Sunflowers, Garden Progress and Keeping the Deer Out

Today my husband and I celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary!   It has been quite the ride so far.   He took this beach girl from a condo across the street from the ocean in South Florida  to the base of the Blue Ridge mountains in upstate South Carolina.   I miss the ocean terribly and hopefully we'll move back to it one day... ...but for now, I'm a country girl.    This country girl has been learning how to grow a garden these past few years. I started a 4'x4' raised bed container garden 5 years ago and each year since I've added more raised beds, but this year we decided to grow a traditional row garden.    

 

Free Chair Turned into a Planter

Free is good right?   That's what I thought when I spotted an old chair outside of a thrift store with a sign that said FREE.   I kind of felt guilty taking it because I didn't purchase anything there that day, but I had great plans for that chair and couldn't help myself.  

 

Quick Garden Freebies

Celery and scallions for free!

I work part-time at a restaurant and decided to try a tip that I had read a while back. Place the end that you cut off of your celery stalk and scallions in water to grow another plant. I am able to have both of these items from the restaurant anytime, for free, because they normally just get tossed into the trash.

I used a ramekin and toothpicks for this project. It reminds me of growing carrots in a paper cup with toothpicks in elementary school:) These are the results after a week in the water! This is so much easier than starting them from seed and a lot faster too.

The celery is just starting to grow roots and the scallions have plenty of root growth already, so I'm planning to move them into the soil in the garden this weekend.

Do you have any easy garden tips? I'll take all of the help I can get as a newbie gardener.

'til next time,

Adina


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A greenhouse just in time for Spring

A new addition to my workshop! We completed the greenhouse seedling boxes this weekend, just in time for Spring...

                                                         ... but with snowflakes fluttering in the wind and the cold temps, we were reminded it is still winter here. I was hoping for more of the white stuff to keep falling, but to no avail this weekend. It is so pretty when everything is freshly covered in snow and it makes the cold weather worth it! This is a pic of our place after a snow in 2009! You have to admit, it is pretty isn't it?

My wonderful husband, Walter, came up with a simple design for this project and the old windows we had stored in our shed were going to work perfectly.

We started by building a box out of cypress lumber.

The box is large enough to hold a shelf and have two levels of seedlings growing! Last spring I coudn't find a lot of the veggies I wanted in small plants and it was too late in the year to start the seeds. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is a successful new adventure in gardening for me this year. I found a clever idea on Pinterest from MarthaStewart.com using eggshells as the pots to grow your seeds in and once they are large enough you can plant them in the ground, right in the shells.   

Now to figure out how to break the eggs just right for this project. Any tips? Anyways, a couple hours later we hinged the old windows onto the box we built and we were finished for now.

 Now off to warm up and do some reading to learn more about this whole seed growing process!
                                               
                                                      'til next time,
                                                            Adina

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