Grow a Harvest Basket

s a gardener, I really enjoy making decorations from my homegrown produce. One of the things I'm particularly fond of is growing miniatures, like miniature pumpkins and miniature Indian corn. Once I've grown them, I make them into Harvest Baskets, like the one illustrated.

For statice, Blue Seas and the Pacific and Sunset mixes are attractive colors. For gomphrena, aka Globe Amaranth, the varieties Bicolor Rose and Strawberry Fields are colorful additions to the usual whites, pinks and purples. Add some down-under wonder with helichrysums, aka strawflowers. These blooms are native to Australia, and air dry very easily, with excellent color retention all year long. Victorian Pastels are an attractive mix of soft colors, while if fiery is more your style, try the Salsa strawflower mix with hot colors.

For foliage, the silvery white leaves of dusty miller make an attractive accent, or you can add a pleasant aroma with sprigs of the artemisia variety Sweet Annie. [For instructions on basic flower drying, see our article Herbs in Craft and Decoration: First Steps.--Ed.]

OK, so you got your seeds, grew your flowers and veggies, and dried everything--now what next? (No chance to grow this year? Pick up a bunch of dried flowers at a craft store or farmer's market stand, get a little pumpkin at the grocery store, and make a basket this way too, while picking out seeds for next year.)

Basket instructions
Get a small (4 to 6 inch diameter) shallow basket. Local thrift stores often have very inexpensive baskets available. Line the bottom of the basket with a layer of crumpled tissue paper or paper towels.

Center the pumpkin in the basket, on the tissue layer.

Arrange the flowers around the pumpkin in the basket. You can do this one of two ways. Either glue them in with water based white glue as you go (it dries colorless) or leave loose. If left loose, you can take the pumpkin out later when it finally starts to wrinkle (they often last several months) and rearrange the flowers to fill in the center of the basket. If you use glue, and glue the flowers to each other, rather than to the pumpkin, you may still be able to pop the pumpkin loose, then refill the space with more flowers or Indian corn.

When finished, place on a counter or table and enjoy a burst of color to brighten the graying fall days.

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This article © 2000-2005 Peg Fisher, used by permission.