Halloween time seems like a good time to share my mutant potatoes. These strange and scary potatoes were grown in my garden this year. I was so surprised when I dug them up and discovered how they had grown into these strange-looking shapes.
I found out that these potatoes were stressed and that is what caused them to grow so strangely. There is a good article here about the reasons and how to avoid this from happening. Apparently lack of rain, hot weather and not enough watering are the main reasons that you can end up with potatoes looking like these do.
When this happens your harvest will be much smaller as the potatoes didn’t grow and spread out like they should have. When the potatoes are dry for too long, it causes
Here are a few photos I shot today of some hummingbirds that were feeding off my feeder. Don’t worry if it looks empty as I am using clear juice for them and it’s just below the red rim so you can’t see the juice line.
These birds just love my homemade hummingbird juice. This is the second year that I have been making up my own home brew for them. Here is the link to my homemade hummingbird juice recipe that I posted last year.
I actually had 3 birds drinking all at the same time but couldn’t get a picture of them. They move so fast that by the time I try and click the picture, they have moved.
Here is a great shot showing the beautiful back of this hummingbird. She’s just so pretty with her yellow spots.
Another photo of the same bird drinking from my hummingbird feeder.
One last photo of one of the “girls” posing for the camera. They are just such beautiful creatures. Now I am off to make another batch of my brew for them as I’m sure the feeder is nearly empty now.
I have a recycled gardening project to share with you all. I’ve heard about self-watering planters that you can make yourself and after searching around the Internet, I found several different versions. For my planter, I used 2 recycled plastic buckets, a tin can, and a piece of plastic piping I found in my basement.
Here is my recycled self-watering tomato planter. I say recycled as I didn’t buy anything for this project and all the items were either recycled, repurposed, or re-used. Now for the details…
I get these buckets for a dollar at my local grocery store’s bakery. They are food grade so they are perfect for making the self-watering containers. I used this DIY tutorial link at urbanorganicgardener.com to make the planter with the pipe. There is also a tutorial at the same link that shows how to make the planter without the pipe and also a plastic pop bottle version too.
Here is a closeup of the can I used for my wickering can. It’s a 15 oz bean tin can with lots of holes drilled into it. This can was the perfect height for inside my self-watering containers as it just reaches inside the top of the stacked containers.
I made two of these planters in the past 2 weeks. Now I’m just waiting and hoping for lots of tasty tomatoes to grow in my self-watering containers. I’ll post again later this summer to let you all know how it works out using this method.
It was time today to harvest my potatoes that I have been growing in my round cylinder with straw. This was an experiment this season that I learned from some gardening friends on-line. They had told me about how you could grow potatoes in straw rather than in the ground.
Using a piece of fencing, I made a round cylinder. I planted one seed potato cut into 4 parts with each piece having an eye that sprouted. I placed the potato seeds on top of a small dirt mound and put the fencing around it. I wrapped a piece of burlap around the bottom to hold in the plants and moisture. Then I covered it with a thin layer of straw as the seeds sprouted. The above picture was taken in July when the potatoes were still growing. You just add a bit of straw to cover the plants as they grow. You do leave the tops exposed.
Here is a photo when it was first growing.
Once the tops flower and die, you know it’s about time to harvest your potatoes. My potatoes were at the bottom of the straw at the top of the dirt. I’m thinking that I started them too late which may have been why they didn’t grow more up into the straw.
Here is my harvest. I know it probably doesn’t look like much but this was just one small seed potato that I used. Next year, I will start earlier and plant more potatoes so my bounty is bigger. But overall I was happy with the results of growing the potatoes in straw.
Need a watering can or container for your garden? Well I did and decided I would try and make my own. I took one of my empty apple jugs and upcycled it into this handy watering container for my garden.
You just need a plastic jug with a screw off lid. I like the one gallon Tree Top apple jugs as they are made with heavy plastic and a sturdy screw off cap. I used a hammer and a nail to punch the holes around the top of the cap as shown. Just put the cap on a old board and hammer the nail through the plastic to create your watering holes.
My recycled watering jug works great. I can use it to just gently sprinkle tender new seedlings with water or shake it to water larger areas. Plus you can squeeze on the jug to create pressure which allows you to spray water quite a distance.
So if you need a watering can, please consider recycling an old plastic jug into a very handy and frugal watering jug. I’m sure you will love your free watering jug as much as I love mine.
Happy gardening!
My blog friend and fellow recycled crafter Carmen is back to share a cool project that she created using old denim from jeans. She used the jeans, along with bandannas and other recycled materials to decorate these flower pots.
Here is another denim pot she covered and used a pocket too. She created a fun gardening gift package with this project. You can see Carmen’s step-by-step photo tutorial here to help you create your own unique recycled denim pot cover.
I made my own hummingbird food this weekend. The hummingbirds just love my homemade juice. They are drinking it up so fast I can’t believe it. In the past I had the red granulated mix that you buy from the store, but this week I ran out. So I tried my own homemade brew for the birds. I used the 4 to 1 mix which is 4 cups water to 1 cup sugar. I did not use food coloring and the birds don’t seem to care at all. They are still attracted by the red on my feeder and don’t need any artificial coloring.
Just check out these shots of one of my girls enjoying her natural hummingbird food. So if you feed hummingbirds, please consider making your own diy food. It will save you money and the hummingbirds will love your homemade brew!
As I continue on my gardening venture, I am happy to report that my raised beds have been added inside my new greenhouse. My dh built raised gardening boxes on each side using old recycled boards that we had leftover from an old fort we tore down. He built both boxes and then installed them along the sides.
Here is the first box when it was done and filled with organic topsoil. I started my seedlings in the house and got them transplanted this past weekend. Here is my carrots which were more than ready to be replanted as they had outgrown my egg carton I recycled for a seed starter.
Here is a final photo of both raised beds with my tomatoes, carrots, onions, lettuce and green peppers. I think my veggie seedlings are happy with their new home inside the greenhouse. Now if it would just stop raining so the sun could shine on my greenhouse I’d be happy.
I am excited to start a new category here at my blog. In a effort to become more self-sustaining and frugal, I have started gardening. Of course when you live in the mountains and want to be successful gardening, you need a greenhouse. Well here is my new greenhouse. It was built from a kit and we finished it last weekend.
Here is my DH working hard on the greenhouse. I must say that he built most of greenhouse by himself and while it was a kit, it wasn’t easy to put together. The instructions were not very clear and he had to improvise quite often but he made it work and got my greenhouse built. Personally I think its beautiful and I am so proud of my husband building it for me.
Here are some seedlings I started in the house and moved out to the greenhouse. I’ve used recycled containers for my starts. The white buckets are recycled from my local bakery. I have my one big tomato plant in a white bucket as shown in the photo. I plan to transplant more tomato seedlings into the big buckets this weekend. We also will be building some wooden planter boxes for each side of the greenhouse floor area.
I will blog more about my gardening venture in the days to come. I will share my ideas, my successes and my failures as I explore the world of gardening. I will incorporate my recycling ideas into my gardening and will share my experiences as this gardening season progresses. Please feel free to contribute and help me as I develop my gardening skills.
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