Seed Flags

Most of the time when starting seeds for the garden I will label the pots in which I plant teeny tiny seeds.  Then some of the time I will not.  At some point and time, after the seedlings begin to show their pretty little heads above the dirt line, I combine them all in the same trays and eventually forget what's what.  The seed cups get jostled all in there together and until they begin their first set of real leaves I can't tell who is who, especially when I have begun more than one type of tomatoes.  I really try hard not to let this happen.  When I use my newspaper pots I simply write the names on the outside and all is well.  But this time I didn't write the names on the outside of about a dozen Roma tomatoes and a dozen marigolds.  So I came up with a pretty little solution to my problem and thought I would share it will you also, just in case you can use it too.  And in case you use a different type of seed starting pots like the black plastic ones that you can't write on.

 

My idea is little flags.  I made a template, printed and cut them out.  Then, using a glue stick, glued the flag around a tooth pick and taa daa... I.D. flags for my lil cuties! 

 

Again, you totally have my permission to right click and save these as a picture or right click and print.  They can also be used as cupcake flags or you could even pull the Shoney's card at a picnic labelling which hamburger is well done and rare.  Easy Peasy!  Have fun!

 

 

Fill in the blank flags.

 

 

Tomato Flags

 

Little Herb Ones!

 

By the way, if this print and click thing isn't working for you please shoot me a comment or email and I will be delighted to send it to you by email. 

XO Laurie



giggle box garden

Finally!  The garden at the DC is planted.  Tuesday afternoon the tiller came down and before I knew it, the Mr. had tilled up a good spot.  It is not as big as our garden at home and the plants will be a little closer together.  But it's our garden.  We will dig in it, play in it, watch it grow and soon enough we will be eating lunch from it!  We planted corn, zucchini, squash, black cherry tomatoes, watermelon and flowers. 

I had a seven year old friend with me this week. Yesterday, she helped plant the garden and helped to make the garden markers. We used wide mouth canning lids and painted each veggie on them. Then poked holes in them and hung them by stakes made from coat hangers. So precious! I actually think we mixed up the squash and zucc this morning. I'll have to rearrange when I go back down to water this evening.

The seeds were soaked overnight.

 We had a plan.... and stickers!

 Corn... in an Easter egg.

 So cute.

 And I helped.

 Use a good sized nail for the hole.  Make sure not to nail it to the floor!

 Just snip a dry cleaning pants and you have a ready made hook on one end.

 I gave them a quick spray of top coat to the paint wouldn't wash off in the rain.

Plus it gave them a little shine.

 As for me... I don't miss my old office life one bit!

We look like glamorous spies... don't you think?

Working up the garden

When I hear my wonderful husband say, "I'm going to work up the garden!"  it means he is fixing to till between the rows in order to loosen that hard as a rock dirt so the roots of the plants can breathe better.  This is a wonderful thing and very necessary and if I'm out there while this is going on everything is usually alright.  It is when I am not out there that things go awry. 

The night before last I planted dill seeds (for the second time) and lavender seeds it two little nice and neat rows in the front right part of the garden which belongs solely to me and contains mostly herbs.  Needless to say if I had the following little project completed at the time of working up the garden this morning I would still have the two lavender rows that I planted.  Bless his heart, he felt so bad.  No big deal.. I have seeds soaking to replant them tomorrow and in the mean time I made some markers to my herbs so next time he'll know what I've done.

This is a simple, quick craft that requires only a few household items that most people I know already have. 

Items needed: used canning lids, wire coat hangers, pliers, a hammer, one nail and a permanent marker.

First cut pieces of the coat hanger using the pliers or wire cutters.  They can be any length you choose.  I got three out of each hanger.  Next hammer a hole in to the canning jar lid with the nail.  I stuck mine between pieces of wood on our porch.  It worked great and I didn't poke a hole in anything other than the lid... the second time.

Next take the wire pliers and bend one end of the wire cutting over to make a loop.  Thread the canning lid onto the wire and loop it on over so the lid doesn't come off.  Label the jar lid and you are ready to stick it in the ground or pot where you need to label what you've planted.  So as to savor your efforts.