Galvanized Container gardening & random thoughts

Well, while I give the sun credit for still shining (and my overall mood really appreciates it) once again the Midwest is experiencing bitterly cold temps.  This artic vortex stuff needs to stop!!!  I don't want to even wander outside to fill the bird feeders (not to worry.  I'm sucking it up and feeding the birds).  I guess a few days of temps in the 40's completely spoiled me!  On the upside of things today was a sleep in day.  The car had to go back to the shop so I dropped it off last night.  They needed the car all day to work on it and Princess Bear (PB) was scheduled for a 1/2 day at school and no after school activities.  It seemed like a nice day to let her play hookey.  Then she came home from school and told me that they watched Brother Bear in class.  The dumb a$$ teacher couldn't even make it 2 weeks without reverting to her old habits of not teaching the kids.  Yep, if you can't tell I'm a bit pissed.  So to get my mind off of things I went to an old standby.  Pinterest.  It's a playground.  A very very very addictive online playground! 

Wait!  Backtrack a little bit.  I first looked to see if I could find an online tutorial that was first published in Mary Jane's Farm Magazine a few years ago.  It was the first time I'd seen someone use a water trough as a self watering garden bed.  AWESOME!!!!!  Unfortunately I could not find that tut but I found a blogger that based their trough garden on it.  You can read about their experiences HERE AND HERE (an update).
Another gardening used some galvanized containers to do a garden sculpture.  You can see that one HERE.  I really do want to try the galvanized troughs for some blueberry bushes and raspberry canes.  Gotta check into that one.  I'm also all about self watering containers.  As much as I'm not liking the artic temps we're dealing with right now I'm not a fan of the 100* temps that we'll have in July and August.  I'm more of a temperate kinda gal.  Keep things in the 70's and 80's in the summer & I'd be happy!  I hate going outside and feeling like I've run smack dab into a wall of heat and humidity!    Below are a  few more galvanized container ideas to get your creative juices flowing.  Enjoy!

 

 

More gardening musing

Since a few people liked the strawberry pyramid that I shared the other day I thought I'd share this one from Gurney's as well.  This one is definitely more economical but the reviews are mixed.  The price point is so much lower though that it might be worth trying for a year and seeing how it works.  What do you think about this cutie?

 

You can find it at the Gurney's website HERE 



Again the sun is shining so I was digging through my pinterest boards looking for some gardening and upcycle gardening ideas. Here are a few of my favorites. What to you think? Most of them are pretty self explanatory but you can always hit Pinterest or Google to find
directions.

 

Now this looks like a new dresser but who hasn't seen a dresser that someone has left out for the garbage man? I found one last year and swiped all the drawers. I made message centers from the drawers. Big fun and oh so cute!!! This is just another way of upcycling a dresser!

Another way of growing strawberries. PVC pipe vertical planters! CUTE!

 

I love this turning a chair into a planter. Totally adorable isn't it???!!!!??? Again who doesn't have an extra chair in their basement or attic? It looks fairly simple and the end results would be awesome! 

 How about adding a beneficial bug house to your yard? It would help with pollination and keeping the bad bugs at bay! Seems like a win win situation!!!

  

I'm so so so SOOOOOOOOOOOOO in love with this cheery cherry garden shed!!!  

Another thing that I LOVE in gardening are galvanized containers. They look awesome and are sturdy as all get out. I'll probably do another post on entire gardens that are made from galvanized containers but I thought I'd share a couple of little gems here. What do you think of this cluster of small galvanized containers?

  

and how incredibly awesome is this galvanized planter with floating candles? I'm picturing a late spring garden dinner party? How about you?

So ready to dig in some dirt and play!

Ok I know a few posts back I said that I would try not to hurry time.  30 lashes with a wet noodle!  The the sun has been shining and I want to get in the garden.  Ok, I'd settle for starting seeds but my family swears that never again will there be seed starting in this house.  I think they have a very bad attitude!   I was at the mechanics again today and had to kill a couple of hours.  The fuel tank is fixed but the gauge is dead than a doornail.  So I sat there with a copy of Hobby Farm Home, Country Sampler and another gardening magazine that I'm just blanking on the title.  I finished the Hobby Farm Home while I was there.  It had a great article on making your own seed blocks.  I so could do that.  I'm really thinking I need to get a bit diabolical here and take over the workroom in the basement.  It's just basically storage and has a few banks of lights that would be great for seed starts.  I'm one of those people that more often than not works under the theory of its easier to ask forgiveness than permission.  I'm pretty sure I could pack up what is on the work tables down there and set up a dandy little seed starting set up complete with lights and timers before anyone was on to me.  Can you imagine.  I'd be able to grow my own tomato starts!  I plant between 3 & 4 dozen tomatoes every year.  That gets expensive!  I could also start some squash, zucchini & pumpkins.  Then there are all the options for flowers.  Go me!!!!  I could save a ton of money!  Again- go me!!!  What about the herbs!  I've never had a lot of luck with herbs from seeds but hey I can try it again!

While I was down there I also showed Frank (guy who owns the garage) this sweet little strawberry pyramid.  Frank is one of those people who knows everyone in town and if you need someone or something and don't know where to find it Frank is the guy!

So I showed him this beauty:  

and asked him who could make it. He knew right away and printed out the directions and picture (you can find it HERE.  I know it can't be cheap since it will have to be built with cedar.  That said how cheap are organic strawberries?  So I figure I can have this built and get some strawberry plants that will produce for a couple of years and it might actually be a cost saver in the long run!  Princess Bear (PB) could happily eat her body weight in strawberries without me thinking about going bankrupt.  There would probably even be enough to slice & dehydrate.  I'm so on board with this.  Now I just need to get some organic blueberry plants, raspberry bushes and a few apple trees that actually produce & I'll be in good shape!  

Dip toes and then jump!

Ok- I'm in it now! That is my quest for the country life! Last week I made a few calls about signing Princess Bear (PB) up for FFA or 4-H. The closest FFA chapter is about an hour and a half from here so that just isn't going to work. There are several 4-H chapters here in town so we're going with that. The February meeting is distributing Valentine cards at a nursing home but no meeting afterwards so that didn't seem like the best time to take PB. Instead we're waiting for the March meeting. That meeting is taking place at our local Hy Vee which is a fairly new store (it opened last summer) and for whatever reason it is one of PB's favorite places to go. The meeting is a tour of the store and then an actual meeting afterwards. She's looking very forward to it. She'll be in a group called Cloverbuds which is for 5-7 year olds. The leader also told me that 8 years old and up always have to present a project at the County fair every summer. We talked about the possibility that PB might have a difficult time at the fair because of the heat and she said that is no problem whatsoever. Instead PB can go to the local extension office here in Peoria and present her project there. I'm just very glad that PB is getting some more socialization. I originally looked for a Brownies troop but for some reason that just never seems to take off at her school.

Then I decided to take the plunge myself and sign up at Farmers Only which is an online sight to find someone else who is also interested in a country lifestyle. I'd never heard of this site before and then heard about it twice in a pretty small time frame. What the heck- it can't make my social life any less busy!

I also signed up for 2 plots at our community garden. Our garden here at home isn't quite as big as I'd like and there isn't room for any other gardening spots around the house. The plots are 4' x 8' and cost $10 for the summer. So I figure a $20 investment isn't a bad idea for uping my growing space by almost 50%. I'm planning on using one of the plots for tomatoes only. I'm going to be a canning fool I tell you! Think of all the tomato juice, salsa, ketchup, chili and pasta sauce I can put by for the winter! I'm so excited! I'm going to do a lot of beans, peas and carrots in the other space with maybe some beets because PB loves munching on beet stalks with ranch dressing. I was pickig out my blueberry bushes last night. I'm planning on getting somewhere between 6-8 semi sized blueberry bushes. That way they can be grown in containers around the backyard even if I manage to get a swimming pool for PB this summer, G-d willing! I'm also thinking about a couple of dwarf apricot and nectarine trees for the patio. We have 2 apple trees so we're going to have lots of great fruit hopefully. I also really really REALLY want a strawberry pyramid. Have you seen these? They're so cool. Its a circular, tiered strawberry garden that has space for 50 strawberry plants in a 6' circle! You can take a look HERE. You can purchase a netting set to go over it to keep pesky birds out of your garden! Man do I want one of these!!! PB would be so happy being able to pick her own strawberries and blueberries. The only other berry she likes is raspberry & I don't have the space or ability to deal with canes right now.

So, that is what is happening here. Now we're just getting ready to hunker down for the foot of snow that we're supposed to get between now and Wednesday- oh yah! NOT!

TGIF!

Man- I've done a whole lot of nothing this week! I've slept, read, slept, planned my garden and slept some more! I must say the sleep is really welcome! Especially since my insomnia had been pretty out of control. There is one slight problem- my days & nights are TOTALLY reversed! I've always been a night owl but its back in force! So much for 11pm bedtimes! :) Gotta get back to that! I've done a huge amount of trash reading which is kind of fun. My sister & I both read a small Christmas novella by Robyn Carr- part of her Virgin River series. She's a really fun trash book author! So of course my sister & I had to go back & start at the beginning of the Virgin River Series. If you want to check out Robyn Carr go HERE. Nothing about reading about manly men, small town life & the women the love! lol Yes I am a trash romance junkie- just a way to live vicariously!

I've also been doing some heavy duty planning on my garden. Yes, I admit it, I'm obsessed! I've actually graphed it out on graph paper. I really want the garden I WANT this year! I've been pouring over seed catalogs and reading my gardening books. I'm going for a very intensively planned square foot succession garden plan. Most of my seeds are coming from Sand Hill Preservation Center. They are just a hop, skip and a jump away being located in Iowa so I figure what they have good luck with I should as well. In addition this man is really dedicated to the genetic preservation of open pollenation seeds. This is important for so many reasons up to and including being able to save seeds for future gardens. The other 2 places I'm getting seeds from are Bountiful Gardens and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I would SO love to take a roadtrip to visit Baker Creek Seeds!!!!!!!!!!

Other than that I've been trying to do some cleaning while not hurting my ankle. Fun and games I tell you!