Pink Poppies

Just a mini-post to share with you the wonder of my HUMONGOUS pink poppies that started blooming this morning.  I've been waiting for these since the start of spring:

Thanks for basking in their glory with me :)



What a beautiful world God created for us!

Barrel o' Rain

Since our last post was about our garden planters and planting we thought today we'd continue with our gardening roll and share our DIY Rain Barrel with you.


Before we begin, let me say that ours is tailored to our needs and our uses.  We use a pump to get the rain water off of our pool cover, and we decided to run the discharge hose right into our rain barrel.  Our rain barrel can also be modified to use for a rain gutter.

To start we picked up a 50 gallon bucket/barrel.  Let me say that you could use anything.  We looked at using large blue barrel, but the pricing was a little out of our range.  So we went for the $25.00 50 gallon bucket from the hardware store.  We also picked up an outdoor hose bib.  (Specifically, we purchased a 1/2" and 3/4" flanged sillcock, about $5.00).

Kevin again took his speed-bore drill bit and drilled a hole into our barrel (be sure not to drill your hole too low and make sure you have enough room to hook up your hose)

Once the hole is drilled it's time to screw in the hosebib.  If you want extra reinforcement you can always put a bead of caulk around the base to seal your faucet or use Teflon plumbing tape around the threads.

After the faucet was in, we started work on the top.  We drilled small hole (similar to the one for the faucet) on the lid so Kevin could get the jig saw started to make an opening for the water to get into the barrel.

Once the hole was cut out of the top we sanded down the edges so there weren't any sharp pieces left.

We put some leftover window screen (from a previous project) under the hole on top to help keep leaves and other debris out.  And yes, we did use Duct Tape....perhaps it's a 3M thing??

SIDE NOTE:  We also drilled another hole in the top to put our pool pump discharge hose in to fill it up.  You wouldn't necessarily have to do this if you wanted to put your rain barrel under a rain gutter.

Finally, hook up your hose and get watering!  We used a portion of left over hose that we had laying around, but you could also use a soaker hose or regular hose.

I think about veggies....in the summertime

Yes, I did just reference a New Kids on the Block song, well sort of.

By the time summer rolls around here in the Midwest we are definitely ready for a change in fresh-produce-scenery.  After a long winter of apples and a few other fresh expensive fruits and veggies, summer is a breath of fresh air with a plethora of locally grown, delicious commodities.

This year we decided to participate in the growing (not just the eating!).  We've been planning our garden since the snow was still fresh on the ground.....so we were very ready for the weather to cooperate so we could begin sowing.

First thing we did was take our daily (well, not really -- but sometimes it feels like it) trip to Menards and bought 12 pressure-treated landscaping timbers (about $4.00 per board).  We also bought 24  - 8" bolts with washers and nuts to fit on the bottom (about $1.90 per set).

Next step was to cut the boards with the miter saw.  We cut four of our pressure-treated landscaping timbers in half (or into two 4 foot pieces).

When it came time to assemble the boxes together we put it together like a puzzle first.  We layed the 8 foot boards down on each side of the box and interlocked them with the 4 foot boards on the ends.  Next we layed the remaining boards on top, interlocking each corner (kind of like Legos).

Above you can see what I mean by "interlocking" -- the first picture of a corner and the second picture is the other side of the same corner.

At this point it was time to drill holes for the bolts to go in.  Kevin took his trusty drill and a new speed-bore drill bit (3/4" bit is around $4.00) and drilled the hole through the top and bottom boards in the corners.  We put three bolts, nuts and washers in each corner to make sure they weren't going to come apart.  We did have about 2 inches of each bolt sticking out the bottom to help keep the planters in place by pushing them into the ground.

To get the nuts and washers on the end of each bolt we definitely had to rely on some teamwork. While we had a board holding up the corner we were working on I was puting all the washers and nuts on and Kevin was going around tightening the life out of each one.  It the most tedious part of each planter, but well worth it.

The final step before the dirt was to lay down some weed barrier under-layment.  (The bolts also came in hand for this part too.)  The underlayment we got was about $15.00 and we had plenty left over.  We layed it underneath our garden beds and pushed the bolts into each corner of the underlayment before pushing it into the ground.  That way the weed barrier would stay put. (note:  We didn't use the underlayment where we planted carrots and potatoes).


Before we go on, let's do a cost break down of our planters:

Landscaping Timbers:  12 x $4.00 = $48.00
3/4" x 8" Course Threaded Bolts: 24 x $1.40 = 33.60
3/4" Washers: 24 x $0.31 = 7.44
3/4" Course Threaded Nuts: 24 x .21 = 5.04


TOTAL:  $94.08 (about $47.04 per bed)


With our planters set it was time to load up the dirt.  Had we been really smart about this we would have been composting last year and during the winter, but we sadly did not.  So, we bought dirt from the hardware store.  We used a mixture of top soil, organic and compost dirt (depending on what you're growing you may want a different mix of soil).

We raked it out so it was ready for our veggie seeds to go in and we were ready for some serious sowing.

Most of our plants we direct sowed in our gardens.  However the tomatoes and onions were grown in a green-house planter indoors starting in March.  They were now big enough to go right into the garden.  With tomatoes it's important to get a garden cage or support for them.  (My green-thumb grandma used to use wooden steaks and she would tie the tomato stalk to the steak with an unused, cut nylon stocking).

We also planted rhubarb, corn, potatoes, carrots, beans and peas.  Oh, my!

We did walk buy our neighbor's house the other day and saw they had twine tied from one end of their garden to the other to help sow their seeds -- we will definitely be doing that next year!

Mother's Day Rustic Bench & Herb Pot DIY

With Mother's Day around the corner - let me tell you I have an AWESOME mom!  Not only do I get to work with her and be her daughter, but she is one of my BEST friends too.

And like any Mom on Mother's Day she's in LOVE with homemade gifts and goodies.  So I did JUST that this year (with the help of one of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE websites......Knock-Off-Wood).

I should preface this little DIY by saying I have NEVER built anything before (except for some awesome Target furniture that came with instructions).  Ana's designs are not only awesome but they are SUPER easy and wonderfully explained. Love love LOVE her blog!  Here is her Knock-Off-Wood's Spa Bench I made.

This bench only took me an afternoon to build and then another afternoon to stain and varnish.  

Curious about her "Herb Pots"??  Here's the deets on that:

I found these cute little pots at Home Depot for $2.00ish a piece.

I taped off a square on the front of each pot. (Be sure to press down any bubbles so the paint doesn't drip or bleed down).

Next I painted Rustoleum Chalkboard Paint (LOVE this stuff) in the squares.  It dries super fast on clay pots so I did two coats in no time.

And VIOLA! Add some ribbon and a HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

 

I'm linking up to the CSI project for their paint challenge: