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Upcyled Tomato Stakes to Fan Trellis
Earlier in the summer I purchased several packs of 5′ wood tomato stakes from a home improvement store. There were four stakes leftover, which were set aside in the garage. I have a bean/squash/cucumber tunnel that is rapidly outgrowing itself, so I decided to convert the stakes into a fan trellis. This took no more than 10 minutes. I used a handsaw to cut one stake into 3 segments approximately 2.5′, 1.5′ and 0.5′ in length. I then arranged my…
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Upcycled Sink to Garden Water Bowl
Every time go to garden stores, I can’t help but stop by the water plants and wish I had a place to plant some. Water features are almost always my favorite spots in gardens, and for awhile now the Man and I have been thinking about putting in a fountain. Well, we still haven’t installed a fountain, but we do have a water bowl! Thanks to a trip to the Habitat ReUse Store, we acquired a free sink, sans plug.…
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Starting your own Sweet Potato Slips
Finding sweet potato plants in nurseries can be hit or miss. My local nursery Logan’s gets a shipment of them each spring, but they go very fast. Not knowing if I would find plants, I decided to start my own. I picked out a potato, stuck one bumpy end in a small jar and filled it with water. In a couple days, sprouts were forming. After a week, I added wooden skewers to the potato to separate it from the…
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Upcycling: Hot Box to Garden Bench
Last week I broke the old hot box. Not being one to waste wood (the wood was already on its third use), I put the Man-child to work. old hot box The Man-child has a slight obsession with real tools. By real, they have batteries and absolutely may not be used around the Baby. He held the screws as I disassembled the hot box, sat on the boards when I needed some assistance in holding them in place, helped finish…
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Bamboo Teepee Meets Fibonacci
At the end of last week, the gusty winds blew over our teepee. The Man decided that I needed the help of concrete (while he was installing fence posts), and we erected one lone bamboo pole to serve as a cornerstone of sorts for the boys’ future teepee. My best friend, Bear, was over, and in her great design wisdom suggested we do a Fibonacci teepee. A whuh? I hadn’t heard of that concept since high school math, or was…
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Garden Gongs
A while back my friend Stacy posted about a “banging wall” that her kids had a blast playing with. The idea came from SouleMama, whose impressive wall looks like this: My garden gongs were inspired by the “banging wall” and the awesome gong at Crazy Fire Mongolian Grill. What kid shouldn’t have a gong to announce his arrival at his garden? We had some old pvc pipe from last summer’s attempt at building a support cage for the tomato plants.…
