It is Spring! Flowers, vegetables and a teapot or two!

It is early Spring and the garden is waking up. 

White, violet and yellow flowers peep shyly atop stems that have emerged from warming soil and leaf litter. Now we can say "Hello" to snow drop, crocus, blue bell, iris, celandine, daffodil, whilst high above the acacia is crowned with gold.

Last month I posted photos of a new raised veggie garden that I had made near the wood fired kiln, it has been good to see the little seedlings that I planted growing with enthusiasm!

Armed with sharp scissors I have already been able to carefully harvest a few leaves of corn salad, lettuce, Pak Choi, and Kale from this new bed and add them to leaves of mustard, endive, silverbeet, beetroot and parsley, all plants that struggled their way through winter out in the open. Together they made rather a nice fresh green salad. It is wonderful to be able to enjoy our own vegetables again, and there is a special pleasure to be had from having grown most of them from seed. 

 

It is very exciting to see how much can be grown in a very small garden and, with all the concerns about the pandemic, it is a comfort to be able to provide something to eat that is grown at home.

 

I made this teapot two days ago. The clay that I use is enjoyable to throw on the wheel, but readily forms a multitude of cracks if pulled in the usual way when making handles. The clay is happy enough in compression, but is exceptionally weak in tension. This presents a real challenge when it comes to making a large handle for a teapot, and the last thing that you need, after carefully making body, lid and spout for a teapot, and assembling them, is for the handle to prove impossible to make! To navigate my way around this problem, I centered some clay on the wheel and made a wide open ended cylinder that I was able to cut handle material from after the clay had firmed up a bit. I attached two short stubs of the handle material clay to the teapot to make anchors for the handle, then attached the handle to the stubs of clay. Making the handle material on the wheel kept the clay under compression, and it all turned out rather well. 

Working with clay and glaze is all about problem solving, and this helps to keep potting interesting, because there is always something to learn! 

Not everything turns out as planned. Years ago I did a very hot firing of the wood fired kiln, well in excess of cone 11, and some of the stable glazes that never moved at cone 10, ran a bit in the intense heat, this livened up many of the pots, but, sadly, a teapot glued itself to a kiln shelf, and a chunk of the pot broke away as the kiln cooled. I was disappointed at the time, but the teapot found a new purpose in life and became sculpture for our garden, and I was delighted to see that moss and lichen are making a home with it!

Comments

charlie said…
Hi Peter. That teapot has a very interesting shape. How lovely to grow your own greens. Probably one of the best things to eat.Thought of you last night when they showed a most gorgeous cat that had gone walkabout in Dunedin on the tv. The lady owner was quite humorous about the adventures he might have been through before being reunited. I had a similar clay that would crack on the outer edge of handles. At its worst I was losing half of the mugs I made.Throwing back in the recycle bin. The cracks appeared just before white hard. The latest batch of clay is fine. Great to see the pics of the plants. Cheers Charlie
Peter said…
Hi Charlie,
Good to hear from you. I must look up the story of the Dunedin cat, I missed that one. Cats certainly live in some sort of alternate universe a lot of the time, and touch base with us when it suits them... mostly around meal times or if a heater is available!

Interesting you had a problem clay too.That stage just before white hard is where I am most anxious with this clay. I did wonder if adjusting the PH of the clay might help.. I am thinking it may be something to do with the electrical attraction of the clay particles being a little on the weak side, and adjusting the electrolytes might increase the strength of the bond? I have in the recesses of my mind a very interesting article that I came across at some point that was written many years ago about someone making adjustments to the throwing properties of porcelain, essentially by doctoring it with vitamin C tablets to make it a little more acidic. The clay had been really terrible to throw prior to the adjustment,it would pull up, then slump, and I think it had a tendency to split... evidently changing the acidity of the clay transformed it. I might do some experiments!

The greens are marvelous, it really boosts the morale to be able to pick something from the garden!

All the Best,
Peter
Arkansas Patti said…
I know better but it always surprises me when you are looking at spring while we are looking at fall. What a really nice garden you have with good variety. Sure tastes better when we grow our own doesn't it.
So glad NZ is doing so well with this Covid mess. You have a dandy person in your prime minister. Don't suppose you could lend her to us? We really need some one smart in charge.
You and Laura stay safe and well.
Melissa Rohrer said…
I love the garden teapot!
charlie said…
You are a mine of information Peter. I have never come across the vitamin C solution. Will be very interested in the results.Most of the things used to dope clay bodies seem hard to get hold of. I wonder what amount is needed.Some years ago I came across Zn borate which apparently can be used as a strong Flux but I couldn't lay my hands on any.Keep the good stuff coming. Cheers Charlie
Peter said…
Hi Patti,
Lovely to hear from you. Spring and Fall at the same time... no wonder the world gets a bit confused at times, it must be quite a bother for the world being round rather than flat! We have been more fortunate than most countries regarding Covid, even though we currently have a bit of an outbreak in Auckland, it does seem like the authorities have it under control. Whilst our government is not perfect, we are so lucky to have the leadership that we have. We are heading towards a general election here (it was due to be in September but the recent Covid outbreak has put the date for that back by a month or so). With all the uncertainty that these strange times bring, it is very hard to predict how the election will go... I hope that our Prime Minister does get to keep her job..., but, with the way our electoral system works, it will be quite a battle for her party to get enough of the vote to get her over the line.
Very Kind Thoughts to you from us in NZ,
Peter & Laura xx
Peter said…
Hi Melissa,
The garden teapot looks more and more at home with each passing season out in the garden. It is fun to see the lichen and moss claiming it, as if it were a natural rock, rather than a teapot!

Hi Charlie. Zn borate? I hadn't heard of it, but it sounds very interesting as a glaze ingredient. I see from Google that it is a flame retardant, and I think you might be able to get it from nzchemicalsuppliers.co.nz. It is also listed on alibaba.. you could buy a tonne of it there! :-)

I'll have a look in a pile of old potting magazines, I'm sure that the vitamin C idea came from an article in one of those. I think that the article gave a recommended PH level for porcelain, and the vit C was really just a way of adjusting to that PH... Other acids would have achieved much the same result.
charlie said…
I tried nz chemicals but they were rather unhelpful. They also claim to supply ulexite. A borate. I got the same knock back about 1995 when I asked them haha Ulexite is a component of gerstely borate. Got a book today. The memoirs of Georgio de Chirico. In the back is a small section on technique. Recipes really but I don't think very useful.About a year ago there was a traveling exhibition of nudes at the art gallery and I was very impressed with his painting of a headless female sculpture with a large bunch of bananas and arcade with little train in the back. Beautiful painting with transparent and opaque passages a bit like Reubens. Seeyas. Cheers Charlie

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