DIY Thursday: Box Gardens

 I've decided to build a box garden this year. Bought the wood--cedar since it's more weather resistant and not treated like deck wood is. So I have 6 planks of 8' cedar planks, 8 brackets, screws, a drill, and a (semi) plan for where to place these 2 boxes.

The hardest part was keeping the sides level. I didn't have a big enough space for 8+ feet of wood I could keep still and steady and still manage to screw together without the puppy sniffing around. I don't know how people do it, but I guess they were way more prepared than I was!

Still, it all worked out and I'm pleased with the results.

I now plan to have garden soil delivered. Not cheap, but since the ground soil I already have hasn't yielded anything of significance in the last several years, well worth it.

I created 2 boxes, one for leafy greens: kale, spinach, green beans (the plants are leafy!) and one with ground veggies: beets, carrots, and tomatoes since they didn't fit in the other box.

DIY Thursday: Gardening

Another spring, another try at a vegetable garden. I've tried every year for the last several. It starts out so well. Not only my enthusiasm but the garden itself. Then, as time passes and my plants don't grow, or grow sporadically, my discouragement does.

This year I'm trying something different: Soil. As in a ton of fresh dirt dumped on my garden. My yard has dirt. With things embedded in it: glass, rubber, concrete. I have no idea why. Whoever lived in this house before me must've either been a slob or tried to build the yard level up with stuff.

All I know is that I need a fresh start and fresh soil is the way to go. Will till what I have there now, then dump (read: have delivered) topsoil. And then I'll plant my garden.

This is the year! (I say that every year. I really believe in it this year!)

DIY Thursday: All Natural Fertilizer

Earth Day was Tuesday so in honor of that (and so I'm not saving the planet on only one day a year), I'm posting a DIY way to naturally fertilize your garden. Sure, it's faster and easier to buy a bag of something from the local big box store, but in my quest to make my life more natural, and safe myself money by doing it myself, I found this.

For Christmas I received a small kitchen compost. With no directions. Thank you HGTV for your article! In addition to my small compost (small pot, large garden, I'm getting there!) I also decided to try a couple from House Logic: Make Your Own Inexpensive Garden Fertilize (first set) and a couple from Organic Authority (second set). They both recommended fireplace ash. Use the links to see what else they recommend, I only copied what I used. I kept in their links, but added my own comments with links in parenthesis. Good luck!
House Logic:
First, Test Your Soil (I didn't us a professional. I did this from Frugal Living)

Test your soil to determine which nutrients it lacks. You don’t want to add, say, a nitrogen-rich fertilizer if nitrogen already is abundant.
A professional soil test costs less than $20 and will tell you everything you need to know about what’s in your soil. Contact your local extension agent to find a soil-testing laboratory near you.

Soak Your Plants in Epsom Salts

Why: Epsom salts consist of magnesium — critical for seed germination and chlorophyll production — and sulfur — key for protein production and plant growth. A dose of an Epsom salts solution increases fruit and flower production in roses, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and houseplants.
How: Combine 1 tablespoon of Epsom salts to 1 gallon of water. Spray foliage with the solution for best results.

Save Your Wood Ash (I did do this! Saved all my ash from my wood stove and tilled it in with the leaves and grass cuttings.)

Why: Wood ash not only adds calcium (good for root growth) and potassium (promotes seed and fruit formation) to soil, but it also raises the pH of highly acidic soil, making it friendlier to neutral pH-loving plants, such as most vegetables. (Don’t use it in blueberry gardens, which like acidic soil.)
How: Apply wood ash straight from the fireplace to your garden: Dig in 5 lbs./100 sq. ft.

Organic Authority:
Compost Tea

Caution: Be sure to use a finished compost. Unfinished compost may contain harmful pathogens, and compost that is too old may be nutritionally deficient.

1. Fill a 5 gallon bucket 1/3 full of quality finished compost.
2. Fill with water to a few inches below the top.
3. Let the mixture steep for 3-4 days.
4. Stir the tea as often as you can.
5. Strain the mixture, through cheesecloth or any other porous fabric, into another bucket. Add the remaining compost to your garden or put it back in your compost bin.
6. Dilute the remaining liquid with water using a 10:1 ratio of water to tea. (Your watering cans contents should have the look of a weak iced tea.)
7. Fertilizer the soil or use with a foliar sprayer and spray the leaves.

Grass Fertilizer
Grass Fertilizer is rich in nitrogen, oxygen and phosphorus. Caution: Be careful not to use grass treated with herbicides.  

1. Fill a 5 gallon bucket 2/3 of the way full with fresh grass clippings.
2. Fill with water to a few inches below the top.
3. Let it sit and steep at room temperature for 3 days, making sure to stir it once a day.
4. Strain the liquid off.
5. Dilute the “tea” with equal parts water.
6. Fertilizer the soil or use with a foliar sprayer and spray the leaves.

Thursday DIY: Keeping chipmunks away the organic way

Something was eating my veggies. Leaves were gone, in some cases the leaves were totally stripped. Like in the case of my poor tomato plants. All the leaves were stripped from the stem.

At first I thought it was a mole or vole or some other mole-vole-like creature--are gophers and groundhogs related? No, wasn't any of them. Moles eat grubs and slugs (gross!) then move on to another grub and slug endowed lawn. They can have the grubs and slugs. Groundhogs eat fruits and veggies, not the leaves. Rabbits? Probably, but I did have a fence.

Chipmunks. I had chipmunks. Cute from a distance or in a cartoon but not when they're in your yard. How does one go about getting rid of them? I wanted organic non-lethal methods.

Turns out two of my favorite seasonings keep them away! A mixture of garlic and cayenne does the trick. A lot of sites offer permanent ways of getting rid of chipmunks, but I see no reason to kill them; I just wanted them to stop eating my veggie leaves!

The Garden Guides website was specific for tomato plants, but I think this mixture helps for everything. I sprayed it around my entire garden. (It's not the chipmunk's fault the rain rotted my plants.)

Step 1: Combine a pint of water, a clove worth of minced garlic and 2 tbsp. cayenne pepper in an airtight container. Keep the solution sealed in the container for 48 hours.

Step 2: Strain the solution into the spray bottle and throw away any remnants of the garlic.

Step 3: Spray the solution on your tomatoes and tomato plants. This will make the tomatoes smell and taste unpleasant to the chipmunks. Spraying the leaves will increase the unappetizing smell even though chipmunks do not actually eat the leaves of the plants. Respray once a week or after a rain.