Recent Articles
Growing carrot patterns with DIY seed planting sheets
13.9 years ago carrot, outdoor seed starting, seed planting sheets 13 Comments
My daughter likes to plant seeds but when working with smaller seeds it can be difficult to plant these seeds especially the farther the location is from edge of the garden bed. I have been thinking about solving this problem with a seed strip which can be made using burlap, newspaper, toilet paper, or any sort of paper for that matter. Next you simply stick the seeds to the paper at the appropriate spacing, let them dry and roll out as far as you want to plant. This allows you to get your seeds ready in the comfort of your favorite chair to prepare your seeds and not hunched over your garden with an aching back.
I a simple seed planting strip would have done well for what I was planning but I decided to go with the creation of my own carrot seed planting strip template that allows you to grow in the pattern of the vegetable you are growing. Completely not necessary I know but it kept my daughter occupied working on the “craft” indoors this morning.
Step 1: Get you materials. Start by downloading and printing a carrot seed planting strip template. In the picture below I printed out two copies and glued them together for a few extra carrots. Next you need some glue, a great option is to mix a little flour and water together to the consistency of toothpaste, but I wanted to keep the mess to a minimum and used good ole school glue stick.
Step 2: Glue on the seeds. Take a small dab of your glue and put a drop on each circle on the template. Drop a 1-2 seeds on each glued circle and allow to dry. Once dry I give the paper a quick shake to find any seeds that did not stick and reapply if needed.
Step 3: Plant your seeds. Make a flat surface with your trowel moving a small layer of soil from your garden bed. Lay down your paper carefully on the soil.
Finally over your paper with a small layer of soil that you removed previously.
Step 4: Water Thoroughly. You need to hydrate the seed to begin germinating but you also want to start breaking down the paper and glue to not inhibit those young roots from penetrating the paper.
This was a fun project to do with my daughter, but also considering this is a good way to get some prep work done ahead of time to make the take of planting (here in WA is many times in the rain) a much quicker task. This can be great for crops you grow multiple times per season. You can get your seeds out once, make your seed planting sheets with the appropriate planting dates and bring them out to the garden as needed.
Controlling raspberry bushes
14 years ago planter, raspberries 20 Comments
I have considered adding raspberries in my garden but never really got around to it. This year the sort of were planted for me when my neighbors raspberry plant began sneaking under our fence. This was not exactly the location I would have chosen to plant them if I picked up a plant from the local home improvement store…but figured best to go with it than fight it since I was sure the raspberry plant would be more persistent.
The reason why I would have not chosen this location is that is right next to where I grow my tomatoes/peppers also known as the only southern facing location in my yard. I also had a hydrangea growing in the same area, though fortunately was not too established and I was able to transplant without too much shock.
To attempt to keep this creeping plant under some control I decided to setup some preventive barriers. By taking some scrap plywood leftover from my grow box expansion I created an eighteen inch deep barrier to keep the raspberries from taking over my tomato/pepper turf as well as taking over my lawn. I am pretty sure that the raspberries can still get under and/or move around it but hoping this will at least slow them down a little and save me from a little extra weeding in my lawn and garden beds.
Depending how effective (or ineffective) this is I probably will dig this out a little more and make something a little more beefy to keep these raspberries in their place…but this was as much digging as I felt comfortable doing without calling the "Call Before You Dig” folks to mark up my backyard.
Either way, I am definitely look forward to picking some fresh raspberries in my backyard this summer. Though if any of you have some great ideas how to keep your raspberry plants in check I would love to hear about them…
cayenne peppers growing indoors
14 years ago cayenne, indoor growbox, peppers 3 Comments
Well this is the soonest I have gotten peppers growing, but the temperature controlled grow box did help out a lot. I brought this pant indoors last year when it still had a half dozen green peppers on it when the temperatures started to decline. The peppers turned red and a picked and dried them out for cayenne powder and sort of forgot about this plant.
It went dormant and by sheer neglect somehow survived so when I noticed that leaves started growing from it I quickly gave it a good watering and put it back in the grow box where it has come back strong and plan on getting enough peppers from this plant to meet my BBQ needs for a good year.
How to sharpen hedge sheers (hedge trimmers)
14 years ago garden sheers, sharpen your axe 3 Comments
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” —Abraham Lincoln
The above has to be one of my favorite quotes, a great summary of working smart versus working hard. I have used this quote in reference to doing work such as creating tools to make the overall job take more time…in this sense I will be using it in the more literal terms in actually “sharpening your ax” or in this case your hedge sheers.
As you can see from the picture above I have let these sheers go a little and they provide a bit too much of resistance when trimming the hedges. With proper maintenance the only resistance you should feel is from the bushes you are trimming.
The process to sharpen your hedge trimmers is actually quite simple and can be done with a very limited set of materials.
Materials:
Step 1: Clean surface. Apply a small amount 3-in-1 oil to one of the surfaces of the blade and rub with steel wool to remove any dirt/grime from the blades. Repeat process for all four sides of the blades.
Step 2: Remove rough edges from flat side of blade. Use your medium metal file to remove any rough edges on the blade. Repeat with fine metal file until edge is very smooth.
Step 3: Sharpen rounded edge of blade. Using the fine metal file carefully make create a sharp cutting surface. If the right work was done on Step 2 there should not be much work do do here. Just keep gently apply pressure until there is very little resistance, pay attention to the sounds this is a case where you can hear when your work is done.
Step 4: Clean and oil up. Clean off and remaining grime with old rag and apply some more 3-in-1 oil to the blade and any moving parts as needed.
Now you have some hedge sheers that will easily slice through your shrubbery with much less effort and allowing you more time to more exciting projects in your garden. When it comes to other tools in your garden hand sheers or an old shovel you can use these same tips to make those work like new as well.
How to collect lettuce seeds
14 years ago Uncategorized Leave a comment
I wasn’t exactly good about eating my lettuce last year, after a few weeks of neglect the plants began to flower and eventually created some seeds. At the end of the season I pulled out the plants to dry out a little more and eventually forgot about them for a few months.
Because I forgot about the seeds when it came time to plant them I simply grabbed a seed pod broke it apart in my hand and planted some seeds. If you are only going to plant a few plants this is a great way to go using natures seed packaging system. If you are needing many more seeds or lack the extra space to store your seeds here is a simple process to save lettuce seeds.
1. Extract. Place a few seed pods between your hands and rub your hands together lightly allowing the seeds and the chaff (aka other stuff) fall into a bowl. Repeat this for all of the seeds you want to save for this/next year.
2. Filter. Just by carefully shaking the bowl a little any large pieces of “other stuff” should come right to the surface which you can easily pick out. Take the remaining seeds and “other stuff” and place in a sieve and shake to removed the “other stuff” removing any remaining large pieces that come to the surface. You can also gentle move the seeds with mild pressure around to break up some of the remaining “other stuff” and help it fall through the sieve.
Now with some fairly clean seeds you can store in an paper or plastic envelope and plant when needed.
What’s wrong with this tomato plant?
14 years ago disease, pests, tomato 24 Comments
I have my best guess on this one, but can’t seem to find any pictures online that match this tomato problem. So to confirm what do you think the problem could be?
