I love to make things with my hands. This section includes building, DIY, upcycling, and craft projects for your garden. It also covers using materials gleaned from the garden or the natural world at large.
While the street garden and the community garden plot are both merrily on their way the roof is a disaster. I started an assortment of edibles a while back amidst the chaos with the intent of organizing it, and then didn’t. When the local television stations starting calling about coming to shoot the garden for …
Last fall I decided to participate in a national growing experiment called, The Great Canadian Garlic Collection, wherein hundreds, possibly thousands of gardening nerds are growing garlic, recording their results, and then pooling the data so we can all find out which varieties grow best under varying conditions. Believe me when I say that it …
The discussion around inexpensive containers for indeterminate tomato plants in a recent post has brought up a good point regarding how to conceal the clinical blandness of food industry buckets. The conversation in that post reminded me of a brilliant camouflage technique I discovered on a Saturday walk through my own neighbourhood a few years …
Earlier this Fall I wrote about bringing your hot pepper plants indoors for overwintering. I’ve put together a short 2 minute clip showing how I dug up a ‘Variegata’ hot pepper plant from my community garden plot and transplanted it into a pot to spend the next 7 or so months indoors. There are lots …
I recently became an official card-carrying member of Seeds of Diversity, a move that was a long time coming. Okay, to be honest there is no actual membership card but there really should be — I am a proud nerd who loves the idea of a special membership card to a club of similarly-minded nerds. …
Over the years, I’ve made a tradition of both putting together a new succulent window box idea every spring, and posting about it here. Since planting up this year’s box a few months ago, I’ve been taking photos as a prelude to a write-up here. But just when I begin to write, something in the …
This is one of those ideas that is insanely simple yet effective. Grow a couple of lettuce varieties with pretty leaf shapes and bright colours. Put them together in a container that sets off their leaf colours or grow them in individual pots of a contrasting colour. In this case I have two leaf lettuce …
What to do with a lone strawberry plant leftover from another soon-to-be-revealed project, a small flat of red violas ($3.50 for 16 plants!), and an old coffee canister that was thrifted as part of a 70s era fake woodgrain 4 part kitchen canister set? Put them together! I figure the red viola flowers will look …
I went out foraging stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) last weekend. I harvested young leaves for eating and have set aside most to be made into a liquid fertilizer for my plants. Stinging nettle is very high in magnesium and iron making it good for both your bod and your plants’ too. I went out partially …
UPDATE March 2014: I see each growing season as an opportunity to do better than the last and as a result I rarely stick with one “right way” to do things. I wrote this article back in 2007 (7 years ago) and it reflects how I used toilet paper rolls as seed-starting cells at the …
As per usual I did not read instructions and jumped headfirst into converting Goldtop’s cute Seed-Starting Chart into little seedling pot tags. Turns out they are great for either purpose. I printed mine on cardstock, cut them out, and attached to tongue depressors. I did not have anything important to write in the notes section …
Okay so the succulents are half-dead and it’s actually a corny window display for a glasses store but this shallow Plexiglas planter box found while walking through Portland, Oregon is at heart a good idea. Shallow-rooted succulents like hens and chicks would do well in a container like this — the store owner just didn’t …