Gardening Gadget Deal of the Day
15.9 years ago cheap, EasyBloom
Want a EasyBloom but $59.95 is a little out of your price range? Well good news, right now it is on sale for $20 off so you can have this little gardening gadget for the low price of only $39.95 with free shipping through Amazon.com. I have no idea how long it will stay at this price so if you were thinking about picking one of these up, now is the time.
If you have no idea what I am talking about, check out my full review of the EasyBloom Plant Sensor.
Tags: cheap, outdoor plants, vegetables
Kids eating vegetables from the garden
One of my many reasons for growing a vegetable garden was to encourage my daughters (four and seven) to eat more vegetables. Currently other than a few raw carrots they do everything they can to avoid them. In the previous years, with the exception of strawberries and potatoes in “Baked French Fry form,” I have been the primary consumer of our garden harvest.
This changed this weekend when my youngest daughter tried and decided she loved peas (pea pods) I even heard the quote, “I like peas more than fries” and if you only knew how much she loved fries you would understand how much of a compliment this is. Not to miss out on the extra attention her younger sister was getting, our older daughter tried the peas with less stellar results though definitely gave her points for trying.
Right now our plants are not keeping up with demand with my daughter eating every pod that comes out. The old primary consumer is patiently waiting for the time when the plants are producing way more than we can keep up with so I can have some extra sweet peas myself. But really who could deny that cute face any delicious peas.
Tags: cheap, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, vegetables
Make a greenhouse out of plastic bottles
15.9 years ago cheap, greenhouse, recycle
Not sure how long it would take to accumulate 1500 2-liter plastic bottles but if you happen to have that many piled up in your garage you have some makings for your own greenhouse.
Basic idea is you take the labels off the bottles, cut the tops off slide a pole through a hole in the bottom of the bottle, and repeat. After over a thousand iterations you have yourself a pretty cool looking greenhouse and saved most of over 1500 plastic bottles from ending up in a landfill.
This is not practical for construction for me though am considering a smaller version for a cold frame…I better start drinking up this summer.
If you want to see the full instructions check out the detailed plans.
via New World Geek
Caring for your pet caterpillar – UPDATE
15.9 years ago butterfly, butterfly garden, caterpillar, cheap
I would like to introduce you to the newest member of our family, named by the kids as “Emily”
Now normally these are some critters you want to keep out of your garden but with my kids asking for the “Live Butterfly Garden,” bringing in a caterpillar from inside and putting it into a jar seemed like a much more cost effective option.
Growing up I have caught caterpillars with the great hopes that I would be able to witness its metamorphosis into a butterfly. Unfortunately, the lack of the internet or a nearby library I never got the knowledge of the particular “butterfly” I caught wouldn’t eat just any leaves I threw in it . Caterpillars are very picky eaters and each specie only will consume particular types of leaves.
If you found your caterpillar munching on a plant you are in luck and you can just pick a couple leaves a day for your caterpillar. They will not eat old or dry leaves and must be replaced daily. In our case our caterpillar was found on a plastic play set, which sort of limited out options. My girls did pick some leaves of various plants in our yard, and if we are lucky we may find one our caterpillar enjoys.
To improve the odds I was able to identify this caterpillar as a Painted Lady, which enjoys nettles and thistle. Both of which grow great in my area, though none is growing in my yard (which normally would be a good thing)
This led to a nice walk in the woods to attempt to find some leaves for the caterpillars distinguished palate, unfortunately we did not find any nettles or thistles though came back with a good variety of leaves.
That Butterfly Garden is looking like a bargain at the moment.
UPDATE — May 31, 2008
We are happy to announce that “Emily” has started has started her transformation into becoming a beautiful butterfly (or moth if my amateur identification is incorrect). We were successful in finding their favorite food which happened to be the little clovers growing in our back yard. Definitely a case of good reason to not kill all weeds with pesticides in your yard, by the way the rabbits love the stuff more than my lettuce so added bonus.
As you can see in the background “Emily” has some friends with her (3 total) though currently unnamed, though I am sure by the time my daughter reads this post she will fix that.
Stay tuned in 7-10 days hopefully we will have a butterfly/moth release.
UPDATE — 06/26/2009
Well 7-10 days turned into more like 26 days, just when we were thinking the worse, Emily emerged as a beautiful brown moth.
For info on the flight lessons and release, check out this post.
Tags: butterfly garden, cheap, led, outdoor plants, vegetables
How to make a cheap pea trellis
15.9 years ago cheap, peas, trellis
This is really two trellises in one. I started by taking a couple bamboo stakes (reused from a couple of one season too long Halloween scarecrows) and bound them together at the top using some twine. I then put the ends in the corners of my garden leaning against the cinder blocks surrounding my raised garden. I following this by adding some twine up the trellis to allow the peas to climb up.
Thing started to get a little crowded so I browed a tip from Martha Stewart, now she recommends black birch branches, but I decided to go with the dead bush I had in my back yard. I was already chopping it up to compost so saved some of the larger branches, stabbed them in the ground and ala pea trellis.
Though the two part trellis was more of an accident, in many ways I really like the support of the bamboo along with the abstract reach of the branches.
Tags: cheap, compost, raised garden
3rd Annual Ladybug release
16 years ago aphids, kids, ladybugs
In case you missed the first and second annual lady bug release, you can follow those posts. We have never had a serious aphid or spider mite problem and I like to feel our annual release of lady bugs is the reason why. Either way, great entertainment for the girls for a couple hours for a $6.00 bag of lady bugs.
Lady bugs sometimes naturally choose to wander from the location where you release them and may just take residence in your neighbors yard, so I have thought about releasing them in my neighbors yard so they will end up in mine. Fortunately there are a few tricks to help entice your lady bugs from leaving your garden.
Give them a nap. Before you release them put them in your refrigerator for at least a couple hours. This will make them go asleep (dormant) until you are ready to release them. This way when you bring them outside in their sleepy stupor they may be more inclined to check out your garden before heading over your neighbors.
Feed them. After watering your garden before releasing them spray the ground with some sugar water. This will entice them to feast on that while waiting for a the aphids and spider mites to show up.
Choose the right time. Put your lady bugs out as the sun is falling and ensure that they are shaded from sun when releasing. This will prevent them from hiding from the hot sun and possibly finding a new place to make home.
Encourage your neighbors to have their own lady bug releases. One of our friends and neighbors had a great time with their girls releasing lady bugs last year and fortunately they are close enough that we may be sharing some bugs from both of our releases.
In the past I have had good results with the releases maybe seeing 30-40 lady bugs still crawling around on my plants the next day. This year had great results with hundreds of lady bugs in my aphid killing army.
Tags: cheap, outdoor plants, vegetables
