• 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…

  • 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…

  • 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.…

  • Soda Bottle Garden

    This is a great little recycling project I’ve seen variations of in many gardening blogs. I decided to keep it as simple as possible so I could involve the Man-child who just turned three. These teaches about reusing materials and caring for plants. How to make a soda bottle garden: You will need plastic bottles from your recycling bin, scissors, two rocks big enough to stop up the bottle opening, potting soil, plants, water, and four pipe cleaners or twine.…