Tag Archives: botanical drawings

Onion

sketch of a purple onion

"Onion", mixed media by Kerry McFall

This semi-dried onion presented itself the other day when I was moving the compost bin.  Somehow it escaped the cleanup of last weekend, and basked in the hot sun for a few days.  I started to toss it into the bin, but several layers fell away to reveal a GORGEOUS shiny purple heart.  Underneath the papery exterior glistened a firm globe, full of promise for either a really big purple onion next year, or a nice addition to tomorrow’s omelet.  Either way, it was destiny.  The challenge recently has been that my scanner has given up the proverbial ghost, so I’m resorting to closeup photos for posts.  Mostly it works, this one I had a little trouble with the edges so I just filled them in with Photoshop.  What this needs is a recipe up in the left corner I think, but not today… just going to head to the local taqueria for supper and call it a day.

Tomato Chairs Revisited

sketch of chair with tomatos

"Tomato Chair in August", mixed media by Kerry McFall

 

Back in May, I planted broccoli and  lettuce in my little raised bed, and carefully positioned tomatoes under my newly-painted pink “tomato chairs“.  Finally, I have been able to harvest half a dozen marble-sized tomatoes from a jungle of long-leggity vines.  Even if I don’t get another single tomato, the burst of warm flavor from those few was worth every moment of weeding and watering and tying twine and  fussing!  In the intervening four months, a fence went up, the pot of basil was cut back several times, an eventually I pulled down all the broccoli and lettuce trees to give the tomatoes a bit more precious sunlight (I say trees because I let them go to seed just out of curiousity, and they were taller than my head when I finally tired of the experiment!)

Now August wanes, and our allotment of a few hot days (99 degrees!) is behind us apparently.  Crickets are beginning to make themselves known (odd that they don’t sing until summer is nearly done here in Oregon…), nights are cooling to 58 the minute the sun sinks, dawn is slower to arrive with each passing morning.  Such a short summer.