Potager July 22, 09

Updated photo of the Potager. Things are really growing and we've just received some rain last night and early this a.m.

A shot of the pole beans crawling up their strings. Filled in nicely and have blooms all over them.

The nasturtiums planted among the tomatoes are blooming now. They're quite pretty and will go well in the salads. We'll see if the kids will eat them in the salads. If not, they add color and draw in pollinators to the garden.

One of the many red cabbages planted this year. I harvested one of them so far and sliced it into a salad. Nothing like young, tender cabbage in a salad.

A shot of the sunflowers that are well above my head now. Can't wait for them to bloom. In the morning their heads face the sun to the east and follows it throughout the day. It's really very sweet to watch as the day progresses. Hopefully if the birds don't eat all the heads, I can cut some and hang them out during the winter months for them to feed on. The stalks make great kindling for the fireplace when they're dried and cut down to 1 foot pieces.

More pictures of Potager July 22, 2009

The sweet corn is developing tassles. Won't be long and I'll be harvesting.

Can you say "I HATE DEER!" This hungry deer seems to really enjoy Swiss Chard. He ate something off of every single plant and I only harvested from it 3 times. Talk about disappointing! But expected considering where we live. Walked right up into the bed and had a late dinner. Oh well...he also nibbled on the pole beans and bush beans but so far has left everything else alone. Will have to pull up the chard and plant broccoli. Then cover it with tunnels to prevent, hopefully, any further damage.

Hard to get the lens to focus on the actual tomatoes, but they're growing well. They're about the size of my palm. So far no bugs, but I'm keeping them dusted with diatomaceous earth and BT to keep the caterpillars off. So far so good.

This is the Blue Hubbard vines that are taking over the bed. I actually pulled up one of the smaller vines because they are growing out of control. Although a beautiful plant, it is really quite large. Next year it will have a bed to itself as it is smothering the carrots at the end of the bed. Live and learn.

Here's one of the developing blue hubbard squash. They're going to be quite large. I read that you can pull off the flowers to encourage the energy to go to the growing squash, and I may have to do that. These vines are loaded with flowers, more than we would be able to eat and give away. Guess it is typical squash behavior considering the way zucchini grows.

Airbrushed car by my son Sean

(Click on any picture to enlarge)
My oldest son took his car apart and after sanding and priming, painted/airbrushed Final Fantasy characters all over it. Then drove it to Otakon in downtown Baltimore. Here are some of the shots of the car. Can't believe he took his car apart, hauled it up into his house and airbrushed them in his kitchen. But it turned out really well. Once the airbrushing was done, he had 6 coats of clear coat put on it by a place in Baltimore. This is the passenger door...although I don't know who this character is, this is one of my favorites from an artistic point of view. It's very difficult getting the perspective right when someone's head is angled down and they're looking at you. He did a very nice job...
The hood of the car. Apparently this took him 90 hours of painting to do the whole car. Every spare moment he got away from work he was painting. It's hard to believe he's self taught.
Some spirit figure in the sky which is also difficult to do to get it to appear transparent and wispy. Especially when you're going from one color to the next.
Two more characters...

This guy just looks like a meany!

More pics of airbrushed car

More characters on his car.
I don't know all the characters names....
Apparently he used the bristles of a broom to do the fur...
This is my favorite of all of them. I love the way he did her face and eyes and hair. To think he has never had an art lesson and is self taught using the airbrush. He's a talented young man.
This is a view of one side of the car taken down at Otakon. He ended up passing out all of his 500 business cards in a very short period of time.