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My husband and I just had all new carpeting installed over the weekend in our house. I was forced to get everything out of my studio, clean it all up, and put it back in order. Here are the results!    

Nice and clean and ready for the new spring Garden of Silver jewelry collections to be born!

Everything seems to be pink this week in my garden. The cherry trees and bleeding hearts are in full bloom. I took some great pictures of this cute fuzzy bumble bee too, this little guy inspired another jewelry collection based on bees and other helpful garden critters.

And, of course, my garden buddies-Emma and Utah. Always finding a patch of plants to squash!

I am sitting here in my studio looking out over my snow covered garden and dreaming of spring.  A few years ago my husband Tommy and I bought a house with a nice piece of property and I began to create gardens throughout the backyard. As you can imagine, I love to  be outside gardening and creating beauty in my environment. For me being in the garden is meditative and peaceful. As soon as the weather breaks I am outside doing spring clean up and starting to work the soil. Last year the winter was so mild I actually had the spring crops planted the end of February. This year is a much different story!  My garden is a working kitchen garden, I plant vegetables, flowers and herbs all together informally which I absolutely love to look at.

The garden, the vegetables anyway, has been moved to the front yard in recent years. We now have an edible landscape.  The two main reasons for this are in the photo below. Their names are Johnny Utah, the thief with the tomato, and his lawyer, Blue.  I never actually saw a ripe tomato when the garden was in the back and wondered why. Some other missing garden elements were strawberries, zucchini, and these scoundrels actually figured out how to pick the carrots! Needless to say, I had to move the garden.

My brother Chris came over and removed all the grass off the front lawn and I made paths that I covered with two truckloads of wood chips.  We are organic gardeners, absolutely no pesticides or chemical fertilizers are used. I had compost delivered and I worked it into this beautiful fluffy organic rich soil.  I actually have a worm farm too that creates organic compost, but I will save that story for a future post.  

Occasionally the thieves help me in the garden if they are on their best behavior.  

These images are from the end of last summer, when the garden was full and lush.  The trellis is a new element that Tommy made which I love.  I covered it with clematis vines, peas, morning glories and hops. My cousin brews beer and I wanted to give him an organic crop of hops for a custom brew. Didn't pick them in time though and Hurricane Sandy blew them away...

Today I will read my heirloom seed packets with a cup of tea and patiently wait for the snow to melt so I can get out and get my hands in the soil again. Looking forward to another great growing season.