Archive for February, 2012
Green roofs are all the rage right now but why should we humans have all the fun? In this Weekend Project you will learn how to make a removable, plantable roof addition to a standard cedar birdhouse. Adorable.
My husband is a hobbyist woodworker. Lucky me, right? And since we were talking about setting up some nesting boxes for our chickadees, he found some plans online, bought some wood, and then a few hours later we had this beautiful little birdhouse.
Gorgeous and perfectly made, with vent holes for the bird family’s air circulation, and the rough wood facing in so the fledglings can crawl up to the perfectly-sized hole for their first venture out into the world. Oh, and it has a hinged roof so that you can peek in on them <ahem> clean the birdhouse at the end of the season.
Me: “Great birdhouse, Honey. Let’s make a green roof for the birdies.”
Husband: “Um, ok, well….but if we put a green roof on it we won’t be able to lift it up to look clean inside.”
Me: “There has to be a way. We can figure it out, right?”
Husband: “Um, yeah…”
If you speak husband like I do then you know that basically means, “I don’t know what you’re up to, Crazy Woman, but I’m not touching that birdhouse”. So I waited for him to go to work and I got busy building this fabulous removable plant tray that acts as a green roof. Want to make one too? Here’s how: (If you don’t see the tutorial, please click ‘continue reading’.)
continue reading »
February 23 2012 | Garden Therapy and Gardening and Projects | 26 Comments »
Since February is Before and After Month at Apartment Therapy, the Gardenist, Rochelle Greayer of Studio G and Leaf Magazine, featured the backyard renovation that we have been working on for the past many years. While it’s always changing and evolving (as a good garden should) here is the original post I wrote that features the big reveal.
May marks the anniversary of breaking ground on my back patio project. I use the term “breaking ground” loosely as the year was basically a mud pit in the winter and a dust bowl in the summer.
Over the course of a few months, my husband loaded up thousands of pounds of the backyard “soil” (another loose term) into a wheelbarrow and replaced it with a patio surrounded by beds and a small grassy area.
In the next 5 years the patio changed many times over. New house colours. New patio furniture. New deck. And last year was the beginning of the potager phase where I packed this wee garden with hundreds of vegetables, herbs, fruit, and flowers.
This year it already looks quite a bit different. I have replaced one of the tomato planters with a strawberry planter. I’ve been growing only lettuces in the wine barrel planters as they get too much shade from the trees now. I’m now growing mushrooms in my zen garden under the deck. I’m only going to grow what was a success last year (sorry, no purple cauliflower) and I’m going to try to keep the clutter down (damn giant purple cauliflower).
The corner of the patio holds the container herb garden. While the plants change up yearly deepening on culinary fancy, this photo shows sage, parsley, oregano, garlic chives, Egyptian walking onions, romaine lettuce, wild arugula and a few other treats.
The herbs don’t get lonely however, as we also grow quite a lot of veggies. Enough to feed us through the summer and put some by for the winter. The keys to growing edibles in a small space (that you want to use mainly as entertaining space) are to choose decorative varieties, tuck them in among ornamentals, and use interesting containers (like the wine barrel of lettuce shown here).
There are many showy flowers to keep spirits bright…
….and containers, containers, containers.
In the end what the space is now best used for is enjoying a little quiet time in the garden.
February 22 2012 | Projects and Vancouver | 43 Comments »
This inexpensive and easy weekend project shows you how to create a stylish coat rack with just some branches, paint, and a few tools.
Materials:
- Branches with strong sections of wood that are no smaller than ¾” in diameter
- Bypass pruners / pruning saw
- Cedar plank or other raw, natural wood
- Drill / screwdriver
- Wood screws
- White latex paint
Directions:
1. Using the saw of bypass pruners, cut sections of branches that:
a) have a nice shape to make a hook
b) are thick enough in diameter and strong enough to hold coats, etc when mounted
c) have a straight, flat back to lie against the cedar plank when mounted
2. Lay your branches out on your board to get the pattern and look that you like. If wood is green, then it must dry before you use it. Place in a warm, dry room until the wood turns brown.
3. Sand the edges of the branches lightly so that there are no sharp edges to snag your stuff.
4. Drill pilot holes in the wood with a thin drill bit, this will help the screw go through the wood without splitting. It is a good idea to have a few extras as backup though.
5. Add about ¼ cup water to 1 cup of white latex paint in a lidded container (like a large yogurt container) and stir. Drop each branch into the thinned-out paint, replace lid, and shake until branch is thoroughly coated. Place on a piece of wax paper or parchment to dry. Repeat with a second coat for a thicker paint look, although only one coat was used in this project as I like the wood coming through a bit. Touch up with a brush if necessary.
6. Using thin 1 ¼” screws, carefully drill each branch through the pilot hole onto the back board.
7. Mount the coat rack on the wall.
Thanks for visiting for the weekend project.
February 18 2012 | Projects | 51 Comments »
This week I tried another recipe from the current Book Club selection, A Green Guide to Natural Beauty, Hemp & Honey Lip Balm.
For ages now I’ve been making manuka honey lip balm because of the extraordinary healing properties of the magical golden goop. Hailing from New Zealand, manuka honey comes from bees that pollinate the Leptospermum scoparium, a shrub or small tree that can grow up to 4m tall with profuse star-shaped flowers. Manuka honey is claimed to have anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-microbial properties. Applied topically, it is said to promote healing and reduce inflammation, with some sources saying it even prevents or heals the cold sore virus. While I’m not able to quantify these claims, I can say that it makes a darn good lip balm and that’s good enough for me.
Photo credit: Avenue
Raw manuka honey is rated using “Unique Manuka Factor” (UMF) that rates the antibacterial factor. I generally use UMF 16+ as that is the highest that is sold in these parts.
Now the book clearly states that this recipe makes a softer lip balm, suitable little pots not tubes, but since I only had tubes I added more beeswax and some carnauba wax. It is still a bit soft but holds up fine in the tubes if you don’t smash it on your lips like my dear husband did this morning. The worst that’ll happen if you are a bit rough is you’ll get a bit too much applied but it will still hold its shape.
Hemp & Honey Lip Balm
adapted from A Green Guide to Natural Beauty recipe p. 65
Ingredients:
- 15g beeswax
- 1g carnauba wax
- 10g cocoa butter
- 5g shea butter
- 20ml almond oil
- 5ml hemp oil
- 10ml manuka honey
- 8 drops citrus essential oil
Equipment
- Double boiler
- Metal spoon
- Small glass jug
- 12 lip balm tubes or 4 pots
- Digital kitchen scale (this wasn’t listed in the recipe but it is essential for weighing your ingredients)
- Milk frother
Instructions:
1. Melt the beeswax, carnauba wax, cocoa butter & shea butter in the double boiler along with the almond oil.
2. Add hemp oil and honey and stir until liquid. The recipe notes that as honey is not soluble with oil, it won’t totally dissolve with heating and needs to be mixed with the milk frother.
3. Remove from heat, add essential oils, and blend with the frother while the mixture cools but still pourable.
4. Pour into tubes and leave untouched to set.
Review 4.5/5
Almost perfect! This recipe is really wonderful and made a very moisturizing lip balm that feels silky and lasts a really long time, hours actually.
There were two small issues that added up to the half point from perfect rating. First, the hemp oil aroma is, well, hempy. Yick. So that’s why I added the essential oils. I wish the honey had a stronger aroma but…the second issue was that they honey really doesn’t combine that well. I’m pretty used to this from making lots of honey lip balm. In my experience the honey sinks to the bottom of your jug, even with mixing constantly, and by the time you fill the last tube it’s just a sticky honey mess (shown below). There is definitely some honey in the rest of the tubes though, you can tell just by licking your lips.
There are also a few other interesting looking recipes in the book: a bee-free version, cocoa butter lip balm sticks, and chocolate orange lip pots (um, yummy). Please drop me a note if you try any of these, I’d love to hear all about it.
Previous recipes tried from this book were the Apricot Face Scrub (2/5) and Mango Lime Body Butter (5/5).
Please check out the Garden Therapy Book Club page for more information on our next book, Weekend Handmade.
February 16 2012 | Book Club and Projects | 11 Comments »
This month I have been delighted by the two Sarcococca confusa that inhabit my shade garden just off the side of the front door. While I’m always quite pleased with their glossy green leaves, white flowers, and black berries, the fragrance the plants are throwing off these days is phenomenal.
The sweet, perfumey smell of the flowers in bloom wafts around my entrance way welcoming me everything I get the mail or greet a visitor. It’s especially fun to watch the neighbours sniffing the air trying to sort out where the aroma is coming from.
Sarcococca confusa (sweet box) is easy shrub to grow in many light situations, particularly in shady areas under trees. Growth is slow, reaching a mature height of 3′-6′ and width of 3′.
The plants have a tidy habit which makes them a good choice for background foliage to showcase other plants in summer and fall and really becoming a star in winter. While Sarcococca confusa prefers a nice organically enriched soil, it will do well dry soil in the shade, and also in sunny spots if not allowed to dry out. For a wonderfully comprehensive growing guide on Sarcococca confusa check out this post at Rainy Side Gardeners.
It’s been a while since I posted for Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day. I did post regularly for more than a year and while my garden has changed somewhat, what’s blooming is generally the same. Please check out those posts for close up photos of the garden. This year I’ll write up a wee something to feature my favorite plant that is blooming on the 15th.
February 15 2012 | Flowers and Gardening | 3 Comments »
What’s better than a gift that sprouts up beautiful flowers or yummy veggies when planted? For this weekend project you’ll make plantable seed paper then turn it into Valentine’s day cards.
Materials:
- 8-10 sheets of shredded paper
- 1 packet of seeds
- 1 heaping tbsp dried lavender or other dried flowers / leaves
- Old towels, strainer, blender
- Stencils or cookie cutters of woodland creatures
- Card stock
- Printer
- Scissor, glue, etc.
Directions:
1. Shred or tear up a bunch of paper. Scrap paper, old craft paper, anything without a glossy finish will work best. To get coloured paper like the pink shown in this project, add one sheet of shredded red paper to the mix. Place paper in a big bowl or the sink and soak in warm water for 45 minutes to an hour. The paper should be soft and break apart easily at the end of the hour.
2. Scoop paper into a blender, filled about halfway full and scoop a cup or so of the water it was soaking in into the blender. Pulse a few times until you get a mushy pulp like that shown here. Add more water as needed to get this consistency.
3. Pour pulp through a strainer to remove some of the moisture. Don’t squeeze it all out or your paper will not form together very well.
4. Add the seeds and dried flowers and gently mix. Shown here are lavender buds, bergamot petals, and dried mint leaves for flecks of interest in the paper. Radicchio, Rhubarb chard, and Alta Globe radishes are the seeds I have chosen as each will produce an edible red plant and they can be planted at the same time (started inside now and they can be moved to the garden once they have true leaves). Other good choices are flower mixes, like butterfly or bee blends that attract pollinators to the garden and produce a variety of flowers.
5. Set up a few towels on a flat surface where you can leave the paper for a day or more to dry. Dump the pulp out onto the towel and spread out gently patting paper. You can use a rolling pin to flatten the paper out a bit, but be gentle as to not crush the seeds or break the pulp. Leave undisturbed to dry.
6. Trace and cut out woodland creatures out of the dry seed paper. Decorate cards with cute messages and with a few little glue dots, affix seed paper critter. Include instructions on how to plant the seed paper by copy /pasting or writing the following on the card back:
The critter on this card is made of plantable seed paper containing radicchio, Rhubarb chard & Alta Globe radish seeds.
Directions for Planting
Rip seed paper into many small pieces and spread throughout the garden or in a pot filled with good potting soil. Cover with 1” of soil and water regularly until you get yummy veggies.
February 11 2012 | Flowers and Projects | 16 Comments »
Here a cute printable to romance-up some homemade lavender eye pillows (from this tutorial). Just be careful the soothing scent doesn’t put your Valentine to sleep too early!
Valentines Day Eye Pillow Printable Love
Valentines Day Eye Pillow Printable Amore
February 10 2012 | Projects | 4 Comments »
It’s time to review our very first Garden Therapy Book Club book, A Green Guide to Natural Beauty: 35 step-by-step projects for homemade beauty by Karen Gilbert.
There are many different types of books we will be looking at in Book Club, but when the book is DIY or project-based, then the best way to test it out is to give the projects a try. As the title suggests, A Green Guide to Natural Beauty boasts 35 different natural beauty projects, which made it very appealing given that I’ve been aiming to make as many of my bath and body products as I can. As part of the Natural Skincare Series I’ve shared recipes and tutorials for soap, scrubs, and bath products all made with natural ingredients, and where possible ingredients from my garden.
First and foremost this book is beautiful. The photography is stunning and while those who love lots of bright colour may find the pages a tad on the beige side. There is a reason for this, however, as the projects listed use natural ingredients (read: no crazy colorants or unnatural fragrances). I’m happy to keep my colour in the garden and the purest products on my skin, so I really the look of natural-coloured skincare products. The first chapter of this book discusses natural skincare in detail: equipment, ingredients, preservatives, and shelf life. All in all this is a great summary and provides a great deal of background into the benefits (many) and drawbacks (mainly preservatives and shelf-life) of natural products. This section is worth a good read.
The rest of the book covers recipes and detailed instructions with photos on Chapter 2: For the Face, Chapter 3: For the Body, and Chapter 4: Bath and Shower.
I picked two recipes to try: Apricot Face Scrub (Chapter 2) and Mango Lime Body Butter (Chapter 3).
Apricot Face Scrub Recipe p. 60
This fairly simple recipe only required a few minutes to make, as long as you have the ingredients. The ingredients aren’t that common, but since I have a natural products guru who I buy from, I was able to secure everything quite painlessly. The concept is to mix apricot kernel oil, caster oil, and manuka honey with kaolin (white clay) and ground rice to make a paste. They drawback with this recipe is that it will only last a few days and must be stored in the fridge to preserve it, so Karen suggests making only a tiny quantity at a time.
Review 2/5
While the recipe is super easy to make, all-natural, and fairly inexpensive, I didn’t like the feel of the product. The ground rice is a bit harsh on the skin (she suggests trying ground oatmeal for a gentler scrub), and the oil leaves my face feeling unpleasantly greasy. I’ve used it every day for a week and must wash afterwards with my homemade soap. My face feels pretty good after washing a second time and moisturizing but I am still on the lookout for a different cleanser/exfoliatant recipe that suits my needs more.
Mango Citrus Body Butter p. 78
This recipe is listed as mango and LIME body butter, but I added a citrus essential oil blend which had an even balance of lemon, lime, sweet orange, and tangerine.
Ingredients:
- 10g beeswax or jojoba wax
- 25g cocoa butter
- 30g shea butter
- 25 g mango butter
- 1 tsp almond oil
- 1 tsp vitamin E
- 20 drops citrus essential oil (recipe suggested 10 lime, 5 sweet orange, 5 lemon)
Equipment
- Double boiler
- Metal spoon
- Airtight 100ml jar
- Digital kitchen scale (this wasn’t listed in the recipe but it is essential for weighing your ingredients)
Instructions:
1. Melt the beeswax, cocoa butter & mango butter in the double boiler. Leave mixture over a gentle heat for 20 minutes to prevent the butter from going grainy when it cools.
2. Add the almond oil and vitamin E and heat for a few more minutes until completely liquid.
3. Remove from heat and add essential oils, stirring thoroughly
4. Pour into jars and leave to set.
Review 5/5
Five stars! This recipe is great. It’s easy, smells delightful, and makes your skin feel amazing. Some people may be adverse to the oilyness that takes a bit of good massaging to rub in, but I don’t mind in the least. My skin feels delightfully soft if I apply right out of the shower and it is even healing my dry heels after a week of use when no other moisturizer has.
In summary, I liked this book a great deal and I may try a few more recipes. I will post about them if I do. In the meantime please share your experiences with the projects listed here or in A Green Guide to Natural Beauty, if you have a chance to try out the recipes, by leaving a comment on this post.
February 09 2012 | Book Club and Projects | 23 Comments »
It’s almost here! The event that we have been preparing for, waiting for, all year. Yes, this Sunday is SUPER SOW SUNDAY, the annual day that gardeners from far and wide get dirty and go online, sowing seeds together (virtually) on Twitter. This year boasts some great information to be shared and prizes to be won. It’s a great event that will have some of the most amazingly talented gardeners at your disposal, if you have questions about, well anything seed-related. More information can be found on Bren from BG Garden’s website or on the TweetChat website.
Last year in honor of #SuperSowSunday I posted about starting seeds outdoors under umbrella greenhouses, which is incredibly successful in my climate. As part of Delish Magazine’s Spring issue, I also wrote a piece on seed starting which I thought I would share here. Enjoy!
Seed Starting 101:
Start your own seeds this spring and revel in your gardening wizardry
“I made this!”, I gloat while serving up a dish made entirely of food that I grew in my garden. Well, “gloat” is probably not the right word. I prance around like the fantastical wizard I am, cheering about my mad skills in making real food from tiny seeds. It took me months. I had some fatalities. But overall, it’s fairly simple to grow from seeds. And more importantly, it’s awesome. Here are some basics for staring your own seeds at home.
Choose Your Seeds
Starting seeds early in the season is a great way to save money on annuals, which are flowers, herbs, and vegetables that will flower or fruit in the first year. More advanced propagatrixes could also start perennials from seed in many cases, but it is a more difficult and time consuming process as perennials may need many months, or years, to reach the size of a nursery plant.
Seed companies in your area should sell the right seeds for your climate, but do make sure that you pick the right plants for your experience level. If you’re a seedling yourself when it comes to propagation, don’t bother starting watermelons in Northern Ontario. Many seed companies will also list a difficulty rating that will help to guide you.
Read the Packet
Following the instructions on the seed packet will give you the best possible start unless the growing directions read like my radicchio, “sow seeds a few days after a moonless night”, which may as well be gibberish. The majority of seed instructions will list everything you need to start seeds, like when and where to sow, planting depth and spacing, special watering requirements and days to germination. Some will also list special information like germination temperatures, repeat sowing, transplanting, and thinning. Following the instructions gives you the best chance of success, so those map-hating-instruction-scoffing types out there best pack away your stubbornness for this project.
Containers
You can start seeds in just about anything you can find around the house that will create a mini-greenhouse, or you can buy all sorts of interesting setups to best suit your needs.
Greenhouse Kits
Many different greenhouse kits are available now. Most will have a plastic tray with a clear plastic greenhouse dome. Some come with a soilless mixture for starting seeds like peat pellets that expand to a mini seed pot when soaked in water, others may have coconut fiber pots that you can be transplant right along with your seedling. Others may even have a heat mat that gently warms soil to improve germination.
The beauty of these kits is that you can start a large number of seeds individually in one tray (up to 72) and many are made for small spaces like windowsills. The drawback is that the seedlings will need to be replanted either in the garden or a larger pot in a few weeks. Leaving seedlings in small pots with no nutrition will cause unwanted stress to the plants.
Seed-Starting Trays
Garden retailers will sell many different types of professional grade seed starting trays, domes, and inserts with features like root training, moisture control, automatic watering, and grow lighting. Certainly many of these features have value in starting the year’s plants off on the right foot and can be used over and over.
Household Items
An inexpensive and creative way to start seeds is to use household items as seed containers. Lining a seed tray with pots made from toilet paper tubes, newspaper, or egg cartons will cost nothing. At times your family may think you’ve gone mad given how excited you will become when you get to take home the plastic cake dome from the party. But come on, that’ll make a really great greenhouse dome, right? Search for biodegradable paper products you can plant right in the ground or food safe plastic containers you can use as mini-greenhouses for your containers if you are on a budget.
Growing Medium
You can buy a pre-made seed starter soil or you can make your own with a mix of three parts peat, two parts compost, and ten percent perlite. This mixture is light and holds moisture well, so it is wonderful for helping seeds germinate. All growing mediums will need some time to absorb water, so add moisture and let it soak in for an hour before planting.
Be sure to use sterile mix if you are starting seeds indoors. Soil or compost from the garden will bring in all sorts of critters like soil gnats which will drive you freakin’ crazy as you run around your propagation trays like a mad person swatting and squashing an endless supply of teeny tiny flies.
Moisture
Germination will be best in a moist environment for most seeds, so keeping the soil damp and a greenhouse dome on top will keep the right amount of humidity for optimal germination. Keep the soil from drying out by checking it daily. Water gently, from the bottom where possible, so as to not damage the seedlings about to emerge.
Dampening Off
Dampening off is a term for a fungal growth which looks like fuzzy hairs on the stem of the seedling. This fungal growth will kill the seedling so it’s bad, real bad. To prevent dampening off, occasionally spray with a bottle of 3% food grade hydrogen peroxide and vent the greenhouse dome on a regular basis to regulate humidity.
Light
Seeds won’t need light until they emerge from the surface of the soil, but then they will need strong sunlight for most of the day to prevent them from becoming leggy (overly tall and spindly = weak). You can supplement a lack of sunlight with florescent lighting, either buying a set of grow lights made for seed staring or by making your own with florescent shop lights.
Thinning
Generally the seed instructions will suggest you plant 2-3 seeds per pot and thin out all but the strongest. This seems to be the thing that some gardeners have the hardest time with. If three strong tomato seedlings have popped up in one tiny peat pot, then the gardener rushes off to get tweezers and separate out the three wee plants and re-pots them all. More inexperienced gardeners may damage each plant giving none a strong chance at survival, so it’s best that you grab a clean pair of scissors and snip all but the strongest seedling in each pot and be done with it.
Hardening Off
As the seedlings grow into plants and the date to plant outside is getting near, it’s time to start hardening them off, or toughening them for their natural environment. I like to start by opening a window a few hours a day so they get a breeze. Then start moving the trays outside, out of direct sunlight, for a few hours. Start at one hour and gradually increase to a full day outside. By the time your plant date has arrived, you can safely transfer your tough little soldiers directly into the ground, with some delicious compost and a thorough watering, to brave the elements on their own.
Seed starting is such an interesting and magical process, especially for children, so it’s the perfect activity to do as a family this coming spring. The months that you’ve spent germinating and raising seedlings will be a series of trial and error, so expect some loss. Not every seed will germinate, not every seedling will survive being transplanted, and not every kind of plant will do well in your garden.
The gains will be clear when you have piles of leafy greens taking up every inch of your windowsills bursting to get outside. Starting the plants off yourself ensures you are in charge of the health of the plant and can control what goes into it. And the satisfaction you’ll feel from starting your own seeds is tremendous.
from Delish Magazine Spring 2011
February 03 2012 | Gardening and Projects | 20 Comments »
Here’s what seeds I’m starting right now (left to right) in my self watering mini greenhouses:
- Green peas for micro greens x 2
- Black oil sunflower seeds for micro greens x 2
- Violetto Artichoke (and Italian heritage variety) x 2
- Eggshells for seed starters
February 02 2012 | Gardening and Growing Food and Projects | 1 Comment »
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