I love seeing row after row of uniform black plastic seed starting planters in garden centers and greenhouses. They’ve been dutifully watered and sunned, shaded and fertilized by the garden pros in the nursery. They even have the guts to set them out before the last frost of the year, so we can get our gardens started early! After spending so many cold days looking out the windows, dreaming over the seed catalogs, I’m itching to get started with my own seeds, but not quite ready to be outside. To…
Tag: DIY
Re-Purposing a Table Destined for Destruction
A new desk for $8.39? Yes, please! I picked out a table from a pile of junk that was headed for the dump. It was still pretty sturdy and I’ve been on the lookout for a simple rustic table that wouldn’t break the bank. The funny thing about this particular table is that it is exactly the same model as our dining room table, just smaller. Here’s what I did: I cleaned that dirty old thing with the strongest bathroom cleaner I had on hand. You never know what crud has been on these…
Do Just One Easy Thing To Save $60 This Year
Do you want to save $60.00 this year? Make your own liquid laundry detergent. It’s easy, cheap and fast! You don’t need any special equipment. I’ll tell you how I wash clothes for 2.3 cents per load. There are 3 Ingredients: Borax, Washing Soda (Not Baking Soda!), and Dawn or Palmolive Dishwashing Liquid (the handwashing kind, not for dishwashers, & get the good stuff.) You can buy these on Amazon, but it’s going to be way cheaper at the Wal-Mart. Here’s the Nuts ‘N’ Bolts of how we calculated the savings. Check…
Our First Eggs and Our First Garden
May 22, 2014 Hybrid Garden is in the Ground! At long last, our seeds have met the ground! We started out with raised row beds, but because it was too labor intensive this late in the game, we switched to traditional tilled soil gardening. Clint graciously let me stand in the middle of the plot, hold the seeds, and bark out orders about what to plant where…He’s a good man. 🙂 Oh, did you want to water that garden? How are you going to water it??!? No rain in the forecast until…
Let Me Crow About This Chicken Coop!
We used a couple of skinny trees to support the chicken wire from drooping on the top. I know that looks like barbed wire at the top, but it’s some super-sexy (NEON!) zip tie sewing we did with scrap chicken wire to keep predators out of the run and the coop. There’s an overturned plastic pool-cover turtle shell (free castaway from a trash pile) pond for the duck and the old doghouse top for a little something familiar. That beachy blue paint is a mix of most of the leftover paint…