Cute, new planter for the deck

What's really funny about this was that it just happened to fit the area I'd painted flowers on. There was no plan. It just worked out.

I planted it with a strawberry and some violets.

Starting Plants Indoors

 This time of year they're really stretching for the sun and need to be turned several times a day to keep them growing up straight. it won't be long before a lot of them are ready to go outside. I'm in the process of beginning to harden them off now.

I'm planning on keeping a lot of my things in pots this year to make sure I can always find a sunny spot for them. (difficult because I've got 3 very large trees in my yard) It will also make meal prep easy if I can just take a pot of lettuce to the kitchen when I'm making salads.

So far this is the part of the garden that lives in my Dining room:

Sunflowers

purple bunching onions

purple carrots

red carrots

mixed lettuces

Trash to Trellis

The top 3 photos were taken May 16, 2015 to show you the completed project.

Changing the color and theme of the birdhouses from this point made a lot of difference, don't you think so?

Continuing to add things was vital to making the project "sing".

There are a couple of other posts about this project and you may want to see them too.

Art hits the deck

I plan to keep adding the flowers that grow here until I run out of space. The next things to add will be the tulips and lilacs.

Container Garden

We're still in the planning stages here so the first step is beginning to fill the planters that we'll be using this year...most of which have been given to us. The nice thing about that is that since there's no cost there we can afford the best plants, soil mixes and seeds to feed our bodies and souls.

The flowers we grow are the basis of the drawings and paintings that decorate the merchandise in my zazzle stores and of course any money I make with them goes back into my garden.

The fruit and veggies feed us, our friends and families. Someday there may be enough to share with even more people or to trade or sell to get more of the things we need to keep this place going.

The weather was beautiful today, a neighbor visited for tea and we started arranging the outdoor furniture to make things even better.

Curbside Trash to Garden Box and Trellis

Here's how the assembly and painting looked like when it was finished. All that's left now is to install it. Now I'll walk you through the steps that got me to this point.

#1. I always start by looking around to see what I need and what I've got to fill that need with. This time of year my mind is always on the garden so I decided that I needed a trellis. These leaves were part of some broken wall art given to me by a friend who was cleaning her storage space out.

We built this planter several years ago from scrap lumber and salvaged siding. 

Here's a couple of old garden cages and the seat support from an old recliner.

A bit of spray paint and some pieces of an old sculpture should help with it's looks.

 I already consider this a vast improvement and am considering taking things a step further by adding some color to the leaves and flowers.

I wired the leaves, flowers and vines to the base piece before painting it.

Of course there was left over paint to use and as you can see I had a bit of fun with that too.

What I really liked about the whole thing is  the view. I can sit back and enjoy looking at my work from the living room no matter what the weather.

Yes, I'll continue adding flowers to the rails whenever I've got an extra bit of paint handy. It gets a bit more interesting all of the time.

Garden progress and planning a greenhouse window

There's a lot of planting and transplanting going on now from the large houseplant to a strawberry jar for the deck along with some chives and lettuce that will be part of the new greenhouse window project.

This went pretty well except that I got the power wheelchair stuck while trying to drive across the lawn between the ramp and my driveway. We're hoping to build some sort of solid walkway to avoid that. I'd forgotten my cell phone so i had to sit out there until my husband missed me and came looking for me. NOT my finest hour!

It went really well. I'm using a large patio pot as my potting station and it seems to be just the right height to keep everything handy.

One thing I hadn't counted on is how much of the dirt landed on the footrest of my chair. "It gives planting your feet somewhere" and "putting down roots" a whole new meaning and really made us laugh. I hope you're having fun with your gardens too...Even though some of us still have to be hauling things in and out of the house as we wait for warmer weather. I LOVE "playing in the dirt"!

Starting my Garden

It's sad to say but this is as far as my garden has gotten this season. We're still waiting for warmer weather and hoping for good things.

I'm experimenting with starting the sunflowers indoors hoping that putting plants out will work better than putting down seed that the birds  always seem to run off with.

Other plants I'm starting are flowers, purple bunching onions that are like a small green onion but purple and purple dragon and atomic red carrots. Just ignore the hosta in the foreground. It was a tiny baby leftover from the ones I was transplanting in the front yard. I'm trying to get some good growth on it before putting it in the new flower bed. I've also got some chives going and will probably keep at least one pot of those in the house for meals.




and some carrots

Adding Carnations to the Tulip Painting

There's still a lot of work to do but I kind of like my plan to paint all of the fresh flowers I get into this painting until it's a nice, full bouquet.

Laying the real flowers next to where I'm working helps me focus on the shapes and shading of the petals.

I can't wait to get back to my brushes!

Re-cutting and re-arranging carnations

Recycle and make new cards

The assortment of things I had to work with today was some white card and envelopes, bits of note cards and envelopes from this weeks incoming mail.

The card on the end was made from bits of a box that some note cards I had came in.

The pieces I used for this card came off of an old Birthday card and as you can see I drew a daisy on the envelope to match...or it would have matched if I'd had the right colors of pencils but you get the idea. 

Carnations in pencil and ink