You've seen it pinned all over Pinterest, especially if you are a gardener. I had it on my own "Brilliant" board for a while -- brilliant as in "why didn't I think of this!" I love ideas that are slightly out of the box -- and cheap! This sounded perfect. "It" is a plastic milk jug with holes pierced in the cap to make a watering bottle. The pictures showed a couple of different versions with water gently pouring through the pierced cap. I went looking for the original source and found at least three possibilities -- and then decided it didn't matter who was first because they probably don't want the "credit" for my experiment. The blog I first saw associated with this pin didn't have any directions. But really how hard could it be? I grabbed my trusty hammer and a smallish ... [Read More]
Gardening
Planting Your Raised Garden Bed Part 2 – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Continued from here . . . . [P]art of the charm of square foot gardening is being able to better manage the quantity of each food produced in a small space. With three of us on erratic schedules eating from a garden, it’s easy to be overwhelmed with produce that needs to be eaten when it is ready to be harvested or it’s wasted. “The plan” gave us an amount of food we could raise in a given area. For example: Wheels likes radishes, I eat a few and I’m done for the year. According to the plan we could grow 32 radishes in two square feet, and by planting a second time in a week or so, grow another 32. In the meantime, where the first 32 radishes had been planted and harvested we’d plant another crop. When things cooled down in the fall we could plant a third time in the first spot ... [Read More]
Raised Garden Bed Soil — A Few Bags More
Here is how we built our raised garden beds. The next step is to add soil – a step which provides major benefits for using raised beds. The saga continues: To fill the beds we had the choice of having soil delivered on the driveway and wheel barrowing it to the back lot line. Or purchasing bagged soil. For the relatively small quantity we needed, the cost factor was almost a tossup. And we didn’t build the boxes all at once so there would have been dirt in the driveway for a couple of weeks. So Bytes and his bubbly friend Angle drove to the local general store. I had figured the cubic yards of dirt necessary to fill each box. Width times length times depth. Start out by finding cubic feet. Oops -- the height is in inches – no problem! Divide that number by 12. In ... [Read More]
Spring and euphorbia graminea
Finally in gardening Zone 5B it’s time to plant annuals. And that means spiffing up the front entry way. A good sweeping of the walk and steps. Look for the planting urns in the topsy turvy potting shed. In the fall, things go into the potting shed very orderly-- until after the first frost and then it becomes “add just one more thing” till the door scarcely shuts! Opening it in the spring is high adventure and moving the first few items is truly thrilling and may be even risky! As soon as the pots came out into the sunshine, it was obvious a coat of paint was the first step. While it was drying, I made my way to a nearby nursery. Red geraniums in a hot pink cast were first. Don’t usually have much luck with petunias, but the beautiful ruffles in the pink and purple kept drawing ... [Read More]
How to Build A Raised Garden Bed
For ages we had planned to build a raised garden bed. Finally the planets all aligned. Space formerly shady is now sunny. Plans were made. Saws found. Hopes ran high that finally we could have a garden that might produce more than a few random tomatoes. A garden in spite of heavy clay. We were going up – up – up! Up to 10 inches of black fertile soil, manure and compost. We did it! We figured out how to build a raised garden bed. Not just one, but two and a third one is in the works. Here's how to build a raised garden bed -- highlights version! We had measured the site earlier. On the north end of our property is a raised area, outlined with a retaining wall. Research told us that four feet is the optimum width for raised beds. That would fit the site well, ... [Read More]