How does your garden grow?

What started as a simple, “We should plant some things this year.” has officially turned into, “Holy cow! Our whole yard is gonna be a garden!” Do these things ever happen to any of you? Please say yes.

Our tomatoes in buckets and a few cucumbers are now tomatoes along a fence, cucumbers (somewhere!) and an assortment of herbs and flowers anywhere in the yard that will produce enough sunshine and good drainage. I believe we have about 50 herbs and flowers to plant now. Yes. I did say 50. Please tell me this stuff happens to you and that you make it work!

While researching all the wonderful herbs and flowers, I discovered an online tutorial for making seed starter pots out of newspaper. Newspaper! Very crafty, economical, and green – I couldn’t possibly pass that up. We have stacks and stacks of newspaper around here due to our couponing habits. Yes, we recycle them but rarely do they get taken to the bin every week.

We made little greenhouses out of plastic bottles, also saved from the recycle bin. These are super easy. All you need is a plastic bottle big enough to hold a small plant and a knife. I’m sure you have that around.

Step 1 – Rinse bottle thoroughly. You want to get all traces of what was in there OUT. Keep the cap off and let it dry for a couple days.

 

 

 

 

Step 2 – Using a steak knife good pointed knife, puncture the bottle and simply cut all the way around. You can also puncture holes in the bottom for drainage if you plan on sitting them in a larger container.

Step 3 – Place the plant in side the bottom half. Give it some water and slip the top half over the bottom half. On a regular 2 liter bottle this will require a little squeezing, poking, and perfect position of your tongue to make the goofiest face ever. The juice bottle in the picture to the right, however, fit perfectly after being cut right at the point where the bottle narrowed.

One more note about the greenhouses, we did not put holes in the bottom of ours. Instead of filling them with soil, all that was placed inside was the little starter pellet with its seeds. We were able to get 3 to 4 plants in each plastic bottle this way.

Out in the yard we managed to get a few house plants that were horribly pot bound into the large open ground. They look much happier now. All in all it was a good week of sowing. We finished off on Friday with some strawberry lemonade and fresh strawberries. Yum!