• Creating a Self-Watering Planter

      I am so pleased this self-watering planter worked!   There are so many different ideas when it comes to building a self-watering planter, but they all head in the same direction: Having a well at the bottom of the planter with a wick to draw the water up to the plants’ roots. I pooled different ideas from my research and created two self-watering planters that have produced lots of lovely flowers.   The first design problem I faced was finding a planter with enough depth to plant gladiolas that was reasonable to purchase. Most large planters were way out…

  • Creating a layered herb pot

    I am truly a reduce, reuse, recycle person. When something is heading for the garbage, I often see ways to repurpose it. Like the 5-inch-tall cardboard tubes that hold labels we use at work. I was watching the 6-inch diameter tubes adding up in the recycle box and wham, I was struck with the idea of using them to create a layered herb pot.   For my idea, I needed four of the tubes, a pot ?with a minimum of 14 inches in diameter, potting mix and herbs. I filled the pot with the potting mix up to about 2…

  • New Gardening Experiment

    Have you seen the info on straw bale gardening? I like lasagna gardening because I don’t really like to dig, but this year, I chose to experiment. Since I have never grown anything in a straw bale, I purchased one bale and placed it in the corner of my garden. I added about an inch of compost and then proceeded to plant my zucchini on and near the bale. The finishing touch was watering it well. So far, the plants look good.   The wire cage to the left of the bale is an old display from work that I…

  • Change

    Change

    Moving into a new home brings with it many challenges in the yard. The previous owners did little to take care of the yard, though I could tell, the property was loved at one time. I have been gradually changing some of the landscape to meet me, instead of leaving it the way it was. Most of the time, I am content with just about everything, but having hostas in full sun doesn’t work for me. My garden bed along the south side of the house needed to be redone, and I decided this was the spring to begin the…

  • Spring’s here?

    What a strange year! We didn’t have much of a winter, and then spring is way too early!!! Tulips are up, crocus are blooming, I even have oregano coming up. People are planting, lilacs are budding, and this is only the middle of March. Though I am excited to see new life emerging through the inches of peat I put on my beds in the fall – I’m always excited in the spring – I’m nervous about putting anything out yet, except maybe peas, pansies or grass seed. I know the ground is warming up, but what happens if we…

  • Collecting seeds

    It seems like all I can talk about is gardening. That’s not the case, but I’m going to do one more blog about gardening before I move on to other things. This wonderful fall weather has made it easy to gradually ready the yard for winter, rather than breeze through like a whirling dervish to complete everything over one weekend. It also has allowed for me to collect seeds from the various annuals I planted. One of the most interesting vines I planted this year was the Egyptian pea vine. The seed is a very interesting black pea with white…

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