I love to make things with my hands. This section includes building, DIY, upcycling, and craft projects for your garden. It also covers using materials gleaned from the garden or the natural world at large.
I chose TASTE as my prompt for the first day. My original plan was to choose a handful of different basil varieties and make comparisons between the flavours of the different flowers as a way to get to know them better. However, once I was out in the garden I found myself tempted by several …
With the garden season winding down or gearing up depending on your location, now is a time when many of us are getting back into the garden after some time off. I thought it would be fun to take advantage of the seasonal shift and start a community Grow Curious project that anyone can do, …
When I last wrote here about dyeing with plants it was June and I had been experimenting with fresh coreopsis flowers. Despite reports that cotton fibres CAN NOT be dyed with coreopsis flowers, I was able to use the gleanings from my garden successfully without using mordants (a fixative that allows the dye to bind …
I must admit that despite the myriad of wood spoons, boards, and whatnot in my kitchen, I didn’t think about protecting them from the dry, winter air until we bought a kitchen island with a solid wood countertop. The instructions that came with the island suggested liberal applications of mineral oil to prevent cracking, and …
Header hand drawn by Davin Risk Over the last year I’ve posted about some of my experiments in dyeing fabrics and threads with plants gleaned from my garden to be used in my winter, off-season stitching projects. Since then I have expanded beyond my own garden to use plant materials foraged from the world beyond. …
Herbal bundles are tightly bound rolls of dried woody, resinous herbs, that are slowly burned as a way to purify and cleanse the air. The roots of burning an herbal bundle, or smudging, is in indigenous purification rites and ceremony that span the world globally. It is not a homogeneous practice, and since I am …
January of 2011. I was not feeling the New Year vibe. I realized then that for the gardener, the New Year comes when we can once again dip our hands into the soft earth, and I made a resolution to make a big deal about spring when it arrived. And I did. That spring, Davin …
I can’t seem to help myself from bringing home plant bits from here and there whether its on a trip, out on a walk, or from my own gardens. I am in awe of the architectural shapes and designs found in nature and I want to have their beauty around me at all times of …
Perhaps it is the cold weather that brings them indoors in droves or a last push to procreate before the end times come, but the fruit flies are taking over my kitchen right now as they do every single fall. They are everywhere. They settle on anything that doesn’t move (edible or not) and alight …
This is an old project that I originally posted to this site back in the early 2000’s. It was lost when we switched over to a new design, but I’ve brought it back in time for holiday gift-making. (p.s. the photos are small due to the original page design). ——————— This is a simple, but …
Every botanical garden has their forte, their special something that sets them apart from the others. Prior to any trip that includes a stop at a botanical garden, I tend to scour websites in anticipation of the sort of plantings I will see. However, before my trip to speak at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens last …
I’ve taken the message on the side of this recycling bin quite literally and am recycling it by turning it into a salad greens garden. This house came chock-a-block full of junk, especially the backyard. Not that I’m complaining — we’ve found new uses for a great deal of the items and have saved some …