Plant Markers

One more garden post if you can stand it.

We've made our own plant markers out of gallon ice cream buckets. We fished them out of the recycling bin and using kitchen shears cut off the top handle edge, cut off the bottom and then cut about 1" sections from the wall of the bucket. We got about 20 out of each bucket. Cut one end of each section pointy to make it easier to shove into the dirt. Use a grease pencil (china marker) to write on the plastic. The grease pencil will rub off later if you want to reuse these. Of course the plastic won't decay for some 150 million years so they'll be good for several seasons.

Newspaper Seedling Pots

We're making seedling pots this morning. I'm always amazed at how many basic skills have gone by the way. So in case you thought you had to buy the peat pots from MegoMart or the seed catalog...here are the directions. Yes, you'll get newsprint all over your hands and you shouldn't wear anything you don't want stained.

Fold one sheet of black and white newspaper in thirds lengthwise. Tear the sheet on the fold into three long pieces.

Take one piece and roll it around a tomato paste can with about 2 inches over the edge of the can. Your local newspaper may not have downsized its page size so feel free to adjust as you deem fit. I like a fairly short pot. They're seedlings after all.

Once rolled fold the excess over onto itself to form the bottom of the pot. Give the pot a good stomp with the can in it to set the folds.

Fill with your favorite potting soil and place on a tray to transport. These will be sturdy enough to give the seedling a start but thin enough to decay in a well watered garden plot when it comes time to move the seedling from the cold frame to the garden. Or you can just pull it apart come transplanting time and pitch the pot in the compost pile.

This goes pretty quickly even if you do get the children to help.

And no, this won't become an all gardening blog.

Planting Character

I know posting's been lite lately. I've felt bad about that. There have been some great education things that I would love to have commented on. Thankfully, Ben's posted several of them. I got to hear Rep. Zach Wamp (my husband thinks that a great name for a band, btw), I attended the Davidson County Republican Convention, Councilman Mike Jameson (East Nashville/downtown) seems to have become Emily Latilla regarding riverfront development, MNPS BOE member Ed Kindall (District 7-Downtown-Glencliff) is still getting a free pass from his fellow BOE members (and likely the local bar's ethics committee), the legislature is in session and the hits just keep coming as they say. However, my first community needed some additional organizing and due to the current 'economic situation' (I'm trying to be nice here) we've decided to put in a garden for the first time in about 10 years. So time I would have ordinarily spent pounding the keyboard has had to be shared with garden tasks.

I am thankful we have land to grow food on, that we’re not among the unemployed, and that we have a great network of folks who care about us. I’ll also keep in mind Rep. Susan Lynn’s post comparing our own current difficulties with The Great Depression. They had it rough. We're mostly spoiled and lazy in comparison. So we're picking up a shovel and planting some character this spring. Hopefully, by fall we'll have a bountiful harvest.