Monday, January 16, 2012

G is for Gardening

OK, I have put a couple of things I would like to get a bit of a handle on, back on the agenda. Things which have been on and off (and on and off) the agenda a lot over the past few years. Gardening and knitting. The knitting is just too traumatic to talk about tonight so I'm just going to go with gardening. Completely easy for some, not so much for others. Like me. I think the main problem is that I simply have not had the attention span or the memory, over the past few years, to make gardening a success. (I have to water them? Really?) But I don't ever like to give up completely, for ever and ever, so I'm having another shot at it. I started off with a store bought little green house thing to raise the seeds, and used the seeds I've been storing in my fridge for, ah, way too long. In fact I thought maybe they would just be too old, but they're going OK so far. Early days though. (oh, and for the completely clueless like myself, my seeds went from seeds to what you see below in about  4-5 days)
Ruby is my little gardening helper (and Clary, when he feels like it). Of course I could have, and will in future, bypassed purchasing things to raise the seeds in and just made it up myself like this lady here who has done a fantastic job making a mini greenhouse with toilet rolls and some plastic (and cardboard) packaging.

Now, bare in mind that I have been a lazy, half-assed gardener for many years so some of the pictures you are about to see maybe a little disturbing for some, but I'm just using them to show you other ways we have been able to incorporate the upcycling of goods in to our gardening ;) The crates below were found at our local dump and make perfect little garden boxes (yes, I am one of those people who sometimes goes away from the dump with rubbish).

Do me a favour and just ignore the sticks and weeds I am growing in the next picture and focus on the fact that those huge olive oil containers are actually quite ok for popping a plant into.


Galvinised buckets also can look  good. Would probably look better if it was overflowing with flowers but, hey, baby steps people.

Got an old suitcase lying around, it can be broken, worn out, or just plain old and ugly? Get some flowers blooming in it and it'll be looking a whole lot cuter.


And if you're like me and have a bit of a habit of picking up kitchy ornaments when you're browsing the op shops, despite having absolutely nowhere to put them in your house? Stick those babies in the garden!! My super gaudy little gold deer just loves it out amongst the blooms :)
And, while we're on the subject of plants and seedlings I have to share this, which I found while googling for........I'm not sure now, something or other related to seedlings, I guess.
These are cupcakes!!! The cupcake toppers (the seedlings) come from an Etsy seller by the name of mimcafe Union and you can check her store out here. How good do they look?!

1 comment:

Elli said...

I am jealous of your crates. They are an awesome find!
Also jealous of you actually getting seedlings from seeds. If I don't buy my plants with a proper root system (seedlings are ok), I never have any luck with them. I'm no good with cuttings either. I inherited my parents' love of gardening...just not their green thumbs, lol.