Your Small Kitchen Garden

This yellow beauty hung out briefly on my windowsill in late autumn before it migrated via United States Postal Service to its new home.

One thing I love about spring is it includes the day each year that I get started in my small kitchen garden. Another thing I love about spring is meeting the new lineup of Yard Birds.

In winter, the Yard Bird artist designs new sculptures, collects tools and machine parts, and assembles dozens of his amusing creations. Then, in mid-to-late April, he sets his Yard Birds on the lawn at a downtown church during the Lewisburg Arts Festival. Thousands of people visit the Arts Festival which stretches five long blocks through town and spills into several side streets and parks. I enjoy the Arts Festival and get a little rush as I approach the lawn where I know the Yard Birds will be.

Within a few months after the Arts Festival I meet with the man who makes Yard Birds and I photograph fifteen to twenty of his sculptures. Then, when I get a chance, I post the sculptures at the Home Kitchen Garden Store.

Yard Bird Garden Sculptures are Up!

I finally got a chance! It has been a very busy growing season as I’ve expanded my herb garden and my vegetable garden annex. I’ve also added an ornamental bed (never thought I’d say that). Wait! I’ve added two ornamental beds though I planted melons among the grasses in one of them.

With all the additions to my small kitchen garden, it’s moving gradually toward being simply a kitchen garden. Before things die back this autumn I’ll try to capture the features and share them in this blog. In the meantime, I hope you’ll visit the Home Kitchen Garden Store Yard Birds page and have a look at the adorable creations from this year’s collection. The artist has combined shovels, rakes, reinforcement bar, and various machine parts to create quite a menagerie of whimsical garden sculptures.

Thanks so much for visiting!

The Lewisburg Arts Festival features several hundred vendors, performers, and civic groups. Lewisburg closes down the main street and a few side streets for a day. Vendors sell all kinds of handmade arts and crafts, and you can meet many of the artists—even watch them create. Each year brings several craftspeople who specialize in garden sculptures. Yard Birds are my favorite though I’m exploring with some vendors whether I might sell their products online through Home Kitchen Garden Store.

Part of the lineup of the year’s Yard Birds standing on the lawn at the Lewisburg Arts Festival. How many types of garden tools can you identify in these sculptures?

I have to build boxes to fit Yard Birds because the sculptures don’t come in standard shipping sizes. Occasionally, someone buys two Yard Birds going to the same address and I fit two into one carton. In this particular instance, the smaller Yard Bird looked adorable! I hope the new owner gets this view upon opening the box.