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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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10 Weeks of Vegetable Gardening: Week 6
Each Friday I am posting a weekly guide for prepping your home vegetable garden. In Raleigh, the last killing frost date is April 11 (on average, give or take a week), so my first weekend for planting (summer crops) outdoors is April 9.Can you believe it is only 4 weeks left until the last killing frost? I am absolutely delighted to see redbuds blossoming, although I know my sinuses will soon be barraged by pollen. This week I have been…
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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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10 Weeks of Vegetable Gardening: Week 5
Each Friday I am posting a weekly guide for prepping your home vegetable garden. In Raleigh, the last killing frost date is April 11 (on average, give or take a week), so my first weekend for planting (summer crops) outdoors is April 9. This week we remember our pollinators. I would write out a beautiful article for you on bees, but alas, that has been done here. Please check it out. To summarize: Don’t use pesticides Use local native plants…
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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.…
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10 Weeks of Vegetable Gardening: Week 4
Each Friday I am posting a weekly guide for prepping your home vegetable garden. In Raleigh, the last killing frost date is April 11 (on average, give or take a week), so my first weekend for planting outdoors is April 9. Do you have a cold frame? Joe built me one last year so I could move my plants outside and our family could once again eat in our dining room. A cold frame isn’t essential, but it does have…