Mini Pop Bottle Garden

I have to thank my daughters pre-school teacher for this wonderful idea. And she has many of them. Here's her blog if anyone's interested: http://marquitastewart.blogspot.com/





My daughter came home from school one day with a pop bottle that had been cut in half and had some dirt in it. It now looks like this:

You take a pop bottle (20 oz. or larger) and cut it in half. Take the cap off and puncture a hole in the middle . Tie a knot in a piece of yarn and feed it through the hole. Tie another knot on the outside, so that there is a knot on both sides of the cap and extra yarn on both ends. Screw the cap back on and fill the top half of bottle with potting soil. Plant your seeds according to their packet. These are marigolds, but you could do anything. Fill the bottom of the bottle with water, but keep the water level below the knot. Take a spray bottle and wet the dirt pretty thoroughly on top just on the first day. After that you should only have to water it from the bottom. When the plants get bigger you can transplant them outside or to a bigger pot depending on what flower you've grown. If you leave it in the bottle the roots will eventually become too much for it and it'll become pot-bound or bottle-bound in this case.

I'm thinking of planting all my starters for my garden this way next year.

Gardening in a Small Yard

I have always loved to garden, but my small yard now is making that very difficult. Here's a picture of my garden at our old house. I would've still liked it to be bigger, but this was good enough for living in a duplex. We had corn, peppers, tomatoes, green beans, squash, zucchini, and onions.




Now, I'm trying hard to do what I can in our new yard. Our yard is extremely small and has a large pond in the backyard. The entire backyard slopes down to this pond making it difficult to find a level spot for a garden. Right now I have two small gardens.

Garden #1 has tomatoes, green peppers, and banana peppers in it.

Garden #2 has cucumbers, onions, strawberries, and green beans in it.

I have many other plants placed around in my landscaping and in pots. I have zucchini, squash, cayenne peppers, yellow peppers, cucumbers, okra, bush beans, and cherry tomatoes.

I'm having trouble right now with rabbits and sunlight. Our house sits at an angle so there isn't full sun anywhere in our yard. I've tried surrounding things with dead thorn branches from my rose bushes to keep the rabbits away. So far it seems to be working. I'll write more as the plants progress.

Saving the Environment One Reel at a Time

Last summer we needed a new lawnmover and decided to go with a Reel Mower. As long as we keep up with it and never let the grass get very long then it does very well. We're still searching for a more environmentally friendly weedeater, but have yet to find a good substitute.

Here's a picture of my hubby mowing the lawn. And yes, he can listen to his Ipod while using this mower without worrying about going deaf. Also here's a great review on the Reel Mower: http://landscaping.about.com/cs/lawns/gr/reel_review.htm