Artwork inspired by Leafy Vegetables

Sometimes I have to get my paints out and get creative! Tonight, my inspiration was our leafy vegetables that we had grown last year. I decided to use six different small canvases and highlight a different leafy vegetable on each canvas. I looked through my 2011 photos and picked six of our most beautiful veggies as the subjects for my paintings- romaine lettuce, pac choi, arugula, red chard, red leaf lettuce, and dinosaur kale. 

I wasn't trying to paint in a photo realistic style, but more of a colorful impressionistic style.  Being a perfectionist at times, I can get stuck working on my paintings for several weeks and even months just fixing an adjusting small details. I tried to approach these paintings with more of a "farming attitude" - which I consider to be an attitude of enthusiastic hard work but willingness to let go of small details and things that are out of our control. With that mindset, I was able to finish these paintings in just 4 hours! I think this is the first of many farm-inspired artwork I will be creating this year.

Now, these paintings proudly hang in our kitchen!  If anyone else out there is interested in commissioning me to do paintings for you, shoot me an email!

New Growth - 2012 Style

It has been a month since we planted our lettuce seeds in our indoor hydroponic Aerogarden and now it is exploding with tasty leaves! We have been able to make several salads as well as invent a creative new recipe - Asian lettuce wrap sushi - from the lettuce that is growing in our tiny home office. The best parts of growing this winter lettuce inside is the lack of bugs and that feels so clean due to not growing it in the dirt. Even though I love this small hydroponic setup, it still doesn't change the fact that we would love a greenhouse/hoop house one day so we can grow in the dirt and on a bigger scale during the winter season! There is something I love about putting my hands in the dirt and getting messy that can't be replaced by a tidy system.

This craving for getting dirty led us to by a bag of organic seed starter mix and add to our indoor garden and growth. We got out the sugar snap pea, kale, rainbow chard, and brussel sprout seeds. We put together the seedling heating mats, seed trays, and clear plastic lidded containers.  Then, we went to work MAKING A DIRTY MESS! :) Thankfully, our vacuum fixed the mess part later! Now we have about 100 seedlings growing in our office in addition to the lettuce garden. Since we are using every square inch of our two-bedroom apartment already, we had to get creative to fit all of garden-starting endeavors in our space. One thing is for sure... we have the most well lit area for typing up this blog!!

Our desk and bookshelf are radiating light!

In addition to our "apartment gardening," we have also commissioned our friends, Kathy and Irv of ESP of MO, to help us grow some of our Spring crop seedlings in their greenhouse. We are excited about getting the farm started again soon and about making new connections with those interested in buying our organic produce.

It's official now...We have hats!

Today was Damian's birthday and it was the last day of the Missouri Organic Association conference in St. Louis. We decided to have a different kind of "farm fun" and go mingle and talk with other farmers. Of course, we had to go to the MOA conference representing our own farm project with our new "Leafy Greens Farm" hats.

We talked up the vendors, sampled some local Missouri farm products, and attended a few sessions while at the conference. We learned how we can use Blue Hubbard Squash as a trap crop for our pests/nemeses - cucumber beetles and squash bugs. I learned about how to write a business proposal to help us secure grants in the future. Lastly, we learned about a farm in Nashville, TN called Delvin Farms.  They are running a 800 member CSA as well as selling produce to restaurants and wholesale. They are running an unbelievably cool and profitable operation on their 96-acre farm that started in 1972. They were way ahead of the curve in organic produce and became certified organic in 1998. Too often, we hear about farmers struggling to make enough money to pay their bills and how profits are not to be expected in the first 5-10 years. During their presentation, Damian asked a million questions and we stayed after their presentation to ask more about how they were about to make their farm so profitable. They were informative,  professional, and even invited us down to Nashville to tour their farm. True southern hospitality & true inspiration!

Another vendor of note that we came across in the conference was Slow Foods. According to their website, Slow Foods is "an international, educational organization devoted to promoting fresh, local, and sustainably-produced food, biodiversity, and the preservation of food traditions, as well as celebrating the pleasures of the table." They host farm/health related movie screenings and fun events such as the Drop.Swap.Grow., which is a Seed Swap in St. Louis on Saturday, February 25 from 12-3pm. Check it out if you are interested.

With Damian's job traveling all over Illinois, he has had the opportunity to tour a couple other small farms this week that we want to give recognition to: Golden Oldies Farm in Decatur, IL and Biver Farm in Edwardsville, IL. Both were gracious enough to let him have a tour without an appointment and talk about small farm practices. Other "good people growing great produce." :)