Gardening
Preserve the Beauty, Fragrance, and Flavor of Your Garden
Terra cotta microwave flower presses provide the opportunity to harvest, press, dry and create in the same day.
Photo courtesy of Gardener's Supply Company/gardeners.com
Enjoy your garden throughout the growing season and beyond. Preserve its beauty, fragrance, and flavor in artwork, crafts, and food.
Cell phones with cameras make it easy to capture the seasonal changes in our gardens and environment. Use a favorite photo as the wallpaper on your computer or phone. Turn them into greeting cards to send or pictures to hang on walls, lifting your spirits on gray winter or rainy days.
Break out the colored pencils, markers, or paints and capture the beauty of individual flowers or gardens. Creating art, like gardening, can help elevate your mood, reduce stress, and improve self-esteem.
Start a garden journal, if you haven't done so already. It's a great way to capture successes and even failures to help plan next year's garden or changes to the landscape. Create your own journal on the computer or in a spiral notebook. A waterproof and smudge-proof option like the Rite in the Rain Waterproof Garden Journal can go with you into the garden.
Preserve some of your favorite flowers and memories with a flower press you make or buy, like an heirloom flower press (gardeners.com).
Just place freshly picked leaves and flowers between pieces of paper in the flower press. Use flowers at their peak of beauty for the best results. Arrange the leaves and petals as desired before pressing, since they dry the way you place them. Once your flowers are placed in between the paper, close the press and secure the layers. Your dried flowers will be ready in a few weeks.
Speed up the process with the help of your microwave. The Terra Cotta Microwave Flower Press allows you to harvest, press, dry and create all in the same day. Place the flowers and leaves between the wool felt dividers and secure them inside the terra cotta top and bottom. The wool pads and terra cotta absorb the moisture as the microwave heats for quick drying.
Capture the color, fragrance, and relaxing benefits of lavender by filling small sachet bags with flower buds to place in a desk, nightstand, or drawer. Take this one step further and create lavender wands from 10 to 30 flowering stems and a bit of ribbon. These attractive wands capture the lavender fragrance and make great gifts.
Pickle cucumbers or other vegetables to enjoy throughout the garden season and beyond. You'll find an assortment of pickling crocks on the market but consider elevating your pickles to gourmet status by fermenting them in The Amazing Pickle Barrel made of lightly toasted white oak. You and your guests will enjoy the subtle and unique flavor the oak barrel adds.
Keep the flavor of your garden alive all year long. Pick and dry herbs for winter meals and holiday gifts. Gather the herbs into small bundles and secure them with a rubber band. As the stems shrink so does the rubber band. Use a spring-type clothespin to hang the bundles from a clothesline in a dry, airy place that is out of direct sunlight for drying. Save space and dress up the display with an herb drying rack that holds six bunches of flowers, hot peppers, or garlic.
Keep carrots, beets, and turnips fresh and crisp for months after harvest with proper storage. Most gardeners don't have a root cellar or sufficient room in the refrigerator. Consider packing them in layers of damp sand or sawdust placed in a root storage bin. Set the bin in a cool dark place and retrieve the vegetables as needed.
Try these and other creative ways to extend your garden enjoyment beyond the end of the growing season.
Melinda Myers has written more than 20 gardening books, including The Midwest Gardener's Handbook, 2nd Edition and Small Space Gardening. She hosts The Great Courses "How to Grow Anything" DVD series and the nationally-syndicated Melinda's Garden Moment TV & radio program. Myers is a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine and was commissioned by Wild Valley Farms for her expertise to write this article. Her web site is www.MelindaMyers.com.
Antiques
Becoming an Informed Collector
Photo courtesy of Wayne Tuiskula
With summer unofficially underway, you might be heading out to more estate sales, yard sales, flea markets, and antique shows. Here are some tips to help you make that next great find and avoid buying something you might regret later.
Knowledge is power when it comes to antiques and collectibles. The more you know about what you're collecting, and the more you know about antiques in general, the more likely you are to find a great piece. Antique dealers used to have libraries with reference books and price guides, but now you easily look up selling prices on online auction sites or pay for auction results on websites like worthpoint.com. You can also find a lot of information for free. For example, on our website, centralmassauctions.com, we offer advice about items that are selling well and tips for evaluating paintings.
If you're more inclined to learn in-person, many places also offer live antique courses. Old Sturbridge Village has previously offered live antique courses. Historic Eastfield Village (which is located between Pittsfield, MA and Albany, NY) is offering classes this summer on 19th century printing and weaving in the rural Northeast, among other topics.
Attending live auctions is also a good way to learn more about antiques and collectibles. When I first started learning about antiques, I attended an average of three auctions a week. Attending in-person offers the opportunity to view items and even handle them. The auction staff may also be available to answer any questions. If you attend auctions on a regular basis, you may see people who also attend regularly. Making connections with other bidders can be helpful when you are buying or selling. Some experienced bidders may be willing to offer advice. Be careful when listening to people during the preview though because an auction is a competitive situation. People may not want to share what they know about items, and may intentionally mislead you on a piece that they are also interested in.
Dealers at antique shows are often happy to share information about items they are selling because, the more they describe the items, the better chance they have of finding a buyer. Many dealers specialize in an area that interests them. You can find dealers specializing in a wide variety of items from Shaker furniture to antique phonographs. When I used to sell at Brimfield, I spoke with other dealers during slow times. Many are also collectors of the items they're selling and are passionate about their items. I learned a lot from those conversations.
Happy antique hunting this summer! Feel free to email me if you make that great find.
Our online auction of antique and vintage toys, baseball cards, sports memorabilia, guitars, and pop culture collectibles is currently underway and ends on June 21st. We are also running an estate sale of a home in Chicopee packed full of antiques, collectibles, dolls, and thousands of other items on June 23rd, June 24th, and June 25th. We will have another online auction later this month starting with jewelry, sterling silver, nautical paintings and memorabilia, other art, pocket watches, stoneware, duck decoys, antique firearms, and a wide variety of other items. It will end in late July. Please visit our website www.centralmassauctions.com for links to upcoming events.
Please contact us at: www.centralmassauctions.com (508-612- 6111) info@centralmassauctions.com for antiques and collectibles auction services.