Adorable Elise and her Organic Potato

I am a huge believer in organic products. We should not be eating the things that have been approved by our regulatory groups. 

Elise is a 3rd Grade student who decided to grow a potato for her science project. Sound reasonable, right? Elise discovered that she needed to purchase organic potatoes for her experiment to work. I will let her tell you the rest. 

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, enough said.

Living Succulent Wreath

Succulents are hot items these days. I love the succulent arrangements and wreaths in the stores but they can be so darn expensive! 

I decided to jump into the deep end and try to make a wreath myself. The succulent clippings that you use in the wreath take 6-8 weeks to root so if you want to give one for a holiday gift, now is the time to plant it.

The cost of these, even when you make them, is not cheap. I suppose you can make it less expensive if you are growing your own succulents but I don't have enough varieties right now. I am going to take some of the clippings from the succulents I purchased and plant them. So maybe next year I will have enough to make a wreath from my own clippings. 
 
The items you need to make your wreath are:

• Wreath form. You can make your own, but I purchased mine and they are fantastic!
• Succulent clippings. Get a good variety. I bought mine off of eBay.
• Living Wreath Pins. These help you hold some of the pesky clippings into the wreath form.

Start by soaking your wreath form. Make sure it is good and wet all the way through. I used the bathtub and let it soak in the water. I  purchased my wreath form from Topiary Art Works. This wreath base is fantastic. It comes with "feet" that will keep the finished wreath away from the wall so it hangs straight, and a chain from which to hang the finished wreath. Since this wreath form will we filled with plants, it will be heavy. You can make this yourself but I highly recommend purchasing your form from Topiary Art Works instead. 

Let the wreath form soak for at least a few hours. Let the excess water drain before you pull it out to work on it. The excess water will drain away but the wreath form will be saturated. I put the soaked wreath form into a box lined with a trash bag to move it outside to my work area.

Next you need to take your clippings and sort through them. Mine sat in the box a little too long (okay, a LOT too long) before I used them so some were a little wilted but they were still fine to put in the wreath. Succulents are forgiving that way. I purchased 150 succulent clippings from SharkoftheGRC on eBay. They have various amounts of clippings you could buy. I am able to make2 wreaths from these clipping and plant some of them. You can also create more succulents from the leaves that you break off and I will show more about that in a future post. 

Start with a focal piece. I chose a large flower shaped succulent and put it in the lower left side of the form. Just poke a hole in the wreath form and shove the stem in. If you have let your clippings wilt like I did, you need to be careful because the stems and leaves are weak and bend. I ended up using my finger to make the holes because I found it easier to get around the metal pieces in the wreath form than when I used a tool. 

Next I used a different type of succulent to add interest next to the focal point. I used one with longer thinner leaves so there was a contract in texture.

If you pick up a piece and the stem isn't long enough to insert, break off a few leaves until you have the stem length you need.KEEP THESE LEAVES! You can grow new succulent plants using them. 




Work your way around the wreath form, poking holes and inserting succulent stems. Vary the type and color so you end up with an interesting piece. 

If you run into a stubborn succulent that won't stay in the wreath, use one of the Living Wreath Pins, which you can also get from Topiary Art Works. Just take the pin and add the pin on top of the stem to hold it in place. 

Hold the succulent where you want it to stay and push the pin into the form over the stem. Don't squish the stem, just attach it firmly to the base. The pins slide into the base easily and are very easy to use. 



Save some long succulent pieces to use as filler at the end. In the picture at right you can see longer brown stems with little green leaves that I used as filler. 


The colorful succulents make a nice change from all the greenery. Place different succulents, grouping them with 3 or 5 of the same ones, then change to a different succulent. 

Look at various wreaths online to see what you like and gain inspiration from your favorites. 

When it is complete move the wreath back to the lined box. I left mine outside in partial sun. I use a watering can to water the wreath every week. As the succulents take hold and start to grow I will add in additional clippings if I see spots of the wreath form that aren't being covered. 

Comment below if you have questions or need information. I am happy to help! Remember, plant now if you want to give as a gift. 

Enjoy!
Laureen

Teacher Appreciation - Something new

As the school year winds down, many want to show some appreciation for their children's teachers. I see flowers, plants, nick-knacks, that are nice but what about giving a teacher something that can continue to give to them? 

Teachers don't get the salary we would all like them to, and there is much in the news about what is being done to our food supply. Why not give your teacher an aromatic herb pot or container vegetable plant? Make sure the plants are organic or from heirloom seeds and you have given a gift that will continue to give. 

It will save the teacher money on groceries and show how much you really appreciate all the teacher has done for your children. 

Does your teacher often get colds or flues? You can specialize the herbs and make your own pot for much less than $20. Here s a picture of a beautiful herb pot that I found at Home Depot. 

Or give aromatic herbs that will add a nice scent to their home and provide flavor to their meals.

You can also give a tomato plant in a pot, pepper plant, or grow onions and garlic in pots. If you are ambitious you can give tomato, jalapeno, and onion plants so they can make their own salsa.

Give your teacher something that is not only beautiful, but can provide some of the fresh vegetables they can eat during their summer vacation. 

Remember to provide some instructions for how to care for the plant. You can find information on the internet if the plant you buy doesn't come with them. 

With just a bit of imagination you can give meaningful gifts to show your appreciation without spending too much. And while you are at it, pick up one for yourself! 


Happy gardening. 
Laureen

Multi-tasking at it's best: Organic gardening AND softened hands!

I don't know anyone who has a bunch of spare time on their hands. We all seem to be running around like crazy and working hard to give ourselves better lives, so we need to do as much on the weekends as possible. 

If you read my last post (Waste not, want not: Free vegetable garden) you know I am growing my garden this year using only kitchen scraps and seeds from fruits and vegetables purchased from the grocery store. No seeds or seedlings purchased this year. 

I am also making my own compost, but that topic will be for another day. Today though I will show you things you can use to quickly amend the soil. 
 
Coffee grounds and egg shells are both items that can be dug into the soil to amend it immediately. Coffee grounds are rich in nitrogen and also contain potassium, magnesium, calcium, and other trace minerals. I drink organic coffee and unbleached filters so I can dump the grounds into the garden and compost the filters. Pretty cool, huh? 

Egg shells provide calcium for your garden. According to www.mamashealth.com, egg shells can be used in all sorts of ways:

• Use egg shells in the bottom of plant pots instead of stones. Egg shells are much lighter than stones and they are a great source of nutrition.
• Place egg shells in a circle on top of the ground surface around tender plant stems such as peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage to deter slugs and cutworms. 
• Place egg shells in the soil near tomatoes. Calcium is very useful to tomatoes because the extra calcium will help prevent blossom end rot.   

Together, egg shells and coffee grounds can provide many of the nutrients that store bought fertilizers include. I love saving money by using something I would otherwise throw away. 

I mentioned in my last post that I hadn't kept up my garden during the holidays. I hadn't even looked back there. The truth was, well, ugly. 

My beautiful raised garden bed was amassed in weeds and dead plants--except for the parsley which is taking over. I said I would show you the successes and failures of my gardens and this is a fail. Sigh. 

I pulled out my tools and prepared to weed whack my way through the rubble of last year's garden. Then I realized I could give my hands a spa treatment at the same time. Score extra points for me! 

Hand Treatment

These are the tools of my spa treatment: a really good lotion (I use NuSkin) and disposable plastic gloves. My husband and I began using the plastic gloves instead of the gigantic rubber gloves years ago. They work just as well to keep hands soft but you can still have dexterity. We get ours at CostCo.

Slather on a good amount of lotion and put on latex gloves. Then gather the rest of your tools you will need for gardening. I put the pink gloves over my plastic gloves to give me added protection.

 

 

Back to Gardening

My weed whacker was out of string so it was all by hand for me today. I pulled up as many weeds as I could using my hands, cut down the tall stuff and piled it all into a pile.  

I added removed all dead plants from my raised bed and cleared the area around it. I added the egg shells and coffee grounds to the bed and dug them into the soil. 

My drip system still looked good so I didn't need to do any work there. In a future blog entry I will describe how I put together my drip system. It was so easy and I know have a cute tackle box with all my supplies in it.

Planted celery

I planted my three little sprouting vegetables into the newly amended soil.

I planted the root line of the celery under the soil. There are no roots yet so I am a little concerned it won't take. I will keep taking pictures so you can see the progress. 

Planted cabbage

I did the same for the cabbage. The cabbage end is looking pretty good, with it's root buds and some new green leaves starting to show.

Planted onion

I made sure the roots of the onion were under the soil and a bit more. I wanted to make sure that enough was in the ground so the roots could take. Next came turning on the drip system for about 5 minutes and adjusting the nozzles to make sure each sprout was watered.

When I was done I took off my gloves and my hands look gorgeous. They really do look like I just came out of the spa. My garden is on it's way to looking better and I will continue to see how the remnants grow.

Next up is planting seeds from the vegetables and fruits I have been eating. I use the egg carton show above as seed starter pots. Look for that blog in the near future.

May your week sprout with joy!
Laureen

Waste not, want not. Free vegetable garden

I started my garden for the spring in my kitchen window since it's not warm enough for the plants outside yet. Even typing this makes me laugh because I live in Southern CA. But I am near the mountains and our ground has frozen this year. Who knew?

While I would love to say my garden looked  like the one to the left, alas I am not that good of a gardener. 

Last year's raised bed, ready for planting

Last summer I built a raised garden bed in my yard and harvested zucchini, blueberries, tomatoes, peppers, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. This year, I am toying with the idea of adding a second one to get more good stuff for free.

Not much has lasted through the winter since we have had some cold nights here this year. Well, that and the fact that I have totally neglected my garden during the holidays and winter months. 

This year my goal is to plant a "free" garden using seeds from the vegetables I purchase at the grocery and stems from other items. I will document my successes and failures and let you know how truly easy or hard it is to do. I have a busy life and am not one of those people to fawn over my garden every day. I automate as much care as possible and plan to do so again. 

Back to the plants....So far I have celery, onion, and cabbage in small pots of water to see if they will root. I am not sure it is possible to grow cabbage this way, but I will give it a shot and let you know. 

I cut off excess and stuck the end of the vegetable into a small bit of water. The picture on the right shows the bottom of the celery. It looks just like it did after I washed the stalk and cut off the portion I wanted to use.

I tried celery once before but didn't get it planted into the ground before it began to rot in the water. Needless to say, that plant was tossed.

Onion after 1 week

After one week, the onion is growing roots like mad but no green is sprouting. The celery is sprouting (look at the cute little celery stalk!) but has little to no root growth. 

Celery --growing green but no roots

Root buds on the cabbage

I can't tell if the cabbage is going to grow. There are some root buds on the bottom of the cabbage so I am hopeful the roots will keep sprouting. I think this next week will give me an answer as to whether growing cabbage from the stem is possible.

I am hoping to get these into the garden bed tomorrow. I haven't amended the soil yet this year and will need to clean last year's plants out of the raised bed. And with the Haraughbowl on tomorrow, I'll see what I can get done. 

In the next few weeks I will plant seeds from peppers, tomatoes, and an apple. I'll also see if I can grow carrots from an end piece.

Together we will see what grows, what doesn't and how easy it is for an amateur gardener to do.  
Keep coming back. I will post the successes, failures, and errors of my gardening adventures. 

Happy Planting!
Laureen