Happy New Year!

Mid-January is here and things are getting organized for another busy year in the garden.  And I'm really looking forward to it!

The Christmas season was a bit frantic with so many orders of winter bouquets and plants and wreaths.  Mayne Islanders were decorating their homes with Christmas bouquets and giving them away as gifts too...so much fun!....and also very overwhelming for me.   I get deep-down anxious when I can't keep up with my orders.   But I did it, working past dark right up to Christmas Eve!  I'll have to be much more organized for next year.

These arrangements in vases are all packed in their boxes and waiting to be loaded up into the truck for delivery.

Beautiful orchids were a new addition to the winter bouquets this year.  I just love them!

Many more winter white bouquets this year too.  White tulips, white mums, white waxflower, and green carnations (love those green carnations!!) with cedar, fir, salal and twigs.

This year I potted up paperwhites with twigs and moss.  They sold quickly.

Also potted up red, white and pink amaryllis this year..always a hit at Christmas time and a favourite gift to give too.  Here they are displayed at a little Farmer's Market sale in December at the Ag Hall.

Creative chaos!  I was so lucky that the temps didn't go down below zero before Christmas.  It made it a lot easier to get to just leave all the plant material out there.

But after dark, arranging happened inside in the garden kitchen.....my fingers got just a little too cold outside!

Stems of orchids making the dark winter night time in the garden come alive!

More wreaths this year and this time, I got to use Mayne Island grown grapevine for the forms too.

                            
I brought a couple truck loads home in November, collected at Deacon Vale Farm.  Grapevine is amazing, so bendable yet strong.

I also really like them just plain and simple, with no decoration....I sold quite a few of these to do-it-yourselfers who wanted to have the fun of decorating them.

...yet another truck load of flower arrangements and amaryllis plants.  

It's so rewarding to see people enjoying what I do.  Thank you to everyone on Mayne Island who ordered florals from me at Christmas time....and also to everyone who chose my products throughout the year!   This little island-garden-micro-business wouldn't be any fun without you and simply wouldn't work at all if y'all didn't choose to buy the things I grow and make.  Thank you for a great 2011!! I really appreciate it  : )

growing shoots!

A shipment of pea and sunflower seed for shoot growing arrived last week.  So I've filled up my seed bins once again and we're all ready for the winter-time growing season. 

A couple of the sunflower seed bins.

I love the feeling of abundance and well-being I get when I look at all the full bins.  No matter what happens, we'll be sure to have fresh salad greens all winter long!

These are some sunflower and pea seed soaking in their soaking bowls, almost ready to plant in their grow trays.  I soak the correct  amount of seed for one production tray in each bowl.

It really feels so good to grow our own nutritious greens in the winter-time. 

Did you know that 50g of pea shoots contains about 40% of our recommended daily amount of Vitamin C?!!  That's very easily gobbled up in one lunch time salad. The bags I package up for Farm Gate Store and Happy Tides here on Mayne Island are 100g.  So a salad for 2 made with the shoots in those bags gives 2 people a great Vit C boost! They also contain loads of Vitamin A, Vitamin E, Vitamin B6 and Folate.  Lots of fiber, calcium and protein too as well as Chlorophyl, Iron,  Amino Acids....the list goes on.  

Sunflower shoots are also valuable morsels of concentrated nutrition.  Vitamins A, B, C and E, Amino Acids, Protein, Calcium, Chlorophyll, Iron, Magnesium, Niacin, Phosphorous, Potassium, Zinc.....

So after a few years of growing these for us and after a couple years of growing for the stores and  farmer's market in our community, I'm feeling happy about the idea of getting together with some interested folks to share some ideas about how I do it.  So many people have been asking.  So many people want to grow their own.

My friend Kit created this sweet ad and flyer for me and it'll be in the November MayneLiner community magazine to help me get the word out.  I'll print some flyers for island bulletin boards too.  I'm so excited to see how this goes.  I wonder if anyone'll want to come!  

A bowl full of pea shoots topped with sunflower shoots...a light dressing is all you need, but sometimes I like to add some crumbled feta, gomashio.....dried cranberries are good with it too.  The simple ideas are endless.

Yummmmmy.  This is what it's all about : )

beauty

My cosmos post this morning made me think of this video from The Feynman Series by Victoria's Reid Gower.   So thought I'd post it here too......I happened upon it a couple weeks ago and really enjoyed it.  I hope you do too : )