How Even Apartment Dwellers Can Landscape

Long time, no post, eh? I pulled a muscle in my side which made anything involving bending over, reaching, lifting, etc. hurt. So, that pretty much ruled out most garden tasks. Luckily, the weather (and rain) have been pretty kind over the past week so things look OK outside. But that is another post.

I am admittedly obsessed with all things miniature. Those tiny little Le Crueset dutch ovens meant for melting butter? Totally tempted to buy one even though it's $20 & I don't have the need for melted butter. Also? Little spoons. I love eating pudding or yogurt with a tiny silver spoon (should be used for adding sugar to hot tea). And, finally, little landscapes. Whether it's a terrarium, bonsai, hypertufa, or just your basic pot filled with dwarf plants, I'm in love!

While on my "no outside because of allergies" and "no strenuous work because everything hurts" phase, I decided to create a simple mini-landscape for inside my house. Just like any landscaping you need to determine the right plant for the right place. With indoor gardening you thankfully have more control over the environment, however.

Thus, for me, the plants needed to love low light conditions and tolerate dry soil. (The latter condition is necessary because I am lazy with plant watering. If you tend to over-water your plants, look for something that loves moist soil.) These are perfect little pieces of dirt that even apartment dwellers with the lowest of light and smallest of available space can get their hands dirty with.

The result:
Yes, these pictures were taken on my stove! LOL! The larger plant is a dwarf philodendron, the upright green plant with pink flowers next to it is centeriaum soliloides (this admittedly likes things a bit more moist than the other plants), and the cascading plants are Pilea glauca/blue creeping pilea. I have no idea yet what I'll put in the other parts of the "strawberry" pot. I just used regular potting soil.

So, there you have it: An easy, peasy way to brighten a corner of your home. If you really want to go crazy, there are little houses, people, animals and other things you can find (I've seen on Etsy and Merrifield Garden Center had some things as well) to make your creation look more realistic.

Project: Garden Path

You may recall that our garden was smack-dab in the middle of a bare patch of clay. As long as I kept it weeded, it didn't look BAD, but it looked far from GOOD. And weeding constantly was not my favorite.

Obvioiusly this photo is a few months old, given the size of plants.

So, we decided on creating a non-grass path around the garden. Our first thought was laying stone, whether it be pavers or a collection of stepping stones with coconut or creeping thyme planted between or around the edges. This would be the most charming option, I think. However, it would also be the most labor intensive (ground would need to be leveled and then a multi-step process would ensue) and expensive as I was a big fan of some of the most expensive stone in the quarry.

Our second, and cheaper/easier, thought was to do a gravel path. We found some nice blue stone gravel quite cheap. Eventually we could add stepping stones in the gravel, we thought, and we could still plant thyme or other ground cover against the raised beds to soften the look a little bit. We were quite excited about this idea until....

Until I remembered the hell that is raking leaves. We've got 2 trees in the back yard & our neighbors both have trees in the front & back yards. For a small yard, we get bags & bags of leaves in the fall. And then in the spring, we get the remnants of their flowering tree. Dealing with leaves & flower parts on gravel (without a blower) was not something we were thrilled with. Sadness then set in as we thought we were doomed with an ugly, weedy clay path.

Then....EUREKA!!

Mulch. Here in Arlington, mulch is free if you collect it from the county (I believe Fairfax County as a similar deal if you live there). We'd get some edging to help contain the mulch and use newspaper & cardboard boxes as weed block. The project would be cheap! And easy! Hurray!

So, first we put in the black edging. Next, we laid down several layers of newspaper/brown bags/cardboard:

Then, we dumped on the mulch & spread it all out:


Total cost? About $20.

I think it looks better. And in fall, we'll probably leave many of the leaves in the garden area, so raking won't be an issue. Eventually we will probably do something with stones. Especially since we plan to add stepping stones leading up to the garden as the grass is getting quite worn along that way. But for now? This was a great compromise of labor & price. As an added bonus, we recycled & reused!

Pretty is as Pretty Does

I like things to be functional, but beautiful. Life is just entirely too short to not be able to enjoy the beauty of everyday objects or to make everyday objects beautiful. I don't own anything I don't use. Partially due to living in a small house with limited storage and paritally due to being on the cheap side. :) And, I admit, I also love using "special" things as often as possible. Special occasions happen far more frequently than most people realize! Sometimes surviving a Tuesday is quite a feat!

Case in point: I drink my morning coffee out of a china tea cup (it's the most frequent use of our china actually) and have a tiny silver spoon that I got cheaply to eat my Yoplait. It's actually kind of funny...me, sitting around on a Sunday morning in an old T-shirt and Winnie-the-Pooh flannel boxers (from high school no less!) sipping coffee from fine china and eating yogurt with a silver spoon while I peruse a magazine from the library. Quite the contrast!

Similarly, I like that kind of quirky contrast in the garden. Vegetable gardens can look...well...a bit farm-y for a small backyard in the suburbs. Or just a little too functional for my taste. What I need is a bit of whimsy. Unexpected color. My "whimsy" touches include some small garden gnomes and red ceramic mushrooms I found in the dollar bins at Target several months ago.

The gnome, playing peek-a-boo in the chives.

The mushroom, "growing" in the strawberry patch.

Additionally, I had been on the lookout for a rain gauge but...to be honest, most were kinda too ugly for *my* garden. That is until we went to Smith & Hawken and found the yellow one below! (picture from Smith & Hawken website) Cuteness!


In addition the the whimsical touches above, I planted some marigolds and nasturtiums in between the peppers and tomatoes. These add pops of color until the tomatoes & pepper plants provide something other than green. In addtional, they have been attracting butterflies. See?

Form + Function = Fabulous.

Next year I plan to make the tomato stakes more attractive. I am considering painting wooden stakes a nice purple or blue (This depends on first researching whether the tomatoes would be safe to eat if the plant comes in contact with paint. And if chemicals would be leached still if the paint does not touch the soil...meaning I would plan to only paint the part that it above-soil. Anyone know the answer to this?). The other idea is to use cedar stake with colorful cabinet knobs screwed into the top. This second idea would be much easier and since I'm pretty lazy, is probably what I will go with...

Another ideas for quirky garden additions: colorful bottles with the necks buried to create an edging, bottle paths/"plantings", broken plate edging (bury the sharp pieces!), and crazy containers (think old rain boots with annuals spilling out or tin cans or a baby carriage!).

Free Water!

Ahhhh...rain barrels!

I've been meaning to blog about ours since we installed it a few weeks ago but I always come home & forget to take pictures! I assume tonight will be no different so the pictures shown here are from the manufacturer's website.

That's right folks: We went fancy & bought one pre-built. This was a "Mr. Radish"-task & I let him do it his way. Other options include the workshop in Arlington County (or for Fairfax residents, this one) which is a cheaper option. You could also 100% DIY. There are enough websites out there telling you how to do it.

However, these are things you need to keep in mind with the rain barrel:
-Food-grade plastic. If you've got a veggie garden, you definitely don't want anything leeching into that soil! If you don't, the stuff that lives in the soil would prefer it to be toxin-free. Recycling a food barrel is great idea.

-Spigot near the bottom. Mr. Radish couldn't quite understand the barrels that had the spigot 6 inches from the bottom of the barrel for "easier bucket filling." I mean, are you supposed to tip the barrel to get at that last 6 inches of water? Because, ya know, it's kinda attached to your drain pipe... Let's just call it a "design flaw". Also, the filling of the bucket issue is easily solved with putting the barrel on cinder blocks.

-Keep mosquitoes out! As the picture below shows, our rain barrel does not have an open top. A connection to the downspout and a pour spout are the only openings & they have caps. Other barrels with open tops have fine-mesh tops. Some with this kind put a layer of oil (oil rises to the top) to keep mosquitoes from laying larvae. But it's important if you have this kind of rain barrel to...

-...Have an overflow hose a few inches below the top of your barrel. This also prevents mosquitoes from having access to your rain water so they can lay their eggs. For those with rain barrels like mine, this is also important as the barrels fill up quickly in a rainstorm & you don't want all that water pressure to build.

So far, I'm loving ours! I only wish we could run a soaker hose on it, but I think that might be solved by a submersible pump. I'm also considering maybe getting another one. With us reclaiming our yard from wilderness (well, as "wilderness" as Arlington gets. I guess "years of neglect" would be a better term), we're going to need more water for the dry summer months. And I'd hate to have to pay for it!

Bunny-Proof the Goods

There has been a lapse in my posts, and for good reason, I promise! Pinky-swear even! But, I'll go into that tomorrow (how's that for a cliff hanger, eh?)

So, you may have seen little cute, cuddy, hopping creatures around your garden. I know I have. Yesterday I saw a little baby bunny even! So cute, yet soooooooo not good for the garden given their vegetarian lifestyle and me growing, well, vegetables! What I wanted was something that was relatively attractive, removable and not too expensive.


My genius husband came up with the idea of creating "frames" like this: (Pardon the photo. It's raining outside! This was taken from a window inside)


You'll notice that the back of the bed on the fence side does not have a removable fence. Instead chicken wire is stabled to the bed's boards & support stakes. Basically, this was how this fence was made:


To be honest, it was really time consuming, but I'm happy with the results.

Raise the Beds! Holla!

This weekend, we built our raised beds. There are 3: one 4x5.5 ft, one 3x20 ft and one 3x10 ft as shown here:


We used the basic instructions that can be found everywhere these days: the latest Better Homes and Gardens, Square Foot Gardening book and Pioneer Woman's blog. We used untreated pine (treated pine, while no longer treated with arsenic, is treated with chromium which the jury is still out on) but seriously considered Trex (a recycled plastic/wood fiber product), but that was a bit more than we wanted to spend at the moment. When the pine rots out (I've heard it should last at least 3 years if not more) then we'll probably replace it with Trex. We also used 8" deep boards instead of 6 or 4 inches.

The stakes have a dual function: help support the pine boards from the pressure of the soil and to create a bunny fence (chicken wire will be nailed to it).

Here's a bit of the garden plan:



And, here is how I'm SFG'ing the beds. Nylon string + nails.


If I had to do it over again, I would follow the SFG advice with just having beds that you can't access on all sides be 2 ft deep. Yeah, rebellion didn't work out so well...Turns out it is really hard to plant in beds that deep.

Project: Gardening Journal

(Inspired by You Grow Girl)

I had found the perfect journal for my Gardening Journal. It has grid paper in it so that we we build our beds, I can sketch where everything is planted! In my journal I'm chronicling when each seed sprouted, how things went, when fruit starts to appear, etc.

I'm doing this, basically, because I have a horrible memory (and love to craft). If I don't write it down, it's like it didn't happen! Also handy? I made little pockets in the journal with scraps from card making to hold my extra seeds, to be used next year unless someone wants to trade!

Project: Ivy Propagation & Garden Trellis

I have a love-hate relationship with ivy. I love it because it's the only thing I can keep alive all year in the hanging baskets in my uninsulated, not terribly sunny enclosed porch. I hate it because, when it's left to its own devices, it takes over. And by "taking over," I mean, pulling down our fence. I'll get back to that in a second.

However, I also want something tall & green for the front of our (part shade) yard. The shrubs/trees I've found for that area run $150+ and usually require full sun. In other words, sub-ideal situation all the way around.

But then I had a Big Idea! What about a trellis tripod put in a decorative pot with ivy covering it? The ivy would be contained in a pot (I'd make sure of that!), would stay green all year round, tolerate the light level AND it'd be mega cheap. However, I don't understand why anyone would pay for ivy. I mean, it's a glorified weed! Propagation, therefore, was my only option.

(pssssttt...This is the trellis tripod I found at Luckett's Store.
I love that place! They have more of these if you want to do this project too. Or you could make your own out of cedar or other wood that would be durable outdoors. Imagine it in a decorative pot to be discovered...The whole thing will be about 5.5 ft tall once it's in a pot.)

And, as luck would have it, ivy is ridiculously easy to propagate. So, before our fence came down (the one the ivy was pulling down), I snipped a few 6" pieces of the ivy. Stripped the leaves off of half the stem & place it in water.

I change out the water every few days. Actually, the ivy doesn't look half bad in a vase! Below is a look at the roots that have grown after one week (the second picture is a close up of the ones growing near the leaf). Once the roots are about an inch long, I'll plant them in the pot & start training them up the trellis.