Late July, Garden + Clay Sunflowers

My cutting/veggie garden is coming along slowly. We finally got a good bit of rain and all the little sunflower seedlings perked and popped up. (I cannot water my garden because we do not have enough water in our well. For my potted plants, I use gray water from the kitchen dishes and that keeps them alive and growing.) We have eaten some zucchini and summer squash and soon to be feasting on some cukes. Next week I hope to finish mulching the garden with leftover bales of hay. In this photo, you can see some broken down cardboard boxes that I put under the hay to keep the weeds away. Never enough cardboard.

I don't have a lot of perennials because having any kind of garden with sheep is difficult. I do have this stunning fig leaf style Hollyhock that is putting on a spectacular show. Margaret Roach had a great article on hollyhocks on her blog/podcast recently. I want to grow some other colors. It sounds like mid-summer is the perfect time to start seeds for bloom next year. Here is the link. 

Back in May I started fooling around with making plaster molds from clay sculptures of sunflowers. You can see that post here. I learned something new doing them - making a plaster mold from wet clay sculpture - which was rewarding. I bisque fired a few of the experiments and this week I finally got around to experimenting with the glaze step of the project. I had in my mind how I wanted them to look but wasn't sure how to get the look with the glazes I have.

I am stumbling around with the glazing on my pottery. It is all new to me - mixing glazes and wondering how they will fire. I've had some failure but because it is new to me it is intriguing. I can't spend too much time on it because I need to make pottery to sell in the fall for the holiday season. I spend endless amounts of time reading websites and trying to figure things out myself. Definitely not the best use of my time. I guess the wonder and the curiosity of it all is good for me and my mind instead of the same old same old. 

The last thing I should be doing is blogging today as I have 6 students coming for a retreat this weekend but I wanted to pop in and connect with you all out there as this blog has a bit neglected. Summer rolls on. Julia had a birthday and we've got some places to go before it is over. It sure is flying by. 

Hope you all in the northern hemisphere are enjoying summer. Have a great weekend everyone.