Still Life After The Allotment

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I’m still pondering on how I feel about giving up my allotment. Hmm.

But then given the long, wet and laboured lead up to spring, I know the soil on my plots will be cold and claggy and in no way suitable for any kind of cultivation. Probably for weeks yet. I also know the wind will be whistling up there, and I can do without the added chill factor. Yet there’s no denying it (as I look at these photos), we’re going to miss the produce, freshly gathered as needed and all grown without the taint of pesticide.

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We do have a small garden at our rented house, and I’ve already sown lettuce, rocket and spinach in big buckets. I have them covered in a large plastic covered cloche affair, and they’ve all germinated despite unpromising temperatures. I’m also going to get carrots going in large pots (they anyway often work better in containers) and peas in seed trays for sprouts. Yesterday I sowed cherry tomato seeds (in heated trays on the kitchen cupboard) and hope to plant them out along the sheltered walled border, though at this rate probably not till June!  And then there might be room for some French climbing beans.

On the other hand, we might suddenly find we’ve bought a house. In which case, my (mostly) portable garden will be moving with us.

Lens-Artists #246: Still Life  This week Patti sets the theme, a favourite with me when it comes to photographing garden produce. I’m sure I’m not the only one to see beauty in freshly dug new potatoes.

Never Mind Warhol’s Banana…

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…just look at my spuds!

 

This is my take on the Daily Post’s ‘life imitates art’ photo challenge – a posterized  still-life of last summer’s allotment harvest. I suppose you could also call it a potato print. Anyway, it is my nod to Andy Warhol’s poster art:

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Andy Warhol’s Banana

Of course, as a gardener, I regard anything I grow as a work of art. Coming up next are borlotti beans, corn, zinnias and dill – rendered on the kitchen table after the Flemish still-life school:

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Looking ahead to this year’s garden produce art works, I’m  just hoping that my asparagus beds might do something wonderful, then I could come up with something like this. I have the red currants:

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Dutch, active 1683 – 1707
Still Life with Asparagus and Red Currants
1696
Life Imitates Art