DIY Paper Mache Seedling Pots

What is easy with a capitol E, messy with a capitol M, and fun with a capitol F?  Making paper mache seedling pots!  These would be a great project for the kiddos.  Here's what you need to make them...

The kitchen blender
The kitchen sink (or other large container)
Warm and cold water
Newspaper torn into bits
Wire colander or screen
All purpose flour
2 large muffin tins or other containers to use as molds
Latex or other gloves

**Put on your gloves or your hands will be black with ink.**  (I found this out the hard way)

I began with strips and then tore them smaller

Tear up the newspaper into the sink/bowl.  (Don't use glossy ads.)

Paper absorbs warm water faster than cold

Pour warm water over the paper strips and let it sit for a couple minutes.  The strips tear into bits easier when they are wet.

Not exactly a smoothy

NOTE: You will need to make up two batches of wet pulp to have enough pulp to fill both muffin tins.

Fill the blender about 1/3 of the way with the wet paper bits (don't pack them down).  Add COLD water to about 2/3 full. Pulse to blend.  (By the way...the lid will pop off the blender if you use warm water.)  You will probably have to stir it a time or two during this process to get it to blend properly and if it seems too thick just add more water.  Blend until no paper bits are visible.

The sink would be easier than this bowl

Place the wire screen colander in the sink and pour the paper pulp onto it letting it drain.  I find tipping the colander from side to side helps speed up this process.

It will begin looking more like clay when it is drained some.  Now you can take it by the handful and gently squeeze out excess water...but not too dry as you still need to add the flour.  The original recipe I found through Pinterest did not call for adding flour but every paper mache recipe I have ever seen uses it so I figured I could just mix it into the pulp since I was not gluing down strips of paper. 

Next place the double batch of processed and drained paper into a bowl and sprinkle 1/2 cup flour over the top.  Knead the flour into the pulp until well blended.  You have just made paper mache clay. 

If it seems too juicy at this point just take it by the handful and squeeze out some of the water over the sink until it is not so drippy.  If its too dry add water a little at a time and mix with your hands.  Remember that the wetter this clay is the longer it will take to dry.

Bottom and sides of even thickness

Fill each muffin tin 1/2 full.  Press it into the tin starting from the center of each cup and working outward.  Try to avoid thin spots.  I found using the back of my fingers worked really well for molding the sides.

A heat vent would work great too

Find a warm spot to set the filled muffin tins on and let them set for 24 hours.  When they are about half dry poke a small drain hole in the bottom of each one.  If you don't have a warm spot like I do you can let them dry on the counter and finish them up in the oven at 220 F to finish drying them.  (Time needed depends on how damp they are.)

Didn't get this one pushed into the corners tight but it is fine

When they are completely dry the pots should pop right out of the pan.  If they are not they will stick and could tear if you try to dig them out so it pays to be patient.

Pert near perfect pot I'd say.

As I was extracting my new little paper pots this morning I noticed one thing I probably should tell you about.  These smell a bit like a really old dog...or maybe old dirty socks.

Where is the air freshener?

Not that the odor it will make the whole house reek or anything but they are rather...um, fragrant.  So if you are not planning on using them right away I would storing them where they won't perfume the room.  The smell seems to dissipate some with time too as I noticed they were not as strong the day after.

Have fun!

Attached Raised Bed Trellis

Beans on the pipe trellis

If you grow veggies in raised beds and need a trellis idea here is one my hubby came up with.  The pipe is from a chain-link fence we tore down a few years ago so the only thing we had to purchase were the 4 pipe brackets, 2 elbow connectors and 2 eye-bolts so we could tighten the wire which the hubs found in the garage.

Here is how we attached things at the base

Elbow connectors come in so handy at times like these.

I cut several pieces of bailing twine, 2 times the height of the trellis plus 12" or so, tying one end of each piece to the wire at the bottom.  My boxes are sturdy enough to climb on so I hope up on one corner with the lose ends in my hand and wrap each piece of twine around the top bar once (see image above), spacing them evenly as I go.  Once that is done I secured the other end to the wire also.

Tie string to the wire to secure.

I have found that if you don't wrap them all the way around the top pipe they will shift more as the wind blows.  You may find you have to adjust the tension at the top some so they are tight when you are done tying them.  You could also use netting instead of twine but the twine is inexpensive so that is what I use.

The only thing that would make this trellis even better is to have the hubs construct a frame that I could just hang on this structure so I don't have to do so much hopping up and down.  Maybe I'll get him on that this spring.  Oh and by the way, this trellis is easily moved or removed and breaks down nicely if we need to store it.  And since the pipe was reclaimed from our fence the cost was minimal to us.

Happy Gardening!


Copyright © 2012 by Patty Hicks
All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. All reviews must include author's name and a link back to this blog.

Paint, Beads and Wire

Have you ever had to come up with a gift for someone that was a challenge because of the color.  That was my thing this year.  I was invited to take part in a "Secret Santa Gift Exchange" with some new friends on Facebook.  Now if you haven't ever done this I highly recommend it...its a blast and a great way to make even better friends of the new friends. 

The person whose name I drew...well...he loves orange and wanted orange for his garden.  Orange is one of those colors that rare people love. If any of you have ever tried to find orange garden art in November you know what I am talking about when I say there is little or NO garden art out there after the summer garden season is over, let alone something orange that will go with zinnias!  The only way I was going to get orange garden art was to make something...but what?

Here kitty kitty!  Time to make you lovely!

To start with I knew I had two things I could possibly use, one a cat and one a gourd, both made of wire.  At least I could paint those orange.  But then how to make them look like something more, that was going to be a bit of a different challenge.  I knew had to embellish them or they would look cheap and silly and not the gift worthy garden art I so wanted to bless this new friend with and something he would hopefully like.

Paint, wire and beads was all it took

I had purchased some wire cats from a local department store during a deep discount Fall clearance a few years ago.  (I love finding great deals.)  The cats had not sold because they were a drab flat black with barely noticeable gold flecks.  This color made them literally almost disappear wherever they were displayed and they only had tiny washers for eyes which gave them NO personality! 

After giving them makeovers I sold several of them so I knew people really liked them.  I knew I had a few still hanging out in my garden so I looked around my garden to see if which of these might do with a makeover.  Sure enough I found this little thing (pictured above) with her pitiful washer eyes just calling to me.  The poor thing's pretty glass eyes were no longer anywhere to be found as they  had finally fallen off.  She was perfect!

After painting her orange I sprayed her with a mist of golden yellow highlight that gave her coat a really nice color and not just flat pumpkin orange.  Then I gave her brand new jewel toned glass eyes.  (By the way, they are not the garish green the camera shows them here, but a beautiful Caribbean Sea blue.)  She already began looking happier but I wasn't quite done with her.

No more drab kitty, now she will glisten in the sunlight!

She needed a collar so so I figured, why not make it a pretty crystal one that would catch the sunlight since she was destined to live in a sunny garden among the zinnias in her soon-to-be new home. 

To finish her I added a beaded ring to her tail in homage to her Egyptian relatives that have graced the Pharaohs palace.

Like the cats of Egypt she wears a ring on her tail too

The gourd was much more challenging.  I mean, how does one give a gourd personality??? Gourds just don't to have the personality of cats, they just sort of hang around.  This gourd wasn't blessed with bumpy flesh either but was flat black with no stem!  I decided to paint it to match the kitty but the rest was a puzzle for a while.  The I remember something I had seen on Pinterest.  Someone had created a beautiful night light with a tree made of wire and beads.  They had made the trunk and branches of the tree out of twisted wire and it was simple and inspiring and perfect.  Boy I'm thankful I pinned that idea. (whew!)  It was just what I needed.

Simple and wonderfully organic in its appearance

The inspired stem was perfect!

Next I wired the large beads around the neck of the gourd for added visual interest and attached one round bead to the tip of the curly cue....all gourds must have a curly cue.  That bit of whimsy added the perfect bit of personality this little fruit needed.

Whimsical joy in wire, paint and beads

The bead at the tip was a delightful finishing touch and I think Theodore Geisel would have approved...don't you?

The perfect finishing touch

The finishing touch was a wrap of clear glass beads on wire in a nice leaf green.

I hope the next time you are out junking or thrift shopping or even at the department store and spot a lowly wire form that looks sadly drab...remember that a little paint and a little "bling" can give it a bright new life.  Be inspired and give it a try.  I dare ya!

Anatomy of a Garden Box

Boxed gardens full of yummy beauty

We have four large raised boxes my husband built in our back yard so we could grow vegetables beneath our fir trees.  The boxes became a necessity due to the constant battle between the trees and our veggie garden for water rights and nutrients.  If you want a lesson in futility just try to garden under fir trees.  No wait, don't.

People don't realize how much water trees drink.  The numbers I heard were somewhere around 500 to 600 gallons a day per fir tree and we have three of them in our back yard.   I decided that either we were going to stop gardening back there completely or we needed raised beds. Well, actually I had thrown up my hands to the idea of gardening back there at all in part because of the trees but added to that was the fact that we got bad soil mix twice from two different sources.  Nothing seemed to be going right and it was so hard and shouldn't have been.  Ugh.

Our boxes are made of recycled 2"x10" lumber, fir to be exact and for $50 it was a steal even though we knew it would last only a few years.  It's already dilapidating after only three years and probably next year may need replacing, but still for the price was worth it.  Next time I'm hoping to be able to afford cedar or even composite decking. Both are somewhat expensive but worth the investment as they last a lot longer than fir.  Composit decking is nearly indestructible when it comes to the elements but is much more flexible than regular wood and needs more support along the sides.  The composite doesn't warp either which is great and comes in assorted colors, another benefit if you want that sort of thing.

Wood has a tendency to warp when it gets wet and dries which can cause corners to separate even though they are screwed together into a 2x4.  We had this problem and not wanting to have to buy expensive metal brackets we poked around a local home improvement store for another solution.  I just love hardware/home improvement stores, there are so many ideas to be had there.

Note the corner below the cat (Boomer)

We like inexpensive a lot around here and what we found costs much less than those fancy metal brackets.  They are called mending plates and are normally used to hold trusses together.  Boy oh boy they work slick on the corners of these boxes.  Don't waste your money on brackets unless you are picky about how things look.  Mending plates are less than a dollar each (I think we paid just over fifty cents each for ours).  The hubby just lined them up so he could pound the teeth of one end on one side of the corner, bent the plate around and pounding it into the opposite side and that was it...not even any screws or nails!

Warping can also cause the boards to wow along the sides.  When this happened we just pulled back the soil and screwed in a small section of 1" by 2" wood to pull them back into place.  I recommend taking an ounce of prevention and putting in extra support inside along the sides before you fill the boxes, its a lot less work.

A couple days ago we purchased new compost for one of our boxes which had laid fallow all summer because the soil or what we thought was good three-way mix, turned out to be nothing more than 90% bark mulch with a bit of sand and just enough composted manure to get things to sort of grow in it.  I blame myself in part for this error as I sent my husband, who has little knowledge of soil and soil mixes, off by himself to purchase it and was not there to assess the product we were paying good money for.  That was an expensive mistake...a $300 dollar mistake actually. (We have four 12'x4'x19" boxes and it takes lot of soil to fill then.)  My advise to you would be to be sure and do your homework before you buy and don't send someone else to pick it up unless you have seen it first.  You will save yourself a lot of grief and money if you do.

Gotta love a good truck and a strong man.

Last year we pulled that bad mix out of the first three boxes and did various versions to try and save money.  I won't go into details here but I think we actually have made every mistake in the book when it comes to soil in these boxes. We still don't have it right. Lord have mercy and I hope this compost will be the fix for our raised bed sorrows.

So back to box...  My husband had decided he was going put the beautiful compost we had just purchased in the bottom half of the box since we had to take most all the old stuff out anyway.  I blanched and put my foot down.  No way were we going to do that.  Those seeds I was planning on sowing didn't have a snowball's chance in a heat wave to survive if we did and I told him no we were not and why.  He did the hubby harumph still arguing his way was best until he saw all of the big chunks of wood still in the old soil mix after three years.  (I tried to tell him it was nothing but wood.)  That's all it took to change his mind real fast.

So we dug all but just a little bit of the woody stuff out of the bottom, yanked out the invading roots that had grown up through the hardware cloth we had put down in the bottom of the box to keep moles out and then spread out the beautiful rich compost on top.  YES!  Finally, several inches of good soil to grow in!  I could have danced the happy dance if I hadn't been so tired.  But planting would have to wait for another day.

Not taking nothing for granted the newly filled box was topped with something to keep the neighborhood cats from using the fresh soil as a litter box, snow fencing.  You know...people use all kinds of things to keep cats out of the garden.  little sticks poked into the soil, which I've never really understood why that would work unless they spaced then really really close together and that is way too labor intensive for me.  Who wants to work that hard?   Cayenne pepper is supposed to work but when I tried the cats didn't seem to mind it much at all and dug up the area like it wasn't there.  Then there are those sprays, nope, they didn't work either.

In thinking about it I pretty much decided in order to keep them from digging in the beds the area had to be completely covered until the plants were large enough to hold their own.  That's when I began using chicken wire, those plastic mesh flats plants come in, hardware cloth and piled up branches but found the snow fencing to be my favorite.  Its very flexible and light weight can be cut to size without becoming dangerous.  Chicken wire and hardware cloth can be dangerous to handle because the cut ends are very sharp and can wound you pretty good if you are not careful.  So if that's what you want to try just take note and be sure to have a box of band-aids on hand just in case.  There is only one other thing I think would work better and make covering and uncovering the beds easier and that is to cut the snow fence into 4' sections. Gee, I won't have to use the wire at all anymore and will save on medical supplies too. Yippee!  It will also make it easier to cover smaller sections.  That will come in handy as the crops begin to grow.  Oh and you can cut the plastic fence with regular scissors, another great benefit.

String, sticks, seeds and scissor...oh and plant tags

Saturday I got up all energized...it was planting day!  Grabbing my seed list, some graph paper and a pencil I headed out to the box and lined out where I wanted things to be in the box.  Back to the house for a double check of my seed stock and draw up a clear plan I could actually read.  Once that was done I took my scissors, plant tags and marking pen, stakes and seeds and went to work.
 

My awesome ruler.

 Oh before I go any further I have to share one more very cool thing...my four foot metal ruler!  Its the coolest thing ever.  It fits the width of our beds perfectly and I can use the edge to make the seed furrows. I had been looking high and low for something I didn't have to make and then there at a local thrift store was my ruler!  Just wide enough to lay in the bed, metal so it will last forever, measurements on either side for convenience.


I cannot believe sowing the garden takes so long.  My husband can't believe it either but then he's not doing the planning and planting.  I had told a friend it would take about an hour and a half. (ha ha ha)  Maybe its just that I don't move as fast as I used to but I swear I was out there for five hours at least...well maybe four.  I suppose if I was the sort that didn't care how it was going to look and more about production it might go faster...but nope, not me, I have to have it look pretty too.  No wait, gorgeous!  Oh and I did do some other things but mostly I just worked on this one bed.  Go figure.

Tags are laid on top of the ground until seeds are sown to help keep track of what has been done and what needs doing.

So I lined out the rows...er design and set the stakes and string, put out the plant tags in their prospective locations, double checked my drawing and sowed the seeds.  I am not a fan of sowing seeds as its bending down kind of work, even in a raised bed like mine, and my back complains whenever I do it.  But the reward is worth the little bit of discomfort and the thought of the fresh greens this fall and winter are already making me hungry for soups made with kale and collards and oh yeah...baby parsnips.  I was late getting those in...but baby is good too.  Now to keep it all watered and wait...and dream of future harvests.

Happy Gardening!

Copyright © 2010 by Patty Hicks

All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. All reviews must include author's name and a link back to this blog.

Salad Bowls Finale'

Well as promised here are the pictures of the salad bowls from my future posts in all their glory adorning the tables at the Birch Community Services Fundraiser Breakfast which took place last month. 















I especially like the one set atop a bowl that has been inverted to serve as a foot for the salad bowl.











Very nicely done.  The tables actually looked even better in real life than these pictures express.  The design gals did a great job.  Simple statements with beautiful results.

Happy Gardening!

Copyright © 2010 by Patty Hicks

All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. All reviews must include author's name and a link back to this blog.

Salad Bowl Project: Part 2

Just in case you are following the salad bowl planter project, here's the latest on of how these mini gardens are doing.  This is turning out to be such a fun project I can't wait to see what they will look like on the tables at our fundraiser this Thursday.  They are growing really fast and well in the weather we have been having this spring.  Weather is always a gamble in the garden.

I have had a couple heart stopping moments when there was a threat of hail heading our directing.  Thus these bamboo hoops you see here, actually a bamboo 3-part trellis thingie that I re-purposed and quickly put in place so I could cover the plants easily when these threats appeared on the horizon. Fortunately both threats turn into a vapor and my anxiety into a sigh of relief.

Planting up bowls of different lettuce varieties is a really good way to get an up-close lesson on what the growth rate and habits are of the different lettuces.  I am totally smitten by lettuces and am always trying at least one or more new found varieties each year.  How can a gardener resist those gorgeous succulent leaves in such amazing colors and textures?  Well I cannot that's for sure.  Can you blame me?

What's your favorite lettuce variety?

Copyright © 2010 by Patty Hicks

All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. All reviews must include author's name and a link back to this blog.