Thursday, November 4, 2010

Random Garden Update including Creative & Frugal Seed Marker Ideas

First, I must say that I'm cracking myself up with this post. It is 3 (maybe 4?) separate posts I've had in my brain all lumped into one. Eh, who's counting? (besides me?)

As my boys and I were starting a bunch of seeds in the past month or so I started looking around (as I'm assuming all mothers do constantly because nothing is ever where I put it) for my fancy seed markers. NOWHERE to be found. Over the course of the last week or so I've found 3 of them. I had 30. Ahem. Anyway, I had to get creative and luckily I'm kinda good at it. I *knew* I had been saving old credit cards for a reason! They turn out to be really fun for the kids to paint and work fantastic for marking seeds. And FREE!


Old canning lids also work fabulously. Painted (for fun) or left plain.


AND they fit perfectly under bird protection.

This is our new garden path. I've been working to change the old sharp corner into a new path which freed up a corner for more of a permaculture beneficial garden.
The leeks just started poking through a few days ago. They're so cute I had to show them off.

This little patch was planted late on a lark and I'm so glad I did it.





More seed starting markers -- and these are things I try to avoid bringing home. When I do end up with them I keep them all because I'm a freak like that and can't stand to throw something away when it could possibly be reused. VOILA! Some are biodegradable, I guess we'll see just how well they biodegrade!

Spoons are definitely the cutest...


As for the fowl, we culled 4 roosters last weekend. Rowdy was one of them. He just got to be such a jerk that I couldn't even give him away. I simmered them for nearly 20 hours and made a big batch of rooster enchiladas complete with homemade enchilada sauce. The sauce came out so fabulously I will have to post the recipe. Next time. We have 2 broody hens, both Copper Marans which is interesting because they are the youngest of all the hens. I'm not complaining, we need more chickens. After taking these photos they (and their eggs) were moved into their own quarter.


The waning hours of sunlight have already had an impact on the hens. Egg production is down.
A volunteer tomato (the healthiest of the season) is still in high production. Go figure.
Sweet pea seeds soaking. These are all saved from last year, just a small sampling of the seed load from those vines!

Hmmm... the kids color pallette for painting the seed markers.... out of place but still kinda cute no?


Even rocks or old tiles work great. These are two old ones from a few years ago. They were bird protection weights this year. After painting, be sure to let them dry completely and then seal them with a clear varnish spray.


More bird protection: Strawberry baskets protecting the crazy maze of snow pea seedlings, held down with pieces of coat hanger.

3 comments:

Marlyn said...

Lots of good ideas (I have stacks of those berry baskets and of course old canning lids and can never throw anything away!).

Beautiful pictures as usual too!

I think I'll have lots of chicken questions soon -- plans are moving forward!

meemsnyc said...

Oooh, I love the recyclable plant markers. Especially the plastic cutlery. I've always wanted to re-use them somehow! Excellent idea.
I'm not sure about the credit card idea though, Don't the numbers still show over the paint. I live in the city, and I'd hate to have anyone have their hands on my cc numbers. It's funny, in the supermarkets here, they don't even sell those berry baskets anymore. Everything comes in those ugly plastic clear boxes, awfully wasteful.

Erin said...

Oh yes, meemsnyc, you've hit something there. Perhaps the old credit cards are for the country only? haha! These are mostly old cardds to which the account numbers don't match up anymore... but really, why chance it eh?