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Welcome to the first day of Autumn. Leaves will soon drift to the ground. Shapes and bright colors will be at our feet.
Here is a leaf painting project I did with my son, mom and aunt. We gathered leaves, placed them on watercolor paper (for leaves to stay flat on the paper it is best to first press them in a thick book). We filled small spray bottles with watercolor paint mixed with water. We lightly sprayed the diluted paint around a single leaf or leaves. |
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We held the bottle at least 6 inches from the paper to achieve a paint mist around the leaf. We blotted any paint puddles with a paper towel. We gently lifted the leaf off the paper. Voila! My son created his first leaf painting.
Later, my son wandered from the project plan and painted, with a paintbrush, the blank areas of the leaf stencil bright red. He turned his leaf into a bold Autumn leaf! |
Leaves
Happy New Gardening Year
A couple weeks ago, we covered our garden plot with one more blanket of mulched leaves and made our last harvest of 2010. We harvested spinach and carrots. The carrots still tasted fresh and crisp even though we had to pry them out of the slightly frozen earth. We loosened the ground with a garden fork and pulled out about 12 medium-sized carrots.
One stubborn carrot would not separate from its block of earth so my strong husband pressed down hard on the garden fork until its wooden shaft snapped in half. My husband sighed at the loss of his faithful garden tool. But he smiled after I announced, “we now have a dibber for the leeks we want to plant in early spring!” A broken off shovel or garden fork with an intact handle makes an effective hole digger for planting seedlings.
A garden blunder can be a gem to the gardener who dreams about next year’s garden.
Happy New Gardening Year, my gardening friends!
Saving Fall Leaves for the Garden
The wind swirls and scoops up leaves from the neighborhood and dumps them into our tiny front yard. The yard is covered with brown leaves when the only tree in it, a Bradford Pear, still has its green leaves. Every fall we collect at least 4 tall bags of these extra leaves.
We are grateful for the extra leaves because we save them for our garden plot. We keep our compost healthy by adding the extra leaves to our compost bin. The brown carbon rich leaves balance the green nitrogen rich kitchen waste in our composter. We add a dense layer of minerals and nutrients to our garden plot by mulching the garden soil with the leaves. We provide winter protection for tender plants in our garden by surrounding them with the leaves. When our fig tree was smaller, we protected it from the cold winter winds by covering it with leaves and a burlap blanket.
This fall, gathering and chopping our leaves became easier due to our new electric leaf blowing-vacuum- mulchinator. We do not have a grass lawn in our front yard, but perennials and bushes. It is tedious to comb out the leaves from our Nandina, Hydrangea and Azalea bushes and flower beds. Instead of raking the leaves into piles and chopping them with a lawn mower, we gently vacuumed up the leaves and created mulch at the same time. Our new garden toy is gentle on our plants and saves time. Fantastic!
We did not vacuum up all the leaves immediately. We saved some for my son and dog. My son likes jumping from our front door steps into a mound of leaves then pretending he is a bird sleeping in a nest. My dog likes to catch, in his mouth, bunches of leaves tossed up in the air.
How do you collect and use or play in your fall leaves ?
Our Garden Plot 