Plant Witch: Birch Bramble Reed accepted into "Entanglements" at FAA

Plant Witch: Birch Bramble Reed was accepted into the Fairbanks Arts Association juried show “Entanglements” this spring. The First Friday reception is this week, Friday April 1, from 5-7 pm. It will be on exhibit in the Bear Gallery through the end of April and available for purchase through the gallery.

Warp: Hand dyed long staple Supima cotton warp

Weft: Hand dyed rose viscose weft

Inlays: linen/mohair and Pima cotton

The ogham inlays in the piece represent birch, bramble, and reed for beginnings/new growth, harvest, and renewal..
The ogham for birch - beithe, symbolizes beginnings and new growth. It’s the joy of baby sprouts, of digging into still cold earth to plant this year’s crops, it is the hope and optimism of the beginning of the growing season.
The ogham for bramble - muin, symbolizes harvest, fruitfulness, and feasting. It’s perhaps the most iconic and eagerly anticipated phase of the garden’s cycle, providing the #plantwitch with ample opportunity to relish in their baskets and buckets and handsfull of produce.
The ogham for reed - ngetal, symbolizes renewal and healing, it stands in here for the fallow season of the garden after the lasts of the harvests.

Plant Witch represents the magic of growing things: seeds unfurling deep underground at Imbolc, sprouting at Ostara, blooming at Beltane, growing through Litha, harvesting at Lammas, preserving the bounty through Mabon, and deepening the compost at Samhain.

Tending a garden, cultivating houseplants, chatting with wild plants, befriending plant allies. Food and flowers and medicine and dye.

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In the Garden: July 22

I've allowed my garden the chance to thrive under a regime of benign neglect recently. And thrive it had. Especially the chickweed. And horsetail.  I exaggerate - sort of anyway - I did make sure all the plants were large enough and hardy enough to look after themselves for 10 days or so before I let them at it. The brassicas are all strong and vibrantly large, ready to outcompete anything else growing in their beds (sorry peas!). Even the baby haricot vert plants held their own against the chickweed. Barely.

So it had been a few days since I visited. And I was so so happy to see the beauty.  

Broccoli!!! Heads of it!!! My sister comes home to visit this week, so I plan to save the broccoli harvest for her first night out here. I've been waiting and hoping for the broccoli to bloom... I don't think I've grown it since that one oh so demoralizing year at the cabin when a mama moose ate my whole garden just hours before I planned to harvest it.  

And baby buds of brussel sprouts!!! Oh! I lack words for the joy. Brussel sprouts are one of my all time favorite foods. Cook them simply in cast iron with butter until the cut ends carmelize. Nothing fancy needed.  

And here... Inside carefully layer after layer of still-protective leaves : romanesco cauliflower, their fractal patterns inspiring and delightful.  

Dill and fireweed. I'm kind of in love with this photo. I really hope the dill self seeds and comes back next year! Something needs to hold it's own against the mint past whom even raspberries fear to spread!  

And kale. So much lovely wonderful dense delightful kale. I blanched and froze four quarts of it tonight.  Here's to a hungry mama and a breastfed babe in the depths of winter. Thank you kale. 

Thank you garden, thank you earth. Thank you compost. Thank you sunshine and rain. Thank you seeds. Thank you love. 

In the garden : July 10

Brussel sprouts

Salad greens

Broccoli and cauliflower

Baby green beans in my impeccably weeded garden bed... Oh hey there chickweed and horsetail and ....

Kale and more kale and a hint of snap peas.

Tomatoes on the porch and aphid infested nasturtiums. Not a bug to be seen on the tomatoes!