A Bump in the Road

Yah know those bumps in the road that you encounter?  We'll we've had one and our garden has temporally been put on hold.  We also came home to find all my corn starts knocked off the table, chewed on and mangled by our cat.  After a beautiful day at the beach, it was a little frustrating to come home to.

Since nothing large scale is getting done, I am going to work small scale for the time being.  I am working on putting together an herb garden using #10 cans. For those who are not familiar, #10 cans are your larger cans.  We get ours from food storage items or from the large cans of peaches and pears at Costco. You could use smaller cans and just not put as many seeds inside. I will post more as soon as I get them done but for now here are some pictures from our much needed mini vacation. 

While the coloring is edited a little, I love this picture.  It was my little guys first time ever on the beach and he loved stepping in the wet sand and watching his footprints disappear. 

From the lookout point you can see all around the area.  We loved watching the waves crash against the rocks. 

The reflection of the clouds and sun was beautiful on the water.

 Beautiful Lighthouse

Homemade Starter Pots

Love getting your plants started indoors but hate paying for those little starter pots that cost an arm and a leg only to transplant them into the dirt a short time later?  Since we're living in the northwest where its rather wet, its hard for us to get out and till in the early months.  Once we get our raised beds in, it won't be as hard but until then, getting things started indoors is a must. I was cruising through pintrest the other day and found a post that led me to a blog that had instructions on how to do so, sadly, I've cleared my history and can't find the link. Hopefully these pictures and instructions will be helpful.

This was a single sheet that I tore in half, for the full two page parts, just tear them into four sections.

Once you've torn your news paper into the sections fold each on in half lengthwise (parallel with the text).  This seemed to be the easiest and the best if you don't want to use tape.

Align the paper along the side of the jar.  I used a stage two baby food jar for most of mine. I did use a straight sided glass for the 24 for corn figuring they would need a bit more room.  The baby food jar worked perfectly and turns out about the same size as the small starter pots you can get in he store.

Wrap the paper all the way around keeping it as straight as possible.  Once you're finished wrapping, hold the paper together with your hand (tape is optional but I don't think it's biodegradable like the paper so I opted out).  

Twist the loose side in the same direction that you were wrapping.  I found that if I twisted the opposite way, they weren't staying together by themselves. 

Fold the twisted part over and push it up into the jar/glass.  

Here is the inside of a finished one.  It has a slight bump but as you can see, it's holding itself together.

Her it is from the side, the bottoms may pop out a little until they get some weight in them but mine still stay together.

Here are a few that I've made and are waiting for seeds. I just used an old metal cake pan that is pitting and peeling for these.

And here are some that are ready to go with our corn starts.  These were a little bigger and I just cut a box down to the perfect size and put a garbage bag inside of it so that I can still water them.

Most of our news paper comes free from the local paper and an occasional Sunday paper that I purchase for the coupons.  Other than that, they didn't cost a penny. I tried using some small disposable cups a few years ago but you have to get pull the dirt and plant out before you can plant them in the ground.  These you can drop straight into the ground and the paper will compost down into your garden. 

Enjoy!

Watch Us Grow

To all who read this blog, I hope you find it to be enjoyable and maybe find something useful.  I'm not good at blogging but I'm trying.  Most of the time, my lack of blogging has come from the lack of passion.  I have recently found something to be passionate about, gardening.  I have always loved playing in the dirt, I'm sure my mother has stories about how dirty my brother and I got as children.  Needless to say over the years, my passion has grown and now we have the space to do so.  I'm not the most knowledgeable when it comes to gardening but that is part of the adventure. 

Right now my biggest frustration is our weather.  For anyone else who lives in the Great North West or the Great North 'Wet' as my mother calls it might know what I'm talking about.  As a child we had cool winters with lots of storms and some snow, while our summers were warm and sunny.  The last couple years have been weird.  With it being as wet as it has been, planting a garden, and on a budget has been hard.

Two years ago we attempted our first garden.  We were sharing our garden space with our neighbor and planted over 40 tomato plants.  Sadly it was a wet summer and I was pregnant.  We had a weed that took over our garden and grew to be over 5 feet with in a couple weeks.  Being pregnant made it hard to crawl along the ground for long periods of time while picking weeds.  Later in the summer we got lots of rain and our pour soil didn't allow the water to drain off leaving us with root rot in every single tomato plant.  This year we decided to do raised beds. Unlike most, we're making ours out of cinder blocks.  We've also added some composted manure and will be adding stuff from our compost pile.

I will be attempting to write at least a post or two a week as I go through this learning process. I will try to keep everyone updated on our garden and post things that I learn as I go.

Enjoy!