Make your own cheap butterfly feeder
16.8 years ago butterfly, butterfly feeder, butterfly garden
As the days are getting longer (happy first day of summer) it is actually starting to get a little warmer even here in the Pacific Northwest so decided it would be a good time to add our homemade butterfly feeder to our butterfly garden, but first we actually had to make it.
If you want to make your own here is all you need:
– Plastic/glass container (baby jar, water bottle, etc)
– Nail
– Pliers
– Lighter (not pictured)
– Cotton or sponge
Steps to have your own buttery feeder in your garden:
1. Heat up nail with lighter (or candle) using pliers to avoid pain on your fingers.
2. Use hot nail to burn a hole through the plastic.
3. Stuff some cotton (swab, ball, shirt) or a piece of sponge in the hole and tight as possible.
4. Decorate with markers (make sure to have some red) plastic flowers etc (Optional but funnier for the kids)
5. Fill with some butterfly nectar (recipe below) and hang by some of your colorful flowers
Butterfly/Hummingbird Nectar
Ingredients:
¼ cup of sugar
1 cup of water
3 drops of red food coloring [optional]
Directions:
Add sugar and water to water bottle and shake. If you are using raw organic sugar bring water to boil and mix in sugar. Butterfly nectar is good for 2-3 weeks and water in feeder should be replaced a 3-4 days.
Does this all seem like too much work? Well you can also simply place over ripened fruit (bananas, apples, peaches, orange slices, etc) on a plate and your butterflies will love it.
Read Other Butterfly Garden Posts
Tags: butterfly garden, cheap, organic vegetables, vegetables
Blog for the not so beautiful things out there
16.8 years ago birds, potatoes, slugs
I see many blogs showing pictures of pretty flowers and cute little animals, when I was going on a nature hike today with my youngest daughter I came across some things that were interesting but not exactly beautiful which deserved some recognition.
If I saw this guy in my garden I probably wouldn’t be an inclined to stop and take his picture.
Uh, just a fly on a leaf…
Well potatoes are not that pretty so guess I wouldn’t expect the flowers to look much better
Tags: birds, cheap, vegetables
Where did the tomatoes go?
16.8 years ago salmonella, tomato
I have to admit I am not that great about keeping up with my current events, so if it is not in Engadget or my various gardening RSS feeds I haven’t heard about it. So after the second day I noticing the lack of tomatoes in the cafeteria at work I had to investigate. For anyone who watches the news or reads a newspaper apparently there was a widespread outbreak of salmonella in raw red plum, red Roma and round red tomatoes with reports in almost every state in the US according to the FDA.
If you have been thinking about growing your own tomatoes (or any other produce) and the thought of having a constant supply of fresh produce in your backyard, better taste, more selection, and increased prices for produce was not enough for you to start. Now you can add safety can be added to the list with the reassurance that you know exactly what has gone into the soil of the food you are eating.
Tags: cheap, tomato plants, vegetables
Slugs eating my garlic
16.8 years ago garlic bulbs, slugs
The word is slugs are supposed to hate garlic, guess no one told this guy. The reality is they do not like the bulb underground apparently the garlic leaves are delicious. Appears that I need to step up my war with the slugs.
Tags: cheap, garlic bulbs, vegetables
Planting mint in your garden
16.8 years ago mint, peppermint
If you happen to have a couple of brown thumbs and kill any plant you touch you may want to consider planting mint in your garden. These members of the mint family is so hardy that it can practically be planted anywhere and in many cases it can take over your garden without taking some precautions during your planting. Couple of low impact options is to grow it in a pot on your patio or even grow in a hanging basket and harvest the leaves as they grow over the side. If you wish to grow your mint at ground level you will need to create a root barrier to keep it from spreading over your whole garden. You start by digging a 12-18 inch hole and place your mint in a large plastic pot or lay down a plastic liner with drainage holes. One other option is to use an old 5 gallon bucket and give your mint a little more room to grow but you will need to dig a little deeper hole.
Now for picking your plant(s), if you want some peppermint for tea or that mojito in the middle of summer you will need to buy your plant from a nursery (unless you have a nice friend or neighbor to get a start from them) since peppermint is sterile so you will be unable to grow it from seed. Other mints such as spearmint can be started from seed but it will take a couple months until you can begin harvesting. I would definitely recommend buying as plants since they are usually inexpensive and a modest plant can become pretty established in just a few weeks. The one exception is if you want a species you may not be able to find in your area nursery, so seeds might be your only option.
So why grow mint in the first place. It has a great fragrance and many uses including refreshing your breath, deterring pests (mosquitoes, slugs, wasps, and ants), garnishes or major ingredient to your cold drinks. For me the primary reason was peppermint tea.
If you don’t think you like peppermint tea make sure you try the fresh version before you sign it off. Tea leaves are dried so they last longer if you want the best flavor best to use it fresh. There is no part of peppermint that can harm you so can break off a piece of mint (stem and all) and let it seep for 5 to 10 minutes. Not only is it a refreshing beverage that leaves your mouth with a nice clean taste but also can help with any stomach discomfort. If you want something with a little more flavor try this recipe:
Straight from the garden peppermint tea recipe
Ingredients:
- 3 peppermint leaves
- 3 spearmint leaves
- 3 lemon balm leaves
Directions:
Add leaves to one cup of boiling hot water. Let leaves seep for 10 minutes. Add honey or sugar if desired.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, outdoor plants, pepper plants, peppermint plant, vegetables
Attracting birds in your garden/yard
16.9 years ago birds
There are many benefits of having birds in your garden. The most obvious being the songs they sing in the morning and throughout the day. Now if you are not a morning person this may be a negative, but there are definitely more obtrusive ways to be woken up.
Birds can directly help your garden by eating weed seeds they find throughout your lawn and garden. Like singing, this can be a blessing and a frustration due to the fact they have not learned the difference between those peas you carefully planted and the weed seeds that you really want them to be consuming. Given that I take care of my weeds organically I can definitely appreciate the help of the birds.
Birds also like to snack on insects, like seeds the birds are not indifferent to the pests and the beneficial insects, so they may gobble up some of your spiders, ants, beetles, and worms (ok not an insect) but they are also are nice enough to eat aphids, grubs, Japanese beetles. Some birds such as swallows can eat 100s of bugs in a morning snack.
If you have decided that you want to attract more birds to your garden, what are your options? Like most creatures they have three simple necessities: food, water, and shelter.
Food: Feeding your birds is pretty easy, above I mentioned some of the benefits of the insects and weed seeds that your birds can feast from. There is the obvious bird feeder and given the seeds/food you choose can help determine the species birds you will have visiting. For example most songbirds prefer black oil sunflower seeds, while white millet is preferred by most ground feeding birds. Now of course the more food your birds are eating from your feeders the less pests and weed seeds they are eating from your lawn and garden, but the feeder should attract more birds to your lawn/garden so best to keep those feeders full.
Water: Birds need water to drink but also bathe in, now you can invest in something aesthetically pleasing like this one (click below):
If you are on a budget you can always make your own, basic requirements is needs to be less than 3 inches deep and have a comfortable surface for the birds to perch on. Some ideas are metal garbage can lid, circular planter, or even larger pot drip pan. Simply place on the ground of on top of some shrubbery, rough up the bottom of the surface with some steel wool and water. You will want to clean your bird bath about once a week with a diluted bleach solution (3/4 cup bleach to 1 gal water) since unfortunately the birds may use their bath occasionally as a bathroom.
Shelter: Shelters give animals a place to nest and/or hide from predators. Now there are two types of shelters natural and man-made. If you have some well established trees and/or shrubbery you probably have some birds already living with (whether you know it or not) Like many people I live in a relatively new development (< 5 years old) so most of the trees in my neighborhood are still developing so I opted to supplement with an man-made solution, the classic birdhouse. I couldn’t find the instructions I actually used but here are some free instructions to create a similar birdhouse from a single cedar fence picket. Not sure if you can tell from the picture but everything did not line up exactly as it should but it should keep some birds dry and safe and the girls had a great time “decorating” it.
Whether you just want to attract more birds to hear singing in your backyard or you want to put them to work getting rid of pests and weeds in your lawn and garden doing the steps above should give you plenty of both.
Tags: birds, cheap, garden seeds, organic vegetables, outdoor plants, vegetables, worms
