Time to start saving those 2liter bottles again

Check out this tutorial on how to make a greenhouse out of plastic 2liter soda bottles over at http://ana-white.com/2011/04/plastic-bottle-green-house-build-guide

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Instructions on how to build a plastic bottle greenhouse using 2ltr plastic lemonade bottles. This was produced as part of the Greenspaces project with primary schools in Moray. http://www.reapscotland.org.uk/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/download.php?id=8

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How I built my Greenhouse, or how to ignore instructions and get away with it! http://www.squidoo.com/plasticbottlegreenhouse

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Plastic bottle greenhouse http://www.appropedia.org/Plastic_bottle_greenhouse

Do you Re-grow your garbage?

We have been eating the same green onions I bought at the store all winter long. No I don't have a corning wear dish of mushy green onions sitting out at every dinner. But I do have a beautiful pot full of lush green onions growing on my windowsill. Here's a quick pin I found on pinterest to show you how to grow them. The only difference from how I grow them is after mine had a nice root system going I potted them.

Source: plumsintheicebox.typepad.com via Pacy on Pinterest

I had a bunch of celery that needed to be used up quickly before I was ready to cook with it, so I chopped it up leaving the bottom stub intact. Dehydrated the chopped up stuff for the spice rack and I am going to re-grow more celery from the bottom stub. Here's a great how to re-grow celery pin.

Source: chickensintheroad.com via Pacy on Pinterest

Next neat regrow pin I want to try is re-growing ginger from store bought ginger roots. Check this one out.

Source: tropicalpermaculture.com via Pacy on Pinterest

 

 

I did find this neat book with loads of plants you can re-grow from your kitchen garbage.

Setting Up a Worm Composting Bin

Use a 2-Liter Bottle as a 50 Watt Light Bulb lightbulb hack

Yukon Mike over at the Living Prepared Blog posted this link and I just had to pass it on

Almost Garden Time

 Our weather is finely in the 50's this week. With the ice and snowing melting and the property a big mud bog it's really got me in garden mode. Time to start planning the garden and start the seeds ☺

Last year I started my seeds in 2 liter soda bottles, sorta like mini terrarium. But I found this technique very space consuming. I needed alot of lights for the amount of plants I started. And I found that my plants became very leggy because with the height of the bottles I could not lower the lights to the proper distance. This year my daughter is starting a large garden. And with my DGS's 2 year old "helping" fingers, she figures that it's a better idea to keep her seedlings at my house.  So now it's time to come up with a better way to start my seeds. I've always wanted the Paper Pot Maker, but no way will I spend $18.95 for it. After hunting around the Internet I found these 2 video's. I like this 1st video because it seems to make a stronger pot, more like the wooden pot maker. But the 2nd video is more simpler, and if you twist the cup in the last step it should tighten up the pot bottom just as good. I think will be using one of these 2 video's to start our veggies this year.

Coops Done, except for painting

I'm pretty proud of this coop. It's almost entirely made from recycled stuff. I only spent just under $20.00 total for it all. That was for the PVC pipe for the Waterer and Feeder.

Today I made the nesting boxes. I made them from Cat Litter Tubs. I'm planning on getting some of that spray paint made for painting plastic to paint them to match the coop house.

These are the only things I spent money on. It was still cheaper to make them then it would have been to buy a large feeder and waterer. I've got some leftover house trim paint to paint all the wood. Not sure when I'll get to that, but we're all sent up for eggs now. ☻

My Garden Bucket

My Dad has a Bucket Buddy. He uses it to carry all his tools around as he's working on a project. I wanted something like this for my gardening. First I found the Fiskars Garden Bucket Caddy I really like this but I wanted one that was well basically free, Hey I admit it I'm CHEAP.

                      

I found this Simplicity Pattern at a Thrift Shop and picked it up to buy it, figuring that I could adapt the pattern to a large bucket.

Then I walked past this  for 50 cents and knew I had my Garden Bucket.

The Garden Bucket is basically an Apron belted around the bucket. So I cut the pockets off the shoe organizer and sewed them onto an old canvas belt and cinched it around the bucket. I had enough pockets to make a second belt which I cinched around the lip of the bucket so those pockets hung inside the bucket. I love my garden bucket. It's not as tidy as the store bought bucket, or as pretty as the Simplicity Pattern, but the bucket was free (left over from a dry wall project), the belts were something I was going to donate, and you can't beat a 50 cent gardening project.

How to Make Your Own Olive Oil Lamp

OK, I know I'm going thru the change and besides being very crabby this week I also can get a little forgetful. I just keep getting this nagging feeling that I posted about these Olive Oil Lamps before. But I looked thru my past posts and didn't see one so I'm posting this now. I first saw this idea over at Rhonda Jean's Blog Down to Earth. She posted some great instructions on  How to make an oil lamp Here and in today's email my Mother Earth Simple Living & Country Skills newsletter had another great tutorial for making them with a slightly different design Here. I really like Rhonda's version because it incorporates the jar lid which would help keep it from spilling if it got knocked over. While Mother's version teaches you how to salt your homemade wicks so they burn longer. And i was thinking that I would like to this with the Mod Podge Lanterns from my previous post Here. So I think Mother's version would be better for this because the flame burns inside the jar and would be more wind proof.

If you can find lampante oil (olive oil not suitable for eating, but for burning), you can save money by buying that instead of culinary olive oil.

How to Make Your Own Kitchen Compost Pail

I really wanted one of those Kitchen Compost Pails, but right now I just can't justify buying one. While I was drooling over the picture it dawned on me, Hey that looks like an ice bucket! I found an ice bucket at the Thrift Store fo $2.50. And bought a Cat Litter Box Charcoal Filter at the store for $1.22. Throw in my drill and glue gun and 123 I had a  Kitchen Compost Pail made from scratch.

Here's my How To's

1. The lid for my ice bucket is clear acrylic and I really didn't want to see what's in my pail. So I unscrewed the knob off the lid. Traced the lid onto a cheap foil cookie sheet. Cut the circle out with scissors and glued it onto the bottom of the lid. Then I put the knob back on.

2. I marked out a small circle of holes around the center of the lid and drilled them.

3. Useing the glue gun I then glued the filter to the inside of the lid. Try to use only enough glue to attach it so you can easily remove and replace the filter in several months.

I'm very happy with my $3.72 Compost Pail. It fills all my needs and I got to reduce, reuse and recycle ☻

Springtime Workings

I love working outside, no matter if I'm in the garden or working on the chicken coop Chili's always looking over my shoulder just waiting with an offer to help. We've been busy With my Aunts old playhouse and a chicken run my son got from a friend we're slowly getting the Girls coop done. They are beginning to get their wing feathers.

Got most of the seeds done that need to be started inside the house. I turned my buffet into a greenhouse. My poor dining room with chickens and a greenhouse, good thing no one wants to come near us since we're still getting over the flu, they can't see my mess. That's the green house on the left. I have 4 grow lights all plugged into a timer so they get the correct amount of light. and since our house can get chilly I put in a radiator to keep the temp. at a constant temperature. This year I'm using 2 liter soda bottles to start the seeds in.

Got the paths done in the garden. I'm cutting seed potatoes tonight and will plant those soon as I get the final tilling done.