#winter bouquets

[merrybrides]

Winter Wedding Bouquet Ideas

This ruby red bouquet boasts a mix of King Protea, roses, gerbera daisies, fritillaria, waxflower, silver brunia, eryngium, tulips and gorgeous greenery.

A frosty bouquet of light peach, pink and cream roses, dusty miller and silver brunia proves pastel is perfect for winter.

This stunning winter bouquet features velvety red roses, quicksand roses, lisianthus, dried bunny tails, and more. The pretty palette of deep red and blush pink was simply gorgeous.

A total winter white out has never looked so good, bursting with crisp white roses, white ferns, and draping amaranthus.

Add a little Art Deco style and a pop of color against white with peacock feathers and purple calla lilies.

This dreamy white winter bouquet is filled with white O’Hara Roses, Mona Lisa anemones, ranunculus, spray roses, Queen Anne's Lace and trailing jasmine which adds even more magic.

A gorgeous, frosty blue bouquet features roses, anemones, berries, dusty miller and silver brunia.

We're loving this winter take on a boho bouquet which features pampas grass, lunaria, olive and eucalyptus foliage, and roses.

A total winter whiteout has never looked so good, bursting with crisp white roses, white ferns, and draping amaranthus.

This ranunculus, waxflower, spray rose, muscari, and eucalyptus bouquet is paired with fragrant pine, giving it an unmistakably wintry feel.

The Christmas Rose (also known as hellebore) is such a showstopper in this bouquet. It's joined by whimsical fritillaria, roses, lisianthus, and waxflower to make the perfect winter posy.

This stunning Winter bridal bouquet of purple blooms pairs moody ranunculus, hellebores, and fritillaria for an unexpected twist on winter wedding flowers.

Splashes of deep red in this bouquet add a wintry feel. Roses, spray roses, lisianthus, eucalyptus, all tied with red and gold ribbon, add to the festive effect.

Maximize seasonal foliage with this stunning bouquet featuring eucalyptus, heather, berried ivy, anemones, roses, and ranunculus.

This classic winter bouquet is filled with roses, ranunculus, and greenery.

[ediblegardenspointloma]

In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

Salads like this one are thrown together with garden ingredients most every day during salad season. Currently, a 4x4 foot square of various kinds of lettuce makes for varied and colorful salads.

Here’s the last of an earlier sowing of ‘Sea of Red’ lettuce. Cold weather seems to deepen the red while the contrasting chartreuse remains at the base. It might be my favorite lettuce.

I sent assorted salad materials and several bags of lettuce with my son who craves them as I do.

Baby leaf rainbow chard grown as “cut and come again” adds color to salads and omelets.

The very tiny center of an undersized red cabbage caught my fancy in late afternoon light.

My sister was visiting from Oregon last week, where the garden is a distant memory. I searched and found some beets for dinner.

Sunday’s church bouquet continues the colors of the previous images. Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon’ blooms year-round here at the coast and is a manageable 5x5x2 foot shrub. ‘Moonlight’ grevillea is another worthy, though larger selection.

To see what other gardener bloggers are gathering in, head over to Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres. Happy to have Harvest Monday up and running for 2020. If you want to see what’s been happening in my winter garden see previous Monday posts.

[merrybrides]

Beautiful Bouquet Recipes for Winter Weddings

Shades of Grey

This touch of frost bouquet is just stunning.

The subtle nod to the winter season is apparent with the ice whites and delicate greys, it’s the perfect winter white wedding bouquet.

What’s in it:

White Anemones

Roses

Brunia berry

Senecio

Spruce

Cymbidium Orchids

Red Berries

This bouquet is full of rich reds and texture. Using the greener Eucalyptus parvifolia creates a this loose bouquet and makes it wild and whimsical.

What’s in it:

Red Amaryllis

Eryngium

Brunia

Proteas

Leucadendon

Viburnum Berries

Evergreen

Why not go for something a little bit more unusual. A full, flowing foliage bouquet, add touches of Rosemary, Blue pine Spruce and Olive branches to add lots of scent and texture to your wedding flowers.

What’s in it:

Eucalyptus Populus

Eucalyptus Baby Blue

Skimmia

Waxflower

A single white Garden Rose

[ediblegardenspointloma]

In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

Since we were in Seattle last Monday, I have two weeks of harvests to share. As usual, an extra suitcase was stuffed with garden produce to share with my son’s family. TSA in San Diego must know me by now.

‘Baby Ball’ and ‘Sweet Merlin’ beets from Renee’s Garden perform well for me every year with good flavor and texture at any size.

My daughter-in-law, Sarah is especially fond of my garden kale so she received the first substantial harvest (or rather, what I had room for).

She also requested tangerines which neatly fit in a plastic container for travel.

Carrots also fair well in a suitcase and I hastily pulled some ‘Bolero’ Nantes carrots and a few of the under-sized tri-color carrots.

Before departing for Seattle, this was one of my salads with orange cauliflower, carrots and calendula petals.

A few days before I left, I made sweetened oven-dried orange slices to share with Andy and Sarah. And I do love them too. You can read more about them in an earlier post here.

And since we have an orange theme going in the last few images, here’s the garden bouquet I made for the church entry this morning. From the garden, calendulas, feverfew, watsonia and native coral bells.

You may enjoy seeing what other garden bloggers harvested last week at Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

[ediblegardenspointloma]

In My San Diego Garden & Kitchen 3-5-19

Here’s the orange cauliflower in my garden before cutting. It’s more like a bouquet set amidst the leaves—more attractive than sitting alone on my counter. It is also known as cheddar cauliflower and orange bouquet cauliflower. The color comes from a genetic mutation that allows the vegetable to hold more beta carotene making it a good source of vitamin A.

Orange cauliflower was first discovered in Canada in 1970, hybridized at Cornell and required many years of cross-breeding before it became commercially available.  It is similar in texture to white cauliflower with only subtle differences in taste. Here’s the description from Specialty Produce. You’ll also find links to 15 recipes for orange cauliflower there.

Its flavor is mild with subtle cruciferous and nutty sweet nuances, a taste which is amplified when roasted. The entire cauliflower, its leaves, trunk, stems and florets are all edible.

This is the last Romanesco from the garden for this year. I’m so enamored with this chartreuse, fractal vegetable, I might plant more next year. 

Romanesco was perfect in this yellow and green themed salad.

And continuing on the brassica theme, I cut the first of the broccoli side shoots this week. They seemed slow in coming, perhaps due to our cooler, rainy weather. The largest side shoot (in the 12 inch wooden bowl) was akin to a small head of broccoli.

Golden sweet edible podded peas

The snow peas like the cool weather and produce abundantly. Soon I’ll have to let them set seed for next year’s crop. I’ve been saving seed for the snow peas for over twenty years. They are very well adapted to my garden conditions. I’ll also be sharing some of my seed with San Diego Seed Company for further garden trials.

‘Catalina’ spinach from Renee’s Garden Seeds, another vegetable that thrives in the cool weather.

Here’s what I gathered for a large salad for dinner.

And here’s the salad with additions of Romanesco and purple cauliflower. 

More magenta is always an option—in cauliflower or garden flowers. Alstromeria and gomphrena paired in a late winter bouquet.

See what other garden bloggers harvested last week in their gardens at Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

[ediblegardenspointloma]

In My San Diego Garden & Kitchen 1-7-19

January is the month for citrus—oranges, tangerines, limes and kumquats. And I have several neighbors that keep me in lemons. A trip to Borrego Springs for red grapefruit from Seley Ranch is an annual event. There about twenty in the garage now. These days most every meal includes at least one of the sun-kissed fruits. 

Chef’n FreshForce Citrus Juicer with ‘Bearss’ lime

America’s Test Kitchen recommended this citrus juicer which I received as a Christmas gift. It performs as reviewed—so easy, no mess and lots more juice.

The first kumquats of the season. They may be an acquired taste for some. The smooth, bright orange rind is sweet and the pulp quite tart. An LA Times review of kumquat varieties describes the flavor as spicy, intense, sweet-tart. I agree. Read more about Nagami kumquats at Specialty Produce.

Last year I made a small batch of kumquat marmalade which surpassed expectations. Though labor intensive the sweet-tart thing intensifies with sugar and heat and is delightful. I slice kumquats and add to salads and when I pass by the tree I often look for a bright orange one to pop in my mouth.

Kumquats with bird protection,

Last year I lost about half the crop to hooded orioles before I covered the tree. This year I put the netting on early.

‘Washington’ navel oranges and ‘Satsuma’ tangerines

Here’s a basket of oranges and tangerines I picked for my son, Tim when he stopped by last week. We’ve easily had 300 tangerines on the tree and an equal number of oranges. Unlike the oranges, the tangerines don’t store well on the tree so we share them liberally and snack on them often.

Gifts of greens

I also sent my son back to Los Angeles with lettuce, arugula, mustard, oregano and violas.

Tim’s garden in 2015, Arts District, Downtown LA

Before his job required more travel Tim grew an abundance of winter vegetables on the roof of his century old loft in Downtown LA. See more of his garden in Roots in Downtown LA—2015.

Oh and let’s throw in a garden salad made in the last week.

And a bouquet for good measure.

See what other garden bloggers are harvesting at Harvest Monday, this week hosted by Michelle at From Seed to Table.

[ediblegardenspointloma]

In My San Diego Garden & Kitchen 1-14-19

Snow pea blossom Source: Susan Bell from my garden

The lovely snow pea blossoms have produced the first peas; only a handful but a welcome addition to last night’s salad. I began growing ‘Golden Sweet’ snow pea over 20 years ago and have saved the seed each year. The seed is very well-adapted to my coastal San Diego garden. Recently, I shared seed with San Diego Seed Company for trials in their garden.

You can order ‘Golden Sweet’ snow peas from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Use the search option to see other posts featuring the snow peas growing in my garden.

Broccoli season has begun and six of the twelve plants are nearing harvest. ‘Premium Crop’ is my favorite and most reliable variety. The heads are very large, side shoots are abundant and the stalks tender. I traded one head for some neighborly assistance in moving a seven foot tree trunk from our backyard to the driveway. We all thought it a good trade.

During harvests of strawberry guavas in 2018 I did not always have time to process the puree into jam. It freezes well and last week I made three batches of the jam. I have enough puree for another twenty jars or so. Each year I like to have about a hundred jars of guava jam and orange marmalade on hand to give away to neighbors, friends, family and others who come my way. 

I snatched a few off-season strawberry guavas from the tree this week. I like them best warmed by the sun and popped straight into my mouth.

Tangerines, limes, kumquats and an orange

A citrus sampler shows what we continued to harvest this past week. Lots of orange juice, tangerines at lunch and soon there will be kumquat marmalade.

Various lettuces and arugula for a dinner salad. And the winter greens continue.

Grevilleas, paperwhites and nutmeg geraniums for a winter bouquet

See what other garden bloggers are harvesting by heading over to Harvest Monday,  hosted this month by Michelle at From Seed to Table.

[ediblegardenspointloma]

In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

It’s the first harvest of my second sowing of Tuscan kale. The first attempt was ravaged by some large critter, possibly a raccoon as it also damaged many of the brassicas. The kale leaves are very tender this year which I’d attribute to cool weather and plentiful rain in November and December.

The kale was added to a harvest basket that I gave to my son, Tim. For several years he had a productive roof-top garden at his loft in Downtown LA. These are some of the vegetables he grew. You can read about his garden in my post, Roots in Downtown LA—2015.

The various lettuces make salads that are a study in contrasts of color and texture.

The celery “forest” yields crisp stalks that find their way into salads and recipes most every day. My friend’s Italian grandmother mused that “Everything’s a little better with some celery.” I agree.

This is a paltry cauliflower head before harvest. Damage inflicted by the raccoon robbed the plant of its vigor despite extra fertilizer. I’m remembering my usual heads that are typically eight inches across. And this little one escaped my notice and spread.

We gave away about one hundred oranges and tangerines last week, all of which escaped a photo capture. Here’s a sample of what the tangerines look like.

An unusually shaped vintage vase and an arrangement from garden flowers: leucadendron, alstroemerias, watsonia and calendulas.

To see what other gardener bloggers are gathering in, head over to Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.