Let there be light...

After just 3 days, I checked the tomato tray to find this. Plants abounding and they were already getting rather spindly while they reached towards the light. That first row you can see is the Pooka tomatoes which were apparently VERY viable. Seeing how quickly they had started reaching made me worry that they were not getting enough light. Especially with how cold and dim it had been recently. I mentioned this to Daddy, which got him thinking.

After only 3 days we have tomatoes.. lots of tomatoes

The more I talked to him. The more we both started wondering about a grow light. I told him my research (which was always in the "someday" category), said that all we needed was a florescent light kit and a chain. I was really on the fence about it, but and we decided to do it. Now, this light will spend 8 months of the year helping light our dim basement, but during seed starting, it would be removed and brought upstairs.

I had a rough idea of what I wanted, but really, I told Daddy "it just needs to do this" and he ran with it. A quick run to the local home improvement store, and $38 and about an hour and a half later. We had light. Daddy set it up for me with the seed starting table and put the light on a timer.

The finished product (Please pardon the mess, We are honest here)

Daddy took some scrap lumber in garage and built a free standing stand since we did buy the 4 ft light. We decided since this was proof of concept, if it indeed works, next year we can knock together a better table then the old blue card table we have been using. The light itself is hung from a chain which will allow us to move it up and down as needed. And when we are done, everything can be torn down and stored until next year. We placed a timer on the light so we don't have to worry about remembering to turn it on or off. We only had to buy the light, the bulbs, the timer and the hooks. Everything else was already on hand. Now to decide if this really helps as much as we hope it will.

Let there be light. 

Let us try this again, shall we?

Sad little mint plant

After this winter that seemed to kill just about everything, the mint did not come back. I am not entirely shocked here, I mean it was in a small pot and not the ground, but it means we are yet again redoing the living chair.

healthy new peppermint plant

 This time we used Peppermint for two reasons. The first being we never did much with the chocolate mint besides Pooka and her friend K going through and eating a leaf here or there to get rid of chive breath after playing in the herb bed. The second reason is peppermint is in a tea blend a girlfriend makes for me to help me sleep, and this is one more ingredient I can grow at home and dry. Pooka loved getting to plant the new plant.

The chair has moved

We did move the chair from one side of the front porch to another. This spot will be a tad bit shadier (so we are less likely to kill said plant) and it makes it much easier to water the mint. Now when the kids bring home water in their water bottles from school, I send them out to water the mint or the garden. Hopefully this will help keep the mint plant alive as well.

Living chair

Sorry for disappearing. I know it was unannounced but life has been weird of late. I will have first of the month garden pictures up probably tomorrow. Oh to have the world be normal.

I wanted to tell you about something we are trying this year. We had this metal patio chair. It was a great chair, until the day I sat in it and the springs gave out which sent me tumbling into the house. I had gone completely over backwards and had a splitting headache to thank for it. The chair was in great condition aside from this fatal flaw, so I wasn't ready to just pitch it. All last summer we kept putting it in corners and telling people not to sit in it, unsure what to do with it. We did notice it held a pot fairly nicely.

A dead patio chair

This spring, I was really ready to just pitch it. Pooka wanted to reuse it, so the idea of a "living chair" was born. Daddy took the chair into the garage and cut out a hole in the seat of the chair. Now we did measure the pot I had found for the chair first and cut it to fit.

Looks like the pot fits

Next, Pooka and I went and got a mint plant. We figured we would use their sprawling tendancies to our advantage. In this case we used Chocolate Mint. Pooka said it smelled nice and was curious to try it. Of both my kids, this one has the sweet tooth. She loves just pulling leaves off it.

Chocolate mint anyone

Pooka planted the mint in the designated pot. She loved the idea of a living chair she could eat. In fact, it was a couple of days between parts of it, and she was asking daily if we could finish it (if not hourly).

Planting mint

We placed the chair in the corner we planed to leave it in. Then we took the rope that came with the pot (it was designed to be a hanging pot) and wove the rope into the chair. The chair's diamond patter gave us the ablitity to weave the rope in without having to use fasteners

Installing the rope

We weaved the rope into the chair for all three supports. The resulting hanger gave the bottom a nice support so all the weight wasn't on the lip of the pot.

Finished supports

Lastly, we set the pot into the chair and walked away. Now I will admit this first attempt seen below died because I tried to cram too much into the pot. Since then, we went back to just a chocolate mint and the plant is doing much better.  We also moved the chair a bit further into the shade and it seems to be helping as well. This picture was actually taken earlier this spring, but I promise I will update you soon on how the living chair has progressed.

beginings of a living chair

Keeping track

Since I just finished updating the harvest and preserving totals. I figured now might be a good time to show you how I am keeping track of everything. Let's be honest here, using the scrap of paper method does not work in this house. Goodness only knows where it would end up.

The old method

I wanted something that would be easily accessible, easy to use (so that Daddy and kids could use it) but I wouldn't have to stare at it all the time. Enter the inside of the cabinet. This cabinet is at the end of the peninsula. The scale is kept in this cabinet as well. The peninsula is also where the daily harvest seems to get dropped when it comes in from outside.

I had a couple of cork pieces hung inside the computer room closet. There was a plan for them once, but really, they never seemed to get much use. I figured they would work better for this.

reusing cork

I used double sided tape to adhere it to the door. Now in this case, I didn't have any good double sided tape laying around, however this is the same stuff we use when we put plastic on the windows in the winter. I put double-sided tape on the back along all 4 outer edges.

Add tape

Then I just pressed the cork into the door. I held it there for a moment to make sure it stuck really well and didn't fall down. I will say it has been holding great for over a month now.

Cork adhered to door.

Now, if you want to get real fancy, I suppose I could of trimmed it out or something. I didn't think it needed that. I did however hastily write a note to say what is suppose to go on this notepad. Now we open the door, and either take the notepad down and write on it, or if your tall like Daddy, he just writes on it in the cabinet. I can remove the pages as I log it, and then if there is still room on the page, I can pin it back up. The push pins and the notepad I had laying around.

Ready for totallying harvest.

When all is said and done, this project has worked really well. It is nice to have a spot to keep track of things. Best part is the fact that it was all made with found materials, so there was NO COST at all to the projects and all told, took maybe 5 minutes. Those are my kinds of projects.

Making it work

What do you do when you are in desperate need of a trellis, and have a GIANT paper bag of rusted canning rings and some zip ties?

What to do?

 You make a trellis. While this was my test section, you can see that it isn't all the same. I later corrected it, but I wanted to see if the idea would work in the first place.

Trial and error

How did I make it, well the white section is the rails of a shelving unit that was in the garage when we moved in. However, after over 6 years, we have never found brackets that fit it. It was time they were put to a better use.

Before

I connected the rings with 4 zip ties. One to the ring on the top, one to ring on the bottom and one on either side (to either rings or through the holes in the rail sections. About this time, you start to wonder if this is going to work. But it does, it took me a couple of days with 10 minutes at a time intervals to accomplish this part.

After

I then snipped the ends off the zip ties. This makes for a much cleaner look and allows it to sit flater when laying on the back.

Clip it off

After doing this a million or so times, I had this.

For a cleaner look

Then I spray painted the entire thing with black rustoleum. This took at least 3 coats. Honestly, I would probably not spray paint the thing again since it was a pain and we ended up with quite a bit of overspray. In fact, it was all over the grass and the tree behind it. If I were to do this again, I would probably take a brush and a can of paint to it.

Painting is messy

As you can see here, it turned out quite nice. I do not plan on using it to support food since my concern is that the chemicals can could leach into the dirt. However, it will be perfect for holding up the morning glory. Now to wait for the morning glory to grow up it and see if it works as well as I think it should

Finished product

 

The art of Rocks

While we were installing the new herb bed out front, we found these giant rocks. I didn't know what to do with them at first, so I did what anyone trying not to make a decision about something does, I put it aside.

Rocks from the garden

Fast forward a bit over 2 months. Pooka asked if we could paint the giant rocks like she had seen in one of her gardening books. They talked about painting smaller rocks, but I figured the project would scale. The first thing I did was draw some pictures on it with a paint pen. Pooka was worried she couldn't draw the shapes right, so I drew what she told me to and we had to let it dry. My camera puked about this point, so I don't have a picture, but I only drew outlines for her with a paint pen. This effectively gave her something close to a coloring book to paint.

Then Pooka got to paint it. I let her use any of my craft paints she wanted, and she had a blast. As most kids her age, she did have a hard time staying inside the lines. I told her it was okay, and to have fun with it.

Pooka's painting is done.

 After Pooka's paint was dry, I went over the picture again with the paint pen. This step hid alot of the oops moments and gave it a cleaner look.

Paint pen coat 2.

Pooka decided to paint her name onto the second rock. So I cannot show you the entire rock, but she did a wonderful job with the dragonfly, so I am showing you that part.

 

The dragonfly she made

Once everything was dry, I took them outside and gave them a couple coats of varnish.

Varnishing the rocks

After the varnish was dry, Pooka placed her rocks in the front herb bed. The butterfly flower rock (complete with a few green peas) went into the lower bed next to one of her purple sage plants. The dragonfly rock (That I couldn't seem to get a good picture of) is hanging out with the garlic. Not bad for a project that was done with stuff just laying around the yard. Although Pooka is already asking to paint some of her smaller rock collection. At least it will help me try to balance art and science together.

Rocks new home

Spoons turned to art

What was suppose to be a cute garden marker from wooden spoons via Pintrest. The idea seemed solid. Just draw on some wooden spoons, how hard can that be.

Wooden spoons ready to be made into art

It is apparently a lot harder then it looks. In fact, it failed completely and utterly. The paint ran, we had a hard time making them legible, and when you factor in that we were getting them at 4 for less then $1, I was going to need too many of them to really feel it was worth it. So we changed gears a bit.

Good luck reading that

Instead of letting good materials go to waste, I let Pooka decorate them however she wanted. She spent a rainy (and sick Brother) afternoon in the garage painting them. She did have some help, but this is way more Pooka. Once they were dry, a couple of them I took my trusty paint pens to and outlined her designs.

Pooka's markers drying

After a bit of varnish to help seal the paint, we got to put them outside. Pooka wanted to put them in the front beds because since its all herbs, it makes sense to have spoons in it. The peace sign design (and yes I helped here) went next to the rosemary and thyme

Peace

She loves her curry plant, seen by the glittery red painted heart.

Love

The suppose to be smiley face thing is next to her purple sage and the oregano got her colored flower.

Flower and smiles

This gave her another way to work on her art. She loved spending time painting and getting to put it in the garden made her even happier. For the garden markers, we have a few other ides, but it may take a bit before we can get them worked out.

This project was featured at:

A child's imagination

Sometimes things just happen. Like over the winter Brother was putting dishes away and one of my favorite tea mugs fell from the cabinet. This is a cup that was given to me by a dear friend and it was great for my magic sleepy tea another friend makes me (it helps me get to sleep).

The cup missing the broken part

I looked at the cup and was sad. Pooka swore we could reuse it so "Mommy wouldn't have to get rid of it." I was skeptical, but didn't want to drink out of a superglued cup, so I set it aside to figure out come spring.

A new house for fairies

Spring comes, and I found the cup in the garden cabinet. Pooka looked at it and said it was a house. We turned the cup over, and the broken part did look rather doorway shaped. Next thing I knew Pooka was looking for the perfect place in the front bed for the baby fairies to live. After a bit it came to rest at the bottom of my lilac tree since she said that it needed the fairies to take care of it. I will admit it has had some transplant shock, but its holding on, and maybe this is what it needs. Maybe.

A nice little teachers gift

Pooka wanted to make something very special for her preschool teachers since this is her last year there and she will be going to Kindergaten (*sniff sniff*) in the fall. This year she wanted to give them something they could keep to remember her by, and as a Pooka thinks, that means a plant.

Pots ready to be "made pretty"

We wanted to make sure the plant had a special container they could use even after the plant died, so Pooka decorated the pot. You will need a terra cotta pot (whatever size you want to use, I think ours are 6"), scissors, glue and ribbon. We tried using pom poms, that failed so I don't recommend them.

The supplies

First we wrapped the ribbon around our pot and measured out some extra to tie a pretty bow on it. We then cut it to length. We actually used the last of the spool with the rainbow, so Pooka used a different ribbon for each teacher.

Measure your ribbon

Pooka then poured white school glue around the outside of the pot where we were going to place our ribbon. As long as it is dry the first time you water it, it seems to hold fine and I am not worrying about a Pooka and superglue.

add glue

Next we wrapped the ribbon around the pot and used our fingers to make sure the glue hit all the parts of the ribbon. We then tied a nice bow in the front and glued the bow in place so it should not come untied.

Add ribbon and tie a bow

We glued the pots and then let them sit for a few days to dry. You could probably get away with just letting them dry overnight, but life got in the way. Once dry, we filled them with potting soil.

Add dirt

Pooka had picked out some pretty purple and white flowers. and placed one in each pot. You don't have to buy real expensive flowers, but these were the ones Pooka chose and they work very well in this. We had a few extra that Pooka got to plant for herself. We did buy the saucers for the plants in case some of the teachers want to use them inside they don't have to worry about water on their desks.

The final product

Pooka took the final picture. She loves her presents for her teacher and has been waiting to take them to them. Life kept her out of school until today. She has already reminded me 4 times to take them. I think she is a bit excited to see what her teachers say.

How to make a garden square

On Monday, I needed something to help me visualize what 1 square foot looks like. As we all know, I can't visualize a thing and have no spacial relations, and I wanted to make sure I had something that would help me get the spacing right as opposed to last year.

Before we planted the rosemary and the basil, I went into the garage on a mission. This whole project was done with things I had on hand.

First I pulled out the one Daddy made for planting the onions. However, you can fit 16 in 1 sq foot there, where rosemary, basil and tomatoes need to be solo. This did give me a nice pattern to go off of.

Daddy's square and my cut tape

Instead of measuring my bamboo stakes like I should of, I put it next to Daddy's and used a piece of tape to mark my cut line. I originally tried a pen, but it didn't show very well on the dark green.

Cut it in half

Since my stakes are 2 ft stakes, this meant that on cut one gave me 2 pieces that would work. I just used a pair of tin snips to cut it since I didn't feel like trying to find Daddy's saw. Please remember, this was me trying to do it fast so I can get back to getting plants in the ground.


4 pieces ready to go

 After cutting a second stake using the same measuring method, I had 4 sides for my square. Pooka got to cut the second one, so long as I held the outside ends. The first time I cut it, we didn't hold both ends and one went flying. I had her stand with me after that.

Tying it together, the lazy person's way

Pooka and I then took zip ties and put it together. I did make a point to have them go opposite ways to give it a bit more strength and stability so it shouldn't fall apart. The zip ties worked so well that Pooka could even attach it.

DONE

One finished square. No, its not pretty, but it works, which is all I every go for when doing stuff like this. Its holding together really well and is nice to have a way to visualize what I am doing.