A Simple, DIY, Hudson Valley Wedding - Picking The Flowers

Whew! It’s been awhile. I got caught up with actually planning and having my wedding! Now I’m back to tell you how it went and what I learned, starting with the flowers. :)

There are an incredible number of options when choosing wedding flowers (or you can choose not to have any). Do you want some for every table? Every person? Or just the bouquet for you? Which florist? What types of flowers? Colors? Are you going to preserve them? The questions go on and on!

If you have decided you want to have someone else design your flowers, you might want to skip the florists and go straight to a flower farm. There are several in the area with many options and some of them will design the flowers for you or know someone who will. This way, you also know your flowers grew locally, seasonally, and even organically depending on the farm. Shoving Leopard Farm even has an option where they grow a bed of flowers just for your wedding if you let them know by December.

For me, I went straight to the DIY approach to save money, and because I wanted a simple, casual feeling that is sometimes hard to find with florists, and in-season flowers were also important to me. I also turned out to be pretty good at it, if I do say so myself!

on the way to the venue! flowers are very distracting while driving, by the way. (photo by Thomm Quackenbush)

If you choose this approach, you still need to figure out where to get the flowers. You can look at flower farms like I mentioned before or look into bulk flower sellers online - this can be a bit pricey but you do end up having the largest number of flower options so you can be pickier about colors or if there’s a specific variety you just have to have.

photo by Daniel Evans

You can also try and grow your own flowers. I tried this and got mixed results, due to the weather and some fencing complications that pushed back when I planted my seedlings. I ended up not having nearly enough flowers by the wedding (I've got a ton now, though!) so I had to get some flowers from elsewhere. However, I did get a ton of pansies that I made ice cubes with that gave the water a slight cucumber taste while looking great, too! So that was a success, and having a few flowers I grew myself making a showing in my bouquet and the other arrangements meant a lot to me, so I’m super glad I tried - plus one of my dahlias finally blooming greeted me when I got back from our honeymoon.

photo by Daniel Evans

Another way you could go is to stop by a pick-your-own farm to pick some flowers. You could even make a day of it with your bridal party! This is the way I went when it turned out I didn't have enough flowers. Most places only charge around $10 for a bucket full of flowers and I only ended up spending around $40 in total. If you go this route, pick them as close to your event as possible and do your picking in the early morning or evening on a cloudy day for the best results. If you have access to a cooler, you might want to pop the flowers in there once you get them home. If not, a dark cool place would be fine. I only ended up putting my bouquet in the fridge once I made it to keep it fresh.

bottles actually used to be for clam juice!

Finally, you can just buy flowers from the grocery store. Some places like Sam’s Club will even have discounts on old flowers that might have a few bad stems, but are generally good. This way is probably the riskiest if you want specific flowers or colors, as they might only have a small selection - but if you’re just looking for roses and carnations or have a seasonal color palate (think oranges and reds around fall and pinks and yellows for spring) this might work out great for you

Now that you've got your flowers, how will you arrange them? There are a ton of great resources online for flower arranging, but, if you’re doing them all yourself, time will be a huge factor, so the simpler the better. For me, I started with my bouquet by simply working in a circle until I had about what I wanted and then taped it up with green floral tape and trimmed the stems. After that, you might want to use ribbons around the base, but I think it looks great even without that.

Next, I designed the table flowers. I used pasta sauce jars and other bottles that I had been saving up, and a few actual vases as well. These, I filled with flowers, generally keeping to a color scheme or feeling for each one. Finally, I used the flowers that were too short for anything else to make the boutonnieres. Those I did like the bouquet, just smaller. And you know what you can do with the extra flowers that just weren't quite good enough or got bent? Save them for the flower girl to throw!

photo by Daniel Evans

As for preserving your flowers, I don’t know much - I just took pictures then added them to my compost pile. Still you can look into drying the normal way ( hanging them upside down) or look into something more interesting, like freeze-drying. You might just want to keep a few flowers pressed in a book, too, especially if you do scrap-booking - all you have to do for that is place the flower in a book and then weigh it down until completely flat, and then wait.

Thanks for reading!

Amber

Photo by Jun Ogata dress by Holly Mccabe

Let's Visit: Red Hook Community Garden

We love living in the Hudson Valley and sharing with others some of our favorite places to visit in the area for fun, inspiration, and exploring! Today we share another Let's Visit... blog post with Amber from amberhlynn.etsy.com.

The Hudson Valley has quite a few community gardens.  Most are run by Earth To Table, a group dedicated to the slow food movement.  Community gardens hold a special place in my heart as my boyfriend and I spent part of our first date walking to the one in New Paltz (although it was dark and we couldn't see much, especially not the dragon made of tires that was the excuse for the walk). 

This summer, I finally got over my fear that anything I try to grow will die, and started my own vegetable garden!  It was an excellent learning experience, if at times frustrating and upsetting.  Once, some deer got through the fence and devastated my young tomato plants, but they mostly recovered.  I recommend everyone tries to grow their own food, or at least visits a garden once in awhile.  They're gorgeous!

The Red Hook community garden is on Route 9, just past Holy Cow if you're coming from Rhinebeck (I highly recommend their ice cream by the way!) and between two banks.  The front has quite a few small bricked flower gardens, a shed for tools, and a place for composting.

and this cool wood thing too

Inside the fence, there's a few raised beds full of tomatoes and different foods that are open to the community and are to be used for community events.  The rest of the space is free for residents to stake out and do pretty much whatever you want with it.  Just call Joseph Baldwin at (845)635-9388 so he knows who's working in the garden. 

A birdhouse in my neighbor's garden

Even if you're not going to grow your own things, feel free to stop by, smell some flowers, take some pictures, pull some weeds, and maybe even bring home a fresh tomato! They're delicious.

That's really all I have for you, but I hope you liked the info and photographs!  If you have any questions feel free to email me at amberhlynn@gmail.com or call  Joseph Baldwin, and keep an eye out for Earth To Table at local events.  Maybe you can even find or organize a community garden near you!

See you next time!

Amber

Hudson Valley Etsy At The Annual Garden Fair

Time to get back to the garden! On Saturday, May 4th from 10am to 4pm, several members of the Hudson Valley Etsy Team will be among the featured vendors at the Annual Garden Fair, sponsored by the Hudson Valley Garden Association. The fair will be held at the Orange County Arboreteum, Thomas Bull Memorial Park, Montgomery, N.Y. The fair is the place to buy all your plants, see demos of new products, and sign up for educational lectures.



As an added bonus you'll meet team members: Patti Ursel of GetGlassy with fused glass home decor; Lisa Walbridge of merryalchemy with floral and nature-inspired jewelry: Lynn Isaacson of NewProspectPottery stoneware pottery for the home; Sue DiGilio of digiliodesigns, folk art soft sculptures and works on paper, Karen Berelowitz of Karmabee, nature inspired paper goods, and Kathryn Luciana of HuzzahHandmade, felted wool bowls, vases, market bags. This event is perfectly timed to kick-start your gardening season, shop for Mother's Day the following weekend, and perhaps pick up some lovely handmade items for yourself.



For general fair information: http://www.hvgardenfair.com

See How My Garden Grows

One of the things that keeps gardeners coming back year after year is that you never know what you are going to get.  Each spring, when you are preparing the soil, sowing your seeds and planting your little sprouts, you never know what the rain, sun, temperature, bugs, chipmunks - all the variables for the season will be.  Last year may have yielded fantastic cucumbers but this year it is the greens that are thriving.  You just never know.

A combination of factors have given me a completely different outcome this year.  The extreme weather and the monumental growth of the trees around the garden have brought me far less of the cucumbers I crave and gigantic early season collards, kale and Swiss chard.  Usually at this time we have tender greens and the large, harder leaves come in the fall.  Lord knows what will come of these super plants by October.

I am going on vacation in a week and I had picked three good
sized cucumbers over the weekend.  We ate one and when I looked in my refrigerator yesterday I panicked.  Between the
vegetables I had gotten at the farmers market on Saturday and
harvest from my own garden I felt certain we couldn't eat it
all before going to Maine.  I love to can, or as my grandma
used to say "put up", veggies and condiments.  I don't make jellies and jams but I like to pick things from my own garden and preserve them for the winter.  This, however is  really
time consuming.  When I first started canning I found a recipe for freezer pickles, tried them and loved, loved, loved them.  They require no cooking and you can make them in very small quantities.

First, you peel and slice your cukes with a small red onion or shallots into a bowl.  Sprinkle about half a tablespoon of salt for every 2 cukes over your veggies, and let them rest for a couple of hours to extract excess moisture.  Drain and rinse well, pat dry and return the onions and cukes to the bowl.  Mix 1/2 cup sugar (this is for 2 cukes - multiply for larger amounts), 1/4 cup cider vinegar, 1/4 tsp. turmeric and 1/2 Tbs. whole mustard seeds.  Mix until the sugar is dissolved which can take 5 or 10 minutes.  This is the real work.  I use a canning jar and walk around shaking it until it is mixed.

Pour mixture over the cukes and onions.  Put everything into a clean freezer container or Ball jar(s) leaving 1" of what is called head space, which is space between the mixture and the lid of the container to accommodate expansion when it freezes.  These will keep up to a year in the freezer.  When you are ready to eat them thaw for about 4 hours in the fridge.

I certainly don't depend on my garden for all of the food for my family but when I am interacting with my garden I like to pretend that we do.  It causes me to see the food in a different way.  Food is a precious commodity.  We take it for granted sometimes.  Cultures all over the world, bless their food, thank their food for being there for them.  Gardening reminds you to be grateful.

From top left:  zucchini blossom, Japanese eggplant, edible nasturtium blossom, eggplant flower

Neely from Nells Belles

Green Thumb with NellesBelles

When she's not creating pretty mosaic pieces and creating jewelry, Neely from NellesBelles shares her gardening story....

I've lived in my house for 10 years now, which is long enough to have trees and gardens that have finally matured and taken on a life of their own. The stone walls I have built with my own hands now marry into the soil and root systems. My "little" pink dogwood is now a 10 foot beauty and my modest Japanese Red Maple is beauty with an 8 foot wingspan. My bell-shaped flower garden requires little of me except to beat back the more aggressive growers and not allow them to bully the more delicate specimen.

Last year my husband and I put up a fence and put in 2 4x10 raised beds for veggies. Today we put the garden in and it is lush with multiple kinds of lettuce, salad greens, 2 kinds of kale, collards and chard. There are carrots, pole beans and cukes. My herbs live in huge terra cotta pots on the deck. This year I had to put my tomatoes in pots on the deck as well as I was hard-struck by the tomato blight last year. The Cornell Extension said I should not plant potatoes or tomatoes in that soil for 4 years so I am embarking on the new endeavor of tomatoes in containers. Growing your own food gives one a feeling of wholeness and a sense of being "at one with" like nothing else I know!