DIY Garden Projects, Yummy Recipes, & Crafty Goodness
How wonderful that gardening supplies have entered the hip world of West Elm Market, Willams-Sonoma and Anthropologie (via their sister garden & home shop, Terrain). The range of tools and accessories surely inspires new gardeners to set up a little green in their outdoor spaces and gives more seasoned green-thumbs some new ideas.
When the sun starts shining those seedlings will soon be reaching up to meet it. Some plants have nice strong stalks to hold them up but others need our help. Peas, beans, and other vining vegetables need some sort of trellis to support their growth towards the sky. This project shows you how to easily build a bamboo trellis with only one material. Yep, you guessed it…bamboo!
Please welcome guest blogger for the day and author of the new book, The Mini Farming Guide to Composting: Self-Sufficiency from Your Kitchen to Your Backyard, Brett L. Markham. Brett is the author of the popular Mini Farming books, including Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on ¼ Acre, Maximizing Your Mini Farm, and the handbooks The Mini Farming Guide to Vegetable Gardening and The Mini Farming Guide to Fermenting.
Before writing The Mini Farming Guide to Composting, Brett asked his readers which topic he should focus on next, and composting topped their wish list. Using the same straightforward, easy-to-follow instructions and the photos of his own plot that gained the following for his earlier books, he now turns his green thumbs to this important, yet overlooked aspect of growing plants. Today he shares with us instructions on how to make a compost tea brewer at home!
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Looking for a fun family project for Easter to get in a little Garden Therapy? You are in luck! Today we have a guest post from Beverly Turner one of the co-authors of Fairy Gardening: Creating Your Own Magical Miniature Garden. The book covers just about anything you wanted to know about fairy gardening, a type of miniature gardening in containers or right in the ground. Little worlds created with tiny plants, furniture, and little creatures makes them whimsical and, without a doubt, a lot of fun. Today Beverly has shared the perfect fairy garden for the season as it’s contained in an Easter basket!
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This DIY project would make a great gift, complete with a handwritten sentiment. Will the handy uses for chalkboard paint ever come to an end? I hope not. Read on for instructions on how to make the pot, as well as some advice from Martha Stewart that took the fear out of repotting orchids for me!
Brrrr. It’s still winter and in many cases still c-c-cold out there. Even if you live in a warmer climate, there is nothing like a warm bath to soothe away all that ails you. I love to add a little Lavender Bath Salt or a Fizzy Bath Bomb into the mix, to soften skin and ease muscle pain, but I don’t always love the clean up that comes after. Herbs are wonderful in the bath but they can leave bits and bobs to chase after the water has drained.
The solution? Tub tea! Pack herbs, salts, and other bath time joys into a fillable tea bag and you’ve got yourself a mess-free bath.
Here is a list of some of the possible options to fill your tea bags with: [Read more...]
If you are still busy working on the last Weekend Project, 20 Crafty Recycling Projects You Can Make With Your Christmas Tree, you will be happy to see this quick and easy project for this week, recycling Christmas cards into gift tags. It’s simple, reduces waste, and is a great way to save the thoughtful holiday cards you were lucky enough to receive.
There really is nothing like a fresh tree for Christmas. It smells wonderful and brings a bit of the outdoors inside for a short while. When Christmas is over it’s time to hack it up for recycling but it seems to me that there is a more fitting end for something so special. Not one to waste the bounty which nature provides, I will be using my tree for its trunk and branches to make a bunch of creative projects. Here are 20 ideas if crafts that you can use to recycle your Christmas tree when her job is complete indoors.
Looking around at the garden center there are just so many beautiful holiday planters you can buy to create a festive welcome at your home. These planters are exceptionally easy to make yourself with some found clippings around the garden or even the bottom branches of your Christmas tree!
When you think of holly you undoubtedly will associate it with Christmas. If you have one on your property you may also think Ouch! and Ugh! The two sentiments I utter when a) getting stabbed by the leaves and b) when I have to clean up the leaves that just won’t compost and pluck out all the volunteers around the garden.
But it’s at this time of year, when the holly tree is just packed with glowing red berries, that it’s hard not to appreciate her beauty.
