Northwest Flower and Garden Show Week

Wow, what a great show this year! I've seen quite a few great speakers over the last few days, and hob-nobbed with some great designers, writers, and fun people! I saw two particularly great seminars this year:

Kate Frey: Gardens That Give - Creating Sustainable Gardens that Sit Lightly on the Planet
Inspiring consultant, designer and freelance writer, specializing in sustainable gardens that encourage biodiversity. This made me think a lot about how we can create gardens that are beautiful, create wonderful places for pollinators and other wildlife, and reduce our carbon footprint when we do it. Lots of references to low-water plants and Mediterranean-style gardening, my favorite!

Jessica Bloom: How to Have Your Garden & Eat it Too - Design Strategies to Maximize Space, Function & Resources
Jessi Bloom is the owner and lead designer of N.W. Bloom EcoLogical Landscapes, along with being a Certified Professional Horticulturalist (CPH) and an ISA Certified Arborist.
Designer Jessica Bloom's 2010 award-winning show garden, "A Family's Little Farm in the City," demonstrated how to maximize the potential of a small urban space to provide food and play for a family. Her inspiring "urban homestead" won seven major awards at the show, Including the People's Choice Award, for its creative use of space and inventive ways to include chickens, goats, edible landscaping, conservation, outdoor living and much more. Now she shares her design strategies so you too can create a garden that helps you live sustainable - and beautifully - in the city or a small suburban plot. Think you can't have it all in a small space? Think again! Jessica shows you how to set priorities and squeeze it all in so you can have your own little farm, no matter where you live.
This was such a great talk and was so inspiring for me. I can't wait to use some of her ideas at my own urban homestead!

Get out and go to the show!

Thinking of warmer times...

I put together this succulent collection last spring and enjoyed it all summer. It greeted our guests by the front door! Echeverias and various other succulent beauties, with some nice pieces of glass tucked in to pick up the rays of the sun. I brought it inside this fall before the cold hit, and it makes a great indoor piece of art as well. I'll be sprucing it up soon for another summer in the sun!
I'll be making more of these this spring to sell at some local markets.

Simple Pantry

For this post I want to talk about simplicity in the kitchen. I have been striving to continue this simplicity in my own kitchen at home.

The Italian kitchen is one of simplicity, order, and embibes a deep appreciation and respect for the food found therein. Many are quite small and unassuming. The ingredients that reside in the pantry day-to-day are mostly dry ingredients - beans, pasta, biscuits for breakfasts and baking ingredients. No energy bars, snacks packed with sugars and preservatives or chips. In fact, very few snack foods are present in the Italian pantry (Becuase people there do not consantly snack, they eat sit-down meals, or grab a snack in a bar (cafe) with other commumity members). The refrigerators are small and hold essentials like milk, eggs and yogurt. Real milk, eggs and yogurt. No fancy flavored 'gogurts', very few sauces, no 'diet' anything. Only the real deal. Glass jars and bottles are reused, holding oil, vinegar, and acqua frizzante. Produce is usually collected from the garden or cold storage area, or purchased that day at the local family grocer. The food always takes love and care to prepare, and you can taste it. Fresh bread is either handmade or purchased fresh each day from the local panetteria. The family sits down to eat - all together - nearly every lunch and dinner of every day. Meals are savored, 'buono' is utter by full mouths while loud talking, laughing, and the occasional political debate ensues. It is a wonderful thing.

Now, I am back in my kitchen in Seattle. I have tried to restructure the way I purchase, store, and respect food. Here are some ways that I am merging Italy with the wonderful bounty of local food the Puget Sound has to offer:

1) Buy bulk dried beans, lentils, seeds, nuts and baking products.
2) Reuse glass jars to store bulk items and reuse plastic bags each time you purchase bulk goods at the store.
3) Try not to waste any food that you purchase or prepare. I eat all of my leftovers, and I freeze what I can't eat within the next
few days for the next week.
4) Grown and harvest as much produce from the garden as you can, and try to use it all. If you've got a few items in the pantry
that you don't think you can use, wash them, slice them and freeze them for later use.
5) Use a 'cold storage' area. Basement, shed, or a secure outdoor storage area.
6) Purchase only a few essential items at the store. I try to get my most of my produce from the garden or local farmers
markets. This is more difficult in the winter so I've been eating a lot of potatoes, carrots, dried beans, etc.

The benefits to these practices are many: I have saved heaps of money (bulk is cheap, free vegetables are cheaper), I've reduced the amount of waste that I generate from food production, my pantry is clean and organized and stays fuller longer due to a diverse assemblage of dried bulk items, I have been eating more diversely and having a great time being creative and cooking foods slowly, and I eat more slowly and carefully, appreciating where my food has come from - be it my parents garden or some other farmer's soil out in the Puget lowlands.

Above are some pictures of the kitchen and pantry of Laura and Pietro, my gracious hosts in one little village in the hills of Tuscany. Thier home was a 150-year old farmhouse complete with a beautiful woodfire oven and the cutest little pantry I've ever seen. Notice the small size, fresh produce in baskets, fresh oil, and best of all enough room for a well-stocked wine rack!

greenearthbloom - Creating unique gardens that encourage sustainability, biodiversity and beauty.

It's official, I've launched my business - greenearthbloom!
For the last few years I have been designing home gardens on a very small scale. Now that I'm, 'official' I hope to continue expanding on my passion of creating beautiful, low-maintenance landscape designs, tranquil and beautiful. I focus on 'right plant, right place' principles, sustainability, and water-wise design techniques. In addition, I create kitchen gardens that inspire people to actively participate in their own food production. I will continue to share ideas, books, events, and my garden life on this blog.

I am a strong advocate of taking gentle care of our small corners of this earth in order to preserve local plants, food and culture to foster a more unique, biodiverse world. I hope that my business will encourage individuals to interact with their gardens and the earth, and to consider the positive impact that their spaces can make on both a local and global ecological scale.

Grocery Gardening

I got a new book today that I'm really excited about - Grocery Gardening - Planting, Preparing and Preserving Fresh Food, By Jean Ann Van Krevelen. After experiencing the thriftiness of Italian family farms, one of my goals this spring is to grow absolutely as much of my own food as possible. I resolution of sorts. Another effort I will make is to 'put up' or preserve as much food as I can to eat throughout the winter. This book will be a great companion during my efforts. In addition to tips on how to grow everything from blueberries to beans, it contains great recipes and methods for preserving your harvest. It contains creative methods for vegetable gardening in small spaces, as well a handy disease/pest identification and treatment guide. I will be sifting through this book over the next few weeks as I plan my garden for this upcoming spring. I just love doing this during the cold winter months.

One can never be too early to plan the garden...

Back in the Northwest

I'm back to the blog from my Italian adventure. What an incredibe adventure it was!

Apologies - I couldn't post anything during my trip due to limited internet access, lack of a computer, and the general Italian lifestyle of piano piano (slow slow, mellow mellow). I turned Italian! And it suited me very well...:) I learned a lot about a mellow, simple, contemplative lifestyle where no rushing is allowed. No stressing allowed, no hurrying allowed - there was no room for anxiety in Italy.
And now I sink my roots back down into the magnificent Pacific Northwest. I am in awe of its magnificent beauty, familiar comforts, and beautiful people. I am also reminded of how lucky I am to live in such an inspired, creative community. I am anxious for the spring to arrive, but also looking forward to some nice, cold, snowy days here.

Dreams of Tuscany

I have been so bad about keeping this blog up for the last month! The photo above is the current stack of books next to my bed. The one on the bottom has gotten most of my attention lately...
I have been busy preparing for a Tuscan farming adventure. I left my job of three years to travel to the beautiful land of sun, wine, gardens, and food - Toscano. I'll be working on several organic farms in the region for about two-and-a-half months beginning in late September. I hope to further my knowledge of small farming, permaculture, olive orchards, garden designing, cooking, eating, wine drinking, romantic art, sightseeing, and generally the enjoyment of a good, simple life. When I return, I hope to apply what I have learned to my own life and business. I am excited, nervous, and full of anticipation for what lies ahead for me in the next few months!
I will be posting from abroad, and will try to keep this blog up to date with my Italian adventures.