creating scentsdesignmaking of

winter vegetable and seeds of love

Here, I am listening to “Tears for Fears”, because it is just perfect now. I picked it this morning in Zurich together with today’s picture that shows you what sits next to my PC keyboard this early summer morning: Organic kales seeds. I will sow them right after this post (can’t wait!), and -if they grow- plant them later in summer in aluminum cans that I re-use these days in some sort of urban farming attack here in the house of tauer.

You remember: I planted a couple of tomatoes end April/early May in used 25 liter alcohol cans (here’s the link to this post). In the mean time they got quite big and it is pure joy, every day, to visit them and touch them and see them growing. It will take a while until the first tomatoes are ripe, though. Since this was fun, and as  I had a couple of other cans and boxes  that I did not use, I expanded the planting and sowing to zucchini, herbs, cucumbers, and beans. The beans just sprouted, and do so in 12 liter aluminum cans that I used for perfume storage, cut up, and hung up on a wall next to the house. Andy’s hanging garden, like the W.-factor said the other day (my partner), a bit worried about more pots and plants popping up on a daily basis.

Right: More’s to come (rucola!). The kale needs to grow in summer for a winter harvest (one of the few vegetables that you harvest after frost days in winter).

I am happy with my plants growing, and I am happy these days with the world of perfume. I started sowing 24 months ago. My first formula for the Gardenia fragrance is dated May 12 2012. Now it is June 2014, the labels sit in a drawer and after the holiday weekend, the first bottles will get their gardenia decoration, the files list in my computer grows for the registration of the first scent of the sotto la luna® line in Italy, the trademark protection is done, the scent is done, the packaging is ready, in a few weeks the first emails go out to retailers, in a bit more than two months the first bottles can be bought, samples will go out.

Wow. This is so exciting. I forgot how exciting this is! And I forgot how much work, the last mile is the hardest. Thus, I need to get into higher gears, now,… (kicking myself into high gear mode).

And, guess what: Yes, I am sowing the fragrant seeds for 2015 and 2016 now. Although I am pretty much convinced that the markets, both perfume and financial, will have crashed by then. I guess I do it the Luther way: “If I knew that tomorrow was the end of the world, I would plant an apple tree today!” (more on that here…)

Here’s to a fragrant harvest.