First harvest, Last class

For the last ten weeks I have been taking a pottery class at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis. After discovering pottery (I'm talking potter's wheel) in high school I have come to love it. Like the garden, pottery is a way to relate to nature by using natural materials and converting them into functional, tangible things. Instead of dirt, a potter uses clay. Instead of the ground, a potter uses the potter's wheel as their canvas. During my ten week course, I reacquainted myself with clay and the potter's wheel after a three year hiatus. I quickly remembered what I loved about clay before. Also like gardening, pottery is a meditative activity. As my pottery professor used to say, before you can center the clay, your self must be centered. This blog entry is a special documentation of my last pottery class and my first harvest. It is the documentation of a primitive firing and the first spinach. Primitive Firing: A firing is the process through which clay is made into what we identify as pottery. It's basically cooking the object at an incredibly high temperature (we're talking 2400 degrees Fahrenheit). After an object is fired, it will literally be in some form for thousands of years. This is how archaeologists can discover things about thousands of years ago....through pieces of vases, carrying vessels, dishes, etc. There are several different types of firings (soda, raku, high fire, low fire, pit fires and many others). Our teacher, Lucy organized a primitive firing for our class. A primitive firing is relatively short and somewhat interactive. One gets to wrap their piece of bisque ware in organic matter, copper wiring and put it in a simple brick kiln. Sticks, grass, newspaper and sawdust were put in our primitive fire for fuel. Here are some photos of loading the kiln with our pieces (they are wrapped in newspaper): After loading the kiln we lit it. As the organic matter burns it creates different colors and flashes on our pieces in the firing. Especially the copper wiring. I took this short video which shows you the colors.


The firing burned all night and was unloaded the next morning. I haven't seen my piece yet, but I will post a photo so you can see the result. Here are some other pieces I've made this class.

Spinach Harvest: My garden has been loving the heat and the rain we have been experiencing here in St Paul. The spinach, potatoes and beets have particularly taken off.
I've even got a baby banana pepper sprouting. My garden has required thus far pretty minimal maintenance. Three-four visits/week include watering and very little weeding. Tomorrow is another garden work day during which we will weed the common areas and likely put more wood chips down.

In the near future I need to get some twine to help cage my tomatoes. I did experience some leaf miners on my spinach, but I have cut all of these leaves off. The rest seem to be coming up strong and without pests.