Fall 2012 Filoli Seasons Photography Class

My husband and I love to garden, and consider ourselves lucky to have a place like Filoli nearby to be members of. The perks of membership are many, including having access to the gardens all year round; a 10% discount at a local nursery; and taking classes / attending events at discounted rates.  These are just some of the many perks we enjoy throughout the year.

   

This is my second year of taking the Seasons of Filoli photography class - a series of four classes that take place over the year - one for each season.  I hesitated before signing up for this year's series (which started fall of this year and goes through summer of 2013) - due both to cost and because I'd taken it before.  I am so glad I did though.  (In fact, three other folks from last year's class are taking this series again too.)  Whereas last year's series met one day for each season, this year's meets for two.  This gives us plenty of time to go over the concept being taught AND delve into the world of editing - a science all of its own.

Learning about photography is like learning a foreign language.  The more you "hear" the language - immerse yourself in it - hang out with "native speakers", the more it soaks in and the more you learn.  When I first started taking classes about a year ago - it was overwhelming.  Aperture, exposure, F stops, stepping up, stepping down, metering, stops, iso, shutter speeds....whhhaaatt?  How does any of that translate to what I need to do with the the camera to get a nice picture?

I remember feeling very overwhelmed in last year's fall Filoli class.  None of the pictures I took that day turned out well. I blamed it on not having a tripod. I wanted to work on everything - and as a result - focused on nothing.  What a difference a year makes!  I came to this year's class (minus tripod) with the intention of working on composition and exposure, and as luck would have it - exposure is exactly the topic our instructor Susan Rosner chose to explore in class!  (I quickly let go of composition though upon realizing how much there was to learn and experiment with the camera with metering and exposure.)

I learned so much over the next two days. Instead of feeling overwhelmed like last year - I felt as though I had a small enough handle on the "lingo" - a base of knowledge (albeit it small) - that enabled me to ask questions that took me  to whole new level of learning on the topic.  Not only on how the camera works - but on editing too!  (on a side note - I invested in Adobe Lightroom earlier this year - but up until now - was only using it to catalog and do some rudimentary editing - without fully understanding all what I was doing on the editing side.)  Don't get me wrong - I'm still very much a beginner in both - but I have bit more knowledge - and you know how dangerous that can be!

So here are some of my first real efforts at photorgraphing and editing with the knew bit of knowledge I gained this weekend.  I still have a lot to learn (for example the pictures at the start of this blog tuned out  more red/purple than I intended) but oh how fun the learning process is!

 Busy Bees

and fall leaves.....

a flower 

fall fruits

And fall wouldn't be complete without a wild turkey too! 

The way I like my turkeys - wild and free!

Planting the Fall Winter Veggie Garden

A weekend free of outside obligations (the first one since Labor Day!) converged happily with a stretch of warm and sunny days last weekend to create space and time for us to clear out our spent summer veggies (tomatoes, cucumber, basil etc.) and prep and plant our fall and winter veggie garden.

Mama's little helper inspects veggie bed before old basil is cleared

It's been a long term goal of mine to get better at seasonal veggie and flower planting, and slowly but surely, year after year, this dream is being realized - and expanding - as we add veggie beds and wine barrels - and experiment with various veggie seeds and plants. And yes - while I lust for more - especially after our  Gamble Garden tour of edible gardens:  chickens, raised veggie beds, maybe even a green house - I am content and grateful for what we already have.

Gotta love the smell of those gardening gloves

 
This year, despite the army of aphids that took more water than environmentally correct to wash out of last year's plant, we are going with broccoli again.  Four plants instead of the one.  I hope/plan to stay ahead of the aphids and do a better job of harvesting to encourage additional growth this year.  But if I think about it - this is our third year of planting brocolli.  The first year - I let two plants go to flower and they became butterfly feeders.  Super.  Last year - we got one broccoli head - and a ton of aphids.  Great.  At least we ate one meal with our own broccoli.  This year?  Nowhere to go but up!
 

Ziggy getting in on the action

Having had great success with red swiss chard last year - we planted six of them again this year in the veggie bed.  In the wine barrel next to it, six chiogga beets joined some spring onions already in residence.  Beets are a first for us.  Up until now - my husband hasn't been so hot about eating beets - but then -  I don't think he's ever tried them roasted.  We'll see come harvest if he changes his opinion.  If not, that just means more for me!  Yum.

Arugula (planted from seed) pre-thinning

We would have loved to have planted some kale next to the swiss chard - but unfortunately - the nursery was out.  So instead, I planted some seeds and am crossing my fingers that they work out.  I don't see why they shouldn't - as the arugula above - also planted from seed - is doing swimmingly.  So well in fact, that time had come to do a little thinning.  Thinning seedlings is something that all the veggie seed packs say one should do - but what up until now - I've never been able to bring myself to do.  It's hard pulling out perfectly good seedlings - I want them all to grow up and prosper.

Arugula (planted from seed) post thinning

 
As I mentioned above though - every year brings new growth, awareness, and experience to me as a gardener.  So this year - I am heeding the advice and thinning away - trusting that this helps the health and robustness of the plants that remain.  This doesn't mean the plucked seedlings went to waste.  Instead - those sprouts joined blondkopfchen cherry tomatoes harvested just the day before and we enjoyed them with a spritz of lemon juice and flax seed oil.  Doesn't get much fresher than that!

Fresh arugula sprouts and cherry tomatoes

To wrap up the fall /winter veggie garden - we planted radish seeds and as soon as the tomatoes along the side of the house are done for the year, in will go four brussel sprouts plants.  Another first for us.  As the seasons progress, and plants mature and are harvested - we'll add and modify our veggie garden accordingly. 

Can't wait to see what produce this year's fall & winter veggie garden yields....