

Do you remember Ms. Jeannie’s other garden patch project? The one that involved the hard to make, impractical but so so beautiful twig fencing? Well, Ms Jeannie discovered that yes indeed – it is definietly hard to make a twig fence. Hats off to all of you that have the paitence to muddle through such construction.

Ms. Jeannie fears that she is a tad short in that department!

After what seemed like a thousand trips into the woods to find perfectly straight, not too big, not too little sticks, Ms. Jeannie discovered that she had only gathered enough to build about 1/16th of her fencing. Goodness gracious!

So the fencing plan was modified just a smidge.

Ms. Jeannie wrapped her garden in 1″inch strips of hardwood and heavy duty steel wire instead. It is still impractical and won’t keep any sort of small critter out, but Ms. Jeannie loves it’s rustic look! The twigs were re-purposed as a little decorative barrier at the front and back of the garden.

patch2 — Front entry still needs some sort of gate.

Ms. Jeannie clipped some wild thistle and hung it at the entrance for a little early color. Mr. Jeannie Ology found a buzzard feather that same day, so added to the bouquet it was!

The vegetables and herbs don’t seem to mind that the fence is sort of quirky. They just keep growing anyway! Both tomato plants are already flowering!

patch5 — Tomato plant tucked between three different types of sunflowers, garden peas, snow peas and cosmos.

Ms. Jeannie also had to make some amendments to the garden after a cutting worm or two came to enjoy some sprout salad. Ms. Jeannie has filled in the bare patches with cosmos flower seeds and peas around the garden edge.

Besides the bin of three feet tall sunflowers, Ms. Jeannie also has two other water troughs full of sunflowers. They were planted a couple of weeks later then the initial batch of sunflowers to help stagger the bloom time, so they are just getting their soil legs now, so to say. This morning they were just peeking over the rims of the troughs.

After learning so much about the starlings, Ms. Jeannie is on the watch for other birds in her garden. She’s delighted to find that a woodpecker now comes to visit every morning! He sure is a handsome thing…

A Brief History of Poison Ivy

Published on April 24, 2012October 4, 2012 by In The Vintage Kitchen7 Comments

You may have noticed that Ms. Jeannie has been absent from the blog for a few days. Unfortunately, in all the excitement and anticipation of good gardening days, Ms. Jeannie, unknowingly, pulled out a whole patch of poison ivy vines. With her bare hands.

This little garden patch was in her friend’s poolside landscaping bed that contained beautifully tall stalks of salvia, a pink climbing rose bush, a flowering mystery plant, a ton and half of weeds and the unforseen poison ivy. Focusing more on the mystery plant then the ivy , Ms. Jeannie just jumped right in to pulling weeds, dreaming all the while about the garden utopia she could create here at the pool.

Needless to say, day 3 of the rash yielded a trip to the doctor after both her eyelids were swollen shut. Magically, overnight, it seems that Ms. Jeannie had turned into a puffin.

While waiting in the doctor’s office, Ms. Jeannie wondered where poison ivy originated from. Surely it had to be in the same importation category as those fish that have feet and the beetles that destroy pine trees by the thousands.

Ever the researcher, (swollen eyes or not!) Ms. Jeannie was surprised to learn that poison ivy is native to North America.

She also learned that it is a relative of both the cashew and the mango. Mustard gas used in World War I was inspired by it, and in the 1960’s, Poison Ivy was a DC Comic book character.

Ironically enough, there is a DC comic book for sale on Etsy that features Poison Ivy…

In 2001, Poison Ivy underwent an image makeover courtesy of artist Brian Bolland. Clearly, a touch more sexy then the 60’s version.

Poison Ivy was first recorded in North America by Captain John Smith in Virginia in the early 1600’s. John Smith was an English explorer who established the first North American settlement at Jamestown, Virginia.

He was the the person to give poison ivy it’s name as it reminded him of the English ivy that grew in his homeland. This is what he recorded…

“The poisonous weed, being in shape but little different fromour English ivie; but being touched causeth reddness, itchings,and lastly blysters, the which howsoever, after a while theypass away of themselves without further harme; yet because forthe time they are somewhat painefull, and in aspect dangerous,it hath gotten itselfe an ill name, although questionless ofnoe very ill nature.” – Captain John Smith, 1609

Incidently, European explorers in the 1800’s transported poison ivy to England and Australia to be used as decorative plantings in cottage gardens as the leaves turned a brilliant red/orange in the fall. Sorry about that dear ones. How dreadful!

Urushiol is the oil found in poison ivy that causes an allergic reaction. The word urushiol is derived from the Japanese word for lacquer, which is kiurushi.

Urushiol can be found in all traditional Japanese and Chinese laquerware. Because urushiol is poisonous to the touch until it dries, it takes a skilled dedicated artist to work with the product. As many as 200 coats of lacquer are applied to one object, with drying and polishing occurring between each application.

Prized for being one of the strongest adhesives in the natural world it is extraordinarily durable and is resistent to water, acids, alkali and abrasion.

writingbox — 18th century laquered Japanese writing box.

This just goes to show you that beauty can be be derived from all situations, whether it is perceived as good or bad!

Ms. Jeannie found these great items on Etsy that would have been super useful had she had them on hand before the start of her gardening project.

salve — Poison Ivy Relieve Salve by bcbontanicals

detoxblend — Detox Blend from rootsandflowers

books — Vintage Gardening Books from theArtFloozy

That being said she will stock her medicine cabinet in case she stumbles across the ivy again. Right now that thought makes her wince, but, just like any weed, a true gardener can never be knocked down!

Ms. Jeannie has come away from this whole experience learning one big lesson when it comes to digging in the dirt. Definitely look before you leap, my dears, look before you leap.

Garden Update: We have sprouts!

Published on April 3, 2012October 4, 2012 by In The Vintage Kitchen1 Comment

It’s only been four days since planting the garden sunflower seeds and they have already sprouted!

Ms. Jeannie checked the Botanical Interests seed package… they estimated sprouts between 10 and 15 days, so we are WAY ahead of schedule! How exciting!

Ms. Jeannie added a garden countdown calendar on her blog . She set the date for her birthday, June 16th, in hopes that she will surprise herself with a lovely birthday bouquet.

At the rate they are going – they might be here by Memorial Day!