Of course grapevine (Vitis spp.) is the most popular wood for making vine wreaths.  For this project I used cuttings from a Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) that trails along a shady fence.  It is a bit of a softer vine so adding an unwound coat hanger would stiffen up the frame.  As I have mine on a trellis, it holds its shape just fine. American Wisteria (Wisteria frutescens) and Honeysuckle (Lonicera spp.) would also make a great wreath.

Materials:

• vine
• pruners

Directions: 

1. Begin by gathering and untangling the vine pieces.  When they have been tamed into a bundle that is manageable, form the vine into a circular shape on a large surface.  Using a few thick strands of vine, begin to wind around the bundle, tucking the end of the vine in.

2. Continue to wind and secure the entire wreath.  When the end meets the beginning, knit the vine ends together and continue to wind the outer vines to secure, overlapping the starting point.  Tuck in any loose ends.

3. Set the wreath somewhere to dry and take shape.

My vine wreath is just the perfect addition to the bentwood trellis used to distract from the compost bin.

A side note: if you want to also make your own bentwood trellis, Making Bentwood Trellises, Arbors, Gates, & Fences by Jim Long is a great resource.  It has many designs to choose from plus information on choosing wood, suggested plantings, and even recipes.

Now if you want to dress up your new grapevine wreath, here are some creative examples to inspire you.

Faux Floral Ideas clockwise from top left: 1. Rustic Burlap Wreath from Too Much Time, 2. Felt Flower Wreath by Little Things Bring Smiles, 3. Fabric Rosette Wreath by Little Page Turners, 4. Spring Wreath by Creatively Living…Outside The Box, 5. Whimsical Spring Wreath by SAS Interiors

Painted Wreaths clockwise from top left: 6. DIY Flowery Wreath by Style at Home, 7. Blue Spring Wreath by Frugal Coupon Living, 8. Red Wreath by Wisecraft, 9. Wriggling Snake Wreath by Martha Stewart Living, 10. Spring Wreath By Two Yellow Birds Decor

Other Unique Uses for a Grapevine Wreath clockwise from top left: 11. Grapevine Wreath Chandelier by Rustchic (love this idea!), 12. Wreath Bird Feeder by Little House in the Suburbs (adorable), 13. A Grapevine Wreath Charger by StoneGable, 14. Grapevine Wreath Birdbath by Disney Family Fun

15. And of course we can’t forget about the Garden Therapy Halloween Hop Wreath

Thanks for vising the Weekend Project that will also be submitted to Between Naps on the Porch, Tip Junkie, Not Just a Housewife , The Thrifty Home, Savvy Southern Style, Delightful Order, My Romantic Home, Funky Junk Interiors, Under the Table Dreaming, Nifty Thrifty Things.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Epsom salts
• 8 drop pure lavender essential oil
• 6 drops mine essential oil
• 2 drops eucalyptus essential oil
• 2 drops rosemary essential oil
• 1 tsp dried comfrey root powder
• 1 tsp dried lavender
• 1 tsp dried mint leaves
• ¼ tsp dried bergamot petals

Directions: 

1. Fill a pretty jar about halfway full of the Epsom salts.

2. Add essential oils, replace lid, and shake.

3. Remove the lid again, add comfrey and dried herbs, replace lid and shake (again)

4. Add more Epsom salts to full the jar, replace the lid and shake again.

5. Optional: download and print these freebie canning labels to dress it up.

Check out all the other great recipes in the Natural Skincare Series.  This project will also be submitted to Between Naps on the Porch, Tip Junkie, Not Just a Housewife , The Thrifty Home, Savvy Southern Style, Delightful Order, My Romantic Home, Funky Junk Interiors, Under the Table Dreaming, Nifty Thrifty Things.

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It’s around this time each year that I start salivating for sweet, fresh berries as I see my hanging strawberry planter growing in and the flowers forming.  Establishing a fruit-bearing crop in a growing bag is not difficult, but there are a few key steps that will certainly help.

Site Selection

Strawberries like many fruiting plants really like lots of sun.  It’s not to say that that a crop in a partly shaded are won’t bear fruit, but the fruit will be larger, sweeter and more prolific in 8-12 hours of fun sun a day.  Hanging planters will make the soil much warmer than the ground warm and out of reach from many pests which creates an more environment that can tolerate a less sun if necessary.

Container

I was able to find a green “Flower Tower” at a thrift store many years ago, but there are also very inexpensive grow bags that you can buy online or at hardware and garden stores.  You could certainly make your own, although with the price of these and all the hardware included, it seems more trouble than it’s worth.  If you don’t like the look of the bags (they ARE ugly) then wait a few months.  Soon you won’t see it at all with all the plants growing in.

Soil

Hanging baskets can get pretty heavy when filled with soil and water.  Regular garden soil isn’t light enough and compacts too easily for hanging planters.  The best choice is a container gardening mix that has lots of material mixed in to hold water, ensure drainage, and promote good air circulati0n. Add a few scoops of organic matter and mix well.  Strawberries like an acidic soil so stay away from mushroom manure which typically has lime in it.  I like to use my garden compost for the organic matter.

Plants

Strawberries are either June-Bearing (one large crop in early Summer) or Ever-Bearing (crop spread out over the summer months).  I like June-bearing as they produce more fruit.  Choose plants that are free from pests and disease, often it’s best to get them from a nursery to be sure.  Strawberry plants spread quickly through runners so if you have an established patch somewhere, or a neighbour does, you can easily clip those to start your planter.

Planting

  1. Fill the bag loosely with potting soil water thoroughly and slowly to ensure water gets absorbed throughout.

  2. Shake the soil off the roots of the strawberry plants and gently tuck them into the planting holes. Snip off any brown leaves, runners or roots and top up with more soil mix.

  3. Water thoroughly and slowly again, allowing the water to absorb into the soil rather than just running straight off through the holes.

  4. Hang and get ready for strawberries!

Watering

Watering these hanging bags can be tricky.  The water tends to quickly flow through the holes while the plant gets established.  If you lack the patience and arm strength to water very slowly, try a watering spike attached to a soda bottle or make your own by cutting a hole in the bottom of a sode bottle and poking a few weep holes in the cap.  Screw the cap on firmly and sink into the soil.  Fill with water and let drain.  Be careful not to let the planter dry out, particularly when it’s hot.

Fertilizer

Add a slow-release organic fertilizer at planting (a balanced 10-10-10) and a compost tea when flowering.  A compost tea or some Moo Poo Tea (from my friend, Annie Haven) are perfect to water with every few weeks in the spring and early summer.  Stop fertilizing when the fruit forms and water frequently for plump fruit.

Hopefully this will get you started with hanging strawberries as part of You Can Grow That! day created by C.L. of Whole Life Gardening.  For ideas on what to do with all your juicy berries check out Strawberry Coconut Torte, Organic Strawberry Jam, and Strawberry Balsamic & Black Pepper Preserves.

Participating in these link parties: Between Naps on the Porch, Tip Junkie, Not Just a Housewife , The Thrifty Home, Savvy Southern Style, Delightful Order, My Romantic Home, Funky Junk Interiors, Under the Table Dreaming, Nifty Thrifty Things.

For moms who love the garden you can surprise her with garden-inspired creations like 1. Block Printed Tea Towels, 2. a Hanging Globe Terrarium 3. Lavender Sachets 4. Serenity Now! DIY Lavender Eye Pillows, or 5. a Salad Bowl Terrarium.

Some moms need a little pampering. Whip up some of these recipes from the Natural Skincare Series and present it in a vintage mason jar.  6. Easy Homemade Bath Salts, 7. DIY Bath Bombs, 8. Simple Sugar Scrub, 9. Cold-Process All-Natural Handmade Soap, 10. Hemp & Honey Lip Balm, 11. Mango Citrus Body Butter

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If making crafts just isn’t your thing here are some gorgeous handmade items available on Etsy that any gardening mom would love. UPDATE: a few shops are offering discounts to Garden Therapy readers which is listed after the item link – woo woo!

12.  Spring Garden Grass Green Half Demi Half Apron $30.00 (Use Coupon Code GARDENTHERAPY and save 15% on aprons and other stuff in http://www.akitschykitchen.com shop), 13. Keep Calm Spoon Plant Garden Marker $10.00, 14. Mini Patio Mix Kit For Miniature Gardens $16.95

15. Garden Therapy Handmade Sunflower Photo Print Pillow $80.00 (use code SPRING for 10% off), 16. Coin purse – Autumn Patchwork print $23.00, 17. Green Leaf Earrings $22.50, 18. Fabric Flower Brooch Pin Yellow Poppy $10.00, 19. Oat and Poppy Scrub Soap $10.00

20. DIY Succulent Wreath Kit $45.00.

21. While these modern plant labels from aHa! Modern Living aren’t handmade, they are just too adorable to not be included.

Participating in these link parties: Between Naps on the Porch, Tip Junkie, Not Just a Housewife , The Thrifty Home, Savvy Southern Style, Delightful Order, My Romantic Home, Funky Junk Interiors, Under the Table Dreaming, Nifty Thrifty Things.

In past years I have used a 4-tier wire shelf which allows me to grow 8 trays of seedlings into large plants as I can continuously move the shelves to make more room for taller plants.  Plus it comes with a greenhouse cover that makes the perfect transition to the outdoors to harden off seedlings.

I still plan to use the 4-tier wire shelf as an outdoor greenhouse when I pot up the seedlings into larger pots.  I decided that this year I would make something a little neater for the starts as the shelf is in a prominent place in our office.  Plus I need more room indoors for my air plants and terrariums.  I’ve seen the GORM shelf used for a few projects by fabulously stylish gardeners and this year I decided to give it a try.

Carrie from Read Between the Limes’s $29.99 IKEA Seed Starting Rack was the inspiration for this project.  Her shelf has fewer lights and adorable labels for her seeds and soil supply.  Make sure you check out Carrie’s blog for the instructions on how she set up her shelf and lots of great ideas on gardening with kids.

I added to Carrie’s set up by using 6 lights on the top three shelves which has been the perfect amount of light to prevent the seedlings from becoming too leggy.  Disclaimer: I had to leave the seedlings in a bright window for 3 days while I visited the Tulip Festival, so they did get somewhat leggy.

Tall, spindly (aka leggy) seedlings do not give your plants a great start.  It’s not the end of the world, but it indicates that the plants are not getting enough light which is stressful for the plant.  Growing really tall and skinny can cause the plants to flop over and break or easily be damaged.   If you have leggy plants, re-pot them in deeper pots with the soil line all the way up to the seed leaves (the first leaves that appeared when they sprouted).  All that extra stem can be tucked under the soil for protection and the leaves will have a fresh start.

The best remedy for leggyness is to provide enough light and the right kind of light.  For most home growers wanting to start a few seedlings, standard florescent utility lights work just fine.  If you can find inexpensive lights specifically made for growing plants, they may have a high colour temperature that more closely mimics the sun (and they are pink!).  These can be very expensive and for the price the results are not that much different than standard florescent bulbs so save your bucks and buy a “daylight” bulb instead.

Materials:

• 1 GORM Shelving Unit assembled as per instructions with 2 extra shelves.
• 6 utility lights with full spectrum or grow lights where available
• 12 screw in hooks
• 12 x 7” lengths of chain
• Wire or twine
• Power bar

Directions:

1.  Assemble shelving unit as per instructions. Space top 3 shelves 15” apart; these will be your growing shelves.  Space remaining 2 shelves as you desire from the bottom; these will be supply shelves.

2.  Screw 2 hooks to the underside on both the front and back board, spaced 2” in from the width of the lights.

3.  Tie wire or string around the light and affix the end of a length of chain to each side.  Simply hang the other end of the wires on the hooks at about 1” above the seedlings.  Continue to raise the lights as the seedlings grow.

4. I plug all the lights into a power bar so that I can easily turn on or off the whole thing with one switch.  Start by giving your seedlings 8 hours of light a day and slowly increase to 12 hours.  This mimics the increase in light the plants get as the seasons change and the days get longer.

Now don’t think you must have a dedicated area specifically for seed starting indoors.  My friend Sam sent me some great photos of the Victory Garden’s office where they have seeds growing all over the place.  I particularly love them growing under the desk – what a smart use of space!

For more information on seed starting, please check out the other posts in this series:  Seed Starting 101, Homemade Seed Starting Containers DIY Projects,  The Best and Worst Store Bought Seed Starting Containers and Seed Starting Outdoors Under Umbrella Greenhouses.

Victory Gardens is running a container gardening workshop at  Old Faithful Saturday, May 12th from 9:30 – 11 AM.  Not only will you learn some important basics on container gardening from this stylish collaboration, but also you will leave with your very own wooden crate planted with various greens and herbs and some certified organic Westcoast Seeds (my very favourite seeds!).

To register for this event, please go to http://www.Oldfaithfulshop.com/.  Space is limited.

Spring is the time to plant peas out in the garden.  Seeds germinate well in cool soil so plants have a strong start by the time summer hits.  I like to start my peas indoors then move the little vines out when they are strong enough, but you can also buy started pea plants at nurseries and farmers market this time of year.

When you plant your peas they will start to ramble and tangle along the ground and the sweet tips get munched on by just about any vegetable loving creature you can imagine (slugs, snails, the darn dog!) so it’s nice to grow them vertically up a support.  The little vines cling and twine nicely around string, and this simple trellis is perfect to pack a lot of peas into a small area.

Materials:

• Bamboo poles of various lengths
• A spool of garden twine
• A garden helper

Directions:

1. Stick two 6’ or longer bamboo poles into the soil on either side of your pea patch.

2.  Make a frame using two more bamboo poles that measure a few inches longer than the width of your side stakes.  Secure the poles together by tying twine around the poles where they cross in a figure eight pattern.

3. Using twine on a spool, tie one end of the twine to the bottom of one side of the bottom of the frame.  Run the twine up and over the top of the frame, and allow to drop back down.  Let your garden helper wind the twine around the frame over and over until you have reached the other side. Tie the twin in a knot on the end of the frame to secure.

4. Gently lift the tips of the pea plants and tuck their tendrils onto the twine.  The peas will take it from here.

Garden Therapy Handmade pillows are made from fabric designed with photographs from my garden.  Macro imagery of each flower has been carefully giclée-printed on a gorgeous a linen-cotton blend.  The fabric is sturdy and the print is washable making this truly art you can use. For more information, please visit the Garden Therapy Handmade Shop.

This month we take a look at a garden book from a few different perspectives.  Three of our reviewers from Garden Therapy Book Club join us to share their thoughts on The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener: How to Grow Your Own Food 365 Days a Year, No Matter Where You Live.

 

Sam Philips is a partner of Victory Gardens, a Vancouver, BC, business who helps people grow their own food! The team at Victory Gardens looks forward transforming front yards for food production, facilitating dynamic workshops, such as: “Grow Your Own Pizza”, providing education and planning tools for the new urban farmer to grow what they eat and much more. Grow what you eat!

Mimi is a novice urban gardener living in a New York City borough, documenting her adventure in gardening at gardening in the boroughs of nyc. She gardens by trial and error, seeing what works and what doesn’t and learning from her failures. Her goal is to grow her own organic vegetables, fruit, plants, trees and flowers and try to recycle, re-use, conserve wherever she can.

Zoe is a full time job is a Dietitian, but her full time love is crafting, sewing, quilting and creating beautiful handcrafted items. She has a passion for home cooking and growing food to eat from her own garden in Kansas. She writes about it all at Scout’s Stitches.

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Overview of  The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener

Sam:  Based off of the Nova Scotia coast, Niki Jabbour has written a comprehensive guide to year-round gardening that can be utilized by gardeners from an array of geographical regions. This book is useful to not only the beginner gardener, but also an experienced gardener who perhaps hasn’t fully delved into winter gardening. The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener stresses not only methods for winter gardening, but how to utilize row covers and cold frames to get a jump on warm-season crops as well.  Niki Jabbour covers planting successively, intensive gardening, and crop rotation in an easy to understand way.

 

First Impressions

Zoe: I liked the book. It presented the information in an organized way and explained the advantages and disadvantages of the different devices used to extend the growing season. Even for someone who is not quite ready to commit to year round gardening there was a lot of useful information. Some of the sections I found most useful were planting techniques to improve your harvest, crop rotation maps, and the section that looked at what varieties of vegetables thrive better in cool or warm seasons.

Sam: While I must admit that the cover is not the most eye-catching, some of the photos inside the book are quite stunning; one photo that stands out for me is an image of freshly harvested, dirt-covered carrots lying on a bed of white snow. It conveys bounty even when it’s barren outside.

Sam: The layout is very comprehensive, which is integral. My personal favorite was Niki’s chart on successive planting. The chart lays out the crops’ average days to harvest, if the crop is a repeated or single harvest, planting season, time between plantings, and type of succession planting. Planting successively and timing is the key to consistent harvest!

 

Cold Climate Gardening

Mimi: I’ve been gardening in the boroughs of New York City for the last 3 years and I often wondered how I could keep growing vegetables well into the late fall and winter.  Upon reading the book, I was so impressed with the techniques that Niki was using to extend her growing season.  She gardens far North of me, in Nova Scotia, Canada, and she was harvesting cool weather vegetables well into the snowy winter.   If she can do it that far north, I figured I have no excuse not to do it in zone 7.  Some of the techniques she uses to protect plants from the cold weather elements are row covers, cloches, cold frames, mini hoop tunnels, and greenhouses.  Many of the techniques are inexpensive and easy.

Sam: Gardening throughout the colder season has its advantages; for example, Niki Jabbour points out that there are fewer pests to contend with. What’s the biggest advantage to cold season gardening? Having the gratification of harvesting beautiful greens out of a cold frame for dinner in the winter! Niki is a VERY productive gardener. Not only this, she takes the steps to making it easy for her readers.

Zoe: There are many things I learned from this book. Some of the main things I will be paying more attention to in the future is using cloches or water filled cloches on my early planted tomatoes and peppers in case there is a late frost. We have had it happen a couple years where we planted early and then a late frost killed all of our tomatoes. Another tip from the book was to pay attention to which varieties of plants are bred to grow better in cool ground versus warm ground.  This is something I will start to pay attention to so that I can maximize harvest in whichever season I am growing.

 

Project: Interplanting (p. 30) rating: TBD

Zoe:  I didn’t technically try “a project” from the book, as we have been working on one major project for the garden this spring- a beautiful fence to keep the deer out!

But there are techniques that I plan to use from this book. One of the techniques I decided to use was Interplanting (page 30). In my little corner of the garden I planted brussels sprouts (pictured below) and I scattered spinach seed between the plants to use the space to its maximum potential. The spinach hasn’t sprouted yet, but it will soon and should be harvested by the time the brussels sprouts are ready!

 

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Project: Hoop House (pg. 36) rating: 5/5

Sam: I wanted to speed up the germination of my arugula, mustards, radishes and lettuces, so I made hoop houses over my raised beds. All it took was some rebar (4 staked on the edges per side of a 4 by 6 bed), 4 pieces of ¾” PVC conduit piping cut to my desired length that I fit over top, and some row cover that I stretched over top and weighted down with rocks. The reason I used row cover is because the rainwater can get through, there is good moisture retention, and there is still good air circulation.

Niki notes that you can use the row cover on its own, laying it over your crops with enough slack for growth, but I like the aesthetic of a neat hoop house. Also, depending on the season, I can swap the row cover for a warmer poly. Some more delicate crops also get “chafed” if the row cover is laid on top of them. Remember to install a hoop house long before insects will be a problem, and secure the bottom tightly so they can’t creep on through. The hoop house not only speeds up germination by increasing the temperature 2 degrees Celsius, it keeps out the birds!

 

~

Project: Cloches (p. 42) rating: 5/5

Mimi:  An easy technique that Niki uses are cloches, which are dome shaped mini greenhouses that you put over individual plants, often made from plastic or glass.  You can buy fancy cloches, but an inexpensive DIY method is to re-use plastic juice bottles, soda bottles, milk containers or dome shaped food containers like the kind you get with a rotisserie chicken take-out.

 

~

Project: Cold-Frame (p. 45) rating: 5/5

Mimi: The one technique that I was most interested in was the cold frame.  In Niki’s book, starting on page 45, she describes different types of cold frames from portable to permanent structures.  Since I already have raised beds in the garden, I simply added the window frame on top of the raised bed so that it could insulate the bed and trap in the sunlight to warm up the soil and seedlings.

During mid-day when the sun is out, you can prop the window open to allow for some ventilation. It’s also great if you put a hinge on the edge of the window and box to secure the window in place and to allow you to easily open and close it.

~

I’m so grateful and honoured that these amazing ladies took the time to share their thoughts on the book and show off some of the projects they tested.  They have collectively given us a thorough idea of the sheer amount of great information in  The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener and some insight as to the kind of projects you can expect.

To learn more about how Sam can help you Grow What You Eat! please visit Victory Gardens for personalized help with starting your very own veggie garden no matter what space you have.  They will even send you reminders on when to plant veggies by e-mail!

To check out the eco-conscious Mimi in her quest for a greener 2012, visit her at gardening in the boroughs of nyc and revel in all her great ideas on how to reduce her carbon footprint.  She is such an inspiration!

To follow the wildly creative Zoe in her crafty adventures, make sure you check out her blog, Scout’s Stitches.  From April 25-30 be sure to check out How Does your Garden Grow gardening series with a special guest post from yours truly.

 

Want to win a copy of  The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener?  Enter by leaving a comment below before April 25.  Get bonus entries by tweeting this post or sharing on Facebook and coming back here to let us know you did.  Contest now closed.  Congratulations to the winner: George!

The festival runs April 1-30 of any given year and a quick look at the bloom map will tell you which of the fields are in full glory.  Bloom times are always subject to Mother Nature’s schedule, but you can usually find a couple fields of tulips in bloom in the middle of the month, but you best be quick because the blooms don’t last more than 2 weeks before they are cut, bulbs removed, and soil turned for another year.

I have many tulips blooming in my garden right now so I planned to write about them as the April Feature Plant for Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day.  But as I took photos I remembered sensory delights from the Tulip Festival not far from here and decided that those are the photos I’ll share.  How could I not?  Wow. Look at those gorgeous flowers.

How to Grow Tulips

• Tulip bulbs are planted in the fall: in early October before the first frost. Never fear, if you missed planting last fall you can buy potted tulips that are blooming.  Enjoy them in the pot and transplant into the garden when the leaves begin to yellow.
• Most tulips grow best in full sun in loose, rich soil with good drainage.  Make sure to plant bulbs where you have room for them to grow (i.e.:  enough height and space between other plantings).
• Plant bulbs in groups of 5 to 9.  Odd-numbered plantings in groups (as opposed to lines) present a more pleasing and natural display.
• Plant bulbs approximately 6” deep, with the pointy end facing up and the roots down.  Mark the area where you have planted, and cover with a layer of mulch such as leaves, peat moss, or pine needles to protect over winter.

To see the tulips head to the Skagit Valley in Washington state, 60 miles north of Seattle and 70 miles south of Vancouver, BC, Canada. Print off this map of as the fields don’t have addresses.  The location changes every year so this map is your best tool.  If you happen to miss the tulip fields in full bloom, you can also check out the tulip demonstration gardens at Tulip Town.