Filing box

So, no real ingenuity here, just a cool box re-purposed.




This is the Fira line of storage boxes from Ikea. I've done nothing to it, other than assemble it. I vaguely remember cursing.



Still, a very handy piece of kit. What's that inside, you say? Evidence of a man with a horrible addiction to pimentos? Nope. Seeds.



I discovered that pimento jars and certain brands of baby food jars fit in this thing like it was meant to be. So, in go the seeds with a handy label with a name and a date. I have bigger seed packets in the bottom drawer, and all my plant labeling supplies in the top right corner. Convenient and stylish.

p.s. I've just discovered that the Fira line was discontinued by Ikea earlier this year. Sad, really. Makes me want to decorate mine...

Square foot gardening

Back in the summer, I dug up some old barn wood and decided to make a raised bed for a square foot garden. I picked up some really cheap 1"x1" at the home improvement store to make the rails for the fencing. I don't really expect the fence cage to last for too long out in the elements, but the local rabbit population insisted that I come up with a temporary solution at the very least.



So that's it, basically. It's five feet long and three feet deep, which was just about right since we only have access from one side. I subdivided the box into fifteen squares, and my daughter and I went to planting.



It's pretty incredible how much produce we got from this little box. The vines growing up the back of the cage are peas, and I think we put in about 45 plants, of which maybe 30 grew well. I think we planted a little late in the season for peas, but the tendrils and flowers have been delicious. We also put in spinach, collard greens, turnips, beets, radishes, okra and carrots. Of those, the carrots and okra didn't work out. The carrots have beautiful greens, but no actual carrot at the end. The okra was probably the wrong choice for our climate. All in all, though, fantastic amount of vegetables for such a small area. With careful planting and some succession planting, I think we could do exponentially better next year.

Pallet planter

I had access to a big stack of pallets, and I thought to myself, "Hey, let's make something!" My grandiose dreams of a free four bedroom house quickly dwindled when I found I could only fit four pallets in the back of my Subaru Outback. You know the saying: When life limits your cargo capacity, make something smaller. So, I present the pallet planter!



So, it's rustic... Which is fine. It's also sitting in a recessed area beside the house on a base of gravel. It's about three feet high and a foot deep. The top has a false bottom, so there's only about 18 inches of soil.



This particular planter took about two and a half pallets to make, although I had a small amount of broken slats that I couldn't use. If you decide to try one for yourself, look around for good pallets. Two of the ones I picked up were oak, which makes for a good, sturdy and nearly completely weatherproof box. Also, unbelievably hard to disassemble. The other two were pine, which is much easier to use but also much softer and less resistant to the elements. Most of the pine is on the back and inside, where it can be slightly protected.

Here's my two and a half year old for scale...





Once it was put together, I decided to make a little scene out of , although that's still a work in progress. Basic ingredients: Some rocks, a small hosta transplanted from somewhere else, lots of moss and a tiny little Japanese holly.

Fr1st P0st!

I'm glad that's out of the way.