Labels for the garden

Labels, blah, I so dislike looking out at my garden and seeing all those labels. And yet, during the growing season, it's so nice when somebody wants to know what something is and there you have the name right at your finger tip.

Now that I'm potting up all these plants to sell, I needed a quick, cheap way to label the many pots. As in previous years, my solution has been to use mini blinds. I used to use old blinds that people donated to me but I've run out of those. Now I run to a discount store and buy the largest size for the cheapest price.

The first step is to cut off all of the cords.

This is the size I bought. They were $5.00, the next size was almost twice the price and was only a few inches larger so I went with these.

Since they are 36" long, it was easy to figure out that I cut get three foot long labels out of each piece of plastic.

All cut up in under ten minutes, I had 218 pieces of mini-blind markers. Not bad!


When it comes to writing on the labels I have a number of different products. The sharpie marker doesn't last a whole season. The Nursery marking pen holds much longer than the sharpie but I haven't seen them for sale around here.

The winner though is the pencil. It is less bold, a little harder to read but it will never ever fade. Also, the markers are have fat tips and are hard to read too while the finer point of the pencil is easier to write with.

Do you label your plants? Can you recommend a marker?

Make your own Pots (easy as can bee)

Exactly one week ago I planted my peat pellets. I had brought them into my gardening class along with some seeds. We talked about the importance of reading the back of the seed packages. It's amazing what you'll learn if you actually read everything on the back.

I planted Swiss chard 'Bright Lights', Ruby Queen hybrid corn and Bi-licious Hybrid corn. By day two I had a problem, fuzzy mold growing on the tops of the peat pellets, oops, too much water!

I removed the clear top that came with the tray and the mold stopped growing although it seems to be inhibiting some seeds. By day 3 I saw germination on the Ruby corn.

Uh oh, last night after class I noticed that the roots of the corn were already coming out of those little peat pellets. Just think about all those kiddie seed kits they sell and this is about how big those pots are. Better do something quick!

Out came the newspaper. Lately it's been filled with so much fertilizer that I have full confidence it will do a great job feeding my babies.

Fold your newspaper in half (don't worry if the fertilizing posts are facing outwards)

Take a jar, a can, or something of this size that's round and clean.

Roll the jar along, bringing the newspaper around. Don't roll too tight or you won't be able to slip the jar out later.


See the bottom of the jar still inside?


Fold one flap of paper down on the bottom.

Fold a second flap down and squish it hard.


Fold the last piece down and hold it in place for a second. Smooth the bottom as flat as you can.


Slid the jar out of your paper and holding the folded bottom against your belly (I knew it would come in handy some day) fold a collar down on the open top piece. It doesn't fold flat and pretty but it folds enough to hold the circle together.

Fill with potting soil. My paper was strong enough to scoop right into a bag of potting soil and then I added some more by hand. Sorry, my hands were too dirty to photograph that step.


Put your filled pots into a water proof container. My daughter had used this aluminum pan at school for a demonstration but it still has a purpose.


Now take your seedling and plant it. Uh Oh! Some of these babies have roots that grew right into the next peat pellet! Hope I didn't break any off.

Here's the finished project. Nice corn babies planted in recycled newspaper pots. I feel so proud that I'm going to sit down and have a treat. Guess what it is?

P.S. I wanted to add the link to the site where I originally read about these newspaper pots. I saw it at The Cheap Vegetable Gardener and it's not the only good tip I've picked up at his site. Right now he's writing about worm bins and earlier this month he wrote an awesome post on making your own soil sifter.

Containers - Medium

Containers with a flair!

What I consider a medium container is one that is not just "medium" in size but also requires a bit of work to get the finished results. More than adding a few handfuls of soil but not so difficult a project that you need a rocket science degree to try this.

This first image shows a pot shaped like a head (simply called a pot-head around here). This pot charmed me a few years ago at the Philadelphia flower show and weighs enough that I was struggling by the time I got it to my car.

It has a very small place to actually put your plants and if I chose to put a single plant there, it could qualify as a "small" container. The fact that I like to plant a trio of plants, bumps this up to "medium". You see, the first year I had this pot in my garden I learned that it dries out very quickly because of the small amount of soil in the chamber. Since I don't have time to water my containers twice a day, I've learned to chose plants that don't mind drying out.

Hanging Baskets

Hanging Baskets require a bit of thought, which is why I put them in this category. Whether small, medium or large, there are a few thinks you need to consider when making a hanging basket. First of all, because this container is up in the air, you are going to see much more of the mechanics such as the underneath part of the container. Hanging plastic pots can be bought just about anywhere in the spring but I like be a bit more original. The majority of hanging pots in my garden have an open iron-like framework. In this first example though you can clearly see the terracotta colored plastic pot.

When it comes to using containers that have an open framework, you will have to decide what to use to close up that framework. This past season I tried two new products, both of which worked out very well for me. This group of hanging containers and open framework containers along my cabana are all lined with coco liners. Coconut coir fiber liners come under several different names so use what is available to you. I actually ended up buying large circular liners and pulling them carefully apart so that I'd have a number of pieces ranging from 8 inches to 12 inches. This was easier to work with and seemed to me to be a more natural look.

My favorite result came from using sphagnum moss. I wasn't sure I like this at first but it quickly grew on me. Sphagnum moss is a bit harder to work with. I bought a large cube of the moss and put it in a 5 gallon bucket. Then I added water to the bucket and let the moss soak up the water. Using a hand cultivator, I stirred the mossy soup to break up any large lumps. Once the moss was ready, I began grabbing large handfuls of the moss, squeezing out any excess moisture and then pressed it against the container frame. It's very important to remember to wear rubber gloves while doing this. The container of moss that I had purchased had clear instructions that people should handle the moss with rubber gloves and I made sure I did exactly that.

Once you've pressed moss all around the container, you should consider lining it with something or it's going to dry out every time a breeze blows by. I used landscape fabric but as I wrote in the previous posting on small containers, you can also use plastic supermarket bags with a few slits cut into them. Now you are ready to plant.


When you've finished planting your container you need to hang it up to dry. The first day it's going to drip quite a bit of water and bits of moss so don't hang it in your screen room if you don't want a puddle on the floor. Another helpful thing would be to place a large plastic bag or even an old dish washing drain under the container while working on in. There was so much moss on the ground after I had finished that I found myself trying to pick it up to use in the next planting.

Ivy turned out to be an excellent plant to include in almost all of these plantings. Every two weeks or so I'd take the longest tendrils and just wrap them further around the container. They look lovely growing on the outside of the moss. I really loved this combination of the variegated ivy and the peace lily but I have to admit that the peace lily needed more water than I was giving it.

Bird Bath Bases in the Garden

Two years ago I was walking through Main Street Nursery (in Huntington Village) when I spied these amazing containers. They kind of looked like ice-cream cones coming up from the ground. When I asked my friend Gianna about them, she told me that they were the bases of ceramic bird baths! Every now and then a shipment of bird baths has a broken piece top or bottom and it was a shame to throw out the other half of the bath. In this case they started using the bases as innovative containers. Well, I was madly in love with these and lucky enough to be the first to ask if I could purchase them.


Because these bases are actually being place up-side-down, they need some kind of support to keep them from tipping over. You can see in the photo that I used a simple wooden stake that I pounded well over a foot into the soil. Once you've got the stake firmly pounded down, you simply slip the hollow bird bath base right over the stake. When adding your potting soil you might want a second stake or garden tool to help you tamp the soil down around inside the base. then add your plant material and you have a whimsical addition to your garden.

In two of these containers I planted hardy perennials instead of annuals. The perennials came through the winter just fine and it sure lessons the amount of planting I had to do the next year (besides saving me some money at the same time).


My last container in this post is going to be the radio flyer wagon that I've been planting various succulents in for the past few years.

In the same photo you can also see my pot lady but I'm going to save her for the next installment on large containers.

The red radio flyer wagon had a mishap with a backing up car so it no longer worked well to move things around in the garden. By drilling a few drainage holes in the bottom, it became a fun focal point for my daughters playground area.

The first time I planted this wagon I put herbs and veggies in it. The herbs worked well but the celery was not happy with the shallow allotement of soil. The next year I put various Sedums and Sempervivum (hens & chicks) in the wagon and it's stayed this way for two years. The bonus with using succulents is that I've never had to water this container and yet it always looks chock full of cheerfulness.

Containers - Small

Containers - Small, what a boring title. I would have loved to punch this up with some exciting wording, even something simple like "Contain It" but I'm trying to make it a bit easier for you to find what you need.

You see, I have so many images of fun, wacky, unusual and even just plain beautiful containers that I'd like to share. By breaking them down into categories; like small, medium and gigundo, hopefully it simplifies things. One thing to keep in mind is that if you are a beginning gardener, the smaller containers are easier to begin with but don't be afraid to try something larger too.

Something I'd like to try with this message is to add additional photos and have them interspersed throughout the blog. We'll see how that works. To begin with I chose one of the easiest plantings of all.

What you see is an old flour sifter, this one in particular came from my mother-in-law. It has everything needed to make a great container. A wide open mouth for the plant material, a handle to move it around and best of all, lots of built in drainage at the bottom.

Planted in the sifter are Hens & Chicks. To be botanically correct, they are Sempervivum and the hybrid name of this variety is 'Silverene'. What a perfect name for this container!

All I did was put a handful of potting soil in the sifter, slipped the hens & chicks out of the plastic pot I had bought them in and then slid them into the sifter. A few more handfuls of potting soil around the sides and a quick tamping down with my fingers to assure there were no air pockets in the soil and tah-dah, my wonderful creation was finished.


Well now that you saw how simple that was, I'd like to share a few more small, easy and yet totally different container plantings. Here's where we'll find out if adding more photos works out the way I'd like.

Shoes

Ok, so far, so good but I still have some experimenting to do. Shoes...they make wonderful containers in the garden. These images show two pairs of bowling shoes that have been in my garden for 3 years now. Nope, I don't even bother to bring them indoors, they just hang out all winter and come spring I add some new plant material.


To be truthful, my intention was to put the bowling balls in the garden as accents but when a fellow band parent dropped off two bowling balls with matching shoes that he found at the curb, well, I just had to do something with those shoes too!



Of course, as any woman knows, you can never have enough shoes. So sure enough, before my family members can throw any shoes away, I'm going to check them out to see if they work in my garden. These are my husband Don's old workboots. They required a bit more preparation before plantings. I was driving myself crazy trying to drill a few holes in the sole for drainage. All I kept getting was a drill bit clogged with rubber shavings. Don quickly solved the problem for me by taking his utility knife and simply scoring a few cuts in the leather near the sole.

Baskets

Baskets also make great containers for plants. A few things to remember when working with baskets. One, I like to line the basket with something to help retain the soil and keep it from drying out too fast. If you have landscape fabric, just cut a piece slightly larger than your basket, tuck it inside and trim off any edges that show. No landscape fabric? No worries, just grab one of those plastic supermarket bags, cut a few drainage slits in it and tuck that in instead.


The second thing to keep in mind with baskets is that you will not get too many seasons out of them before they rot away so don't use your Grandma's heirloom basket if you plan on keeping it for a long time.

As you can see in this photo, I hung the basket on the handlebars of an old bicycle that I prop up along our fence. Quite charming if you ask me.

The Old Standby - A Clay Pot

The last small container I'm going to feature here is a simple clay pot. The drainage is already there so just choose your material and plant it in the pot. What's different about this container is the larger container I used to showcase that clay pot. An old set of golf clubs that was hanging around in our garage for years worked perfectly to hold this container. It's just a subtle way for me to say that we have too much lawn and need more flower beds around here :-)

Medium containers will be next if this message comes through well.