The Untitled Post

We're back from camping and the post camping slump is in full swing. It's the slump you get after you unload the car, stare at the stack of campfire smelling laundry, the dirty dog, and the unorganized house, and choose to slump into the couch.  From the couch, my view would cause anyone to slump even lower.

One nice thing about my view, though, is the balcony garden! I love how lush and green it has become.  Remember when John showed you our upcycled popcorn tin turned tomato pot? Well, at Goodwill, we also found an even better something that we turned into our cayenne pot.

We have no idea what is use to be before it found its way into our hands, but now it makes an awesome pot for our cayenne pepper plants - they were growing too large for their previous home.

Does anyone have any guesses for what this wooden container could have been in its previous life? On the sides are metal tabs that seem to have attached to a lid or something. We're planning on removing them whenever John remembers he said that.  Oh, and before we added dirt and our plants, we made sure to coat it in sealant to protect the beautiful wood from moisture and weather.

There are some other new things in our garden.  Take this mint, for one! Last weekend we were both craving a mojito, and realizing that a packet of mint from the grocery store cost the same amount as a mint plant from the garden section of Walmart, we decided to go with the mint plant. I'm most excited that it's a perennial and will come back summer after summer!

What we thought were bell peppers have started to look like something other than bell peppers.  The leaves are dark green and big, but the plant recently started producing cayenne pepper type vegetables! Do you see me holding one in the below picture?

Again, I must ask the internet masses: what the heck could this be? The leaves are definitely much larger than our cayenne pepper plants (almost the size of my foot!) but the stalks are puny and skinny.  I'm a little sad we won't have bell peppers, but I'm a little excited to see what could be growing.

  

So, this is the nice view from where I am currently slumped on my couch. This is what I see when I look left. Please don't ask me what I see when I glance right or straight ahead.

The Parsimonious Penny Pincher

Hello Turning a House into a Home readers, I am Kristen's husband John.  My wife has inspired me to take on some of my own diy projects lately and she has asked me to share some of them with you throughout this week.  I used to consider myself a cheap person.  That is, until I married my wife.  Frugal is an understatement when I describe her spending habits.  A parsimonious penny-pincher I think is a more accurate description (sweet alliteration, I know!).  I have friends with spouses that are big spenders and live outside of their means.  We definitely do NOT have that issue in our household.

One of the many things that my wife's frugal habits have shown me is that the small patch of woods behind our neighborhood is an untapped resource of creativity and a beginning to many diy projects.  It is the same as modeling clay is to a sculptor or blank canvas to a painter.  I will frequently make a "woods run" for more supplies (Yes, our neighbors do think I'm crazy as they stare at me and wonder why this man frequently carries branches back to his 3rd floor apartment).

When Kristen needed a new plant stand on our balcony, did I go to Home Depot?  Of course not!  I made a woods run!

I searched the woods until I found the right branches that I wanted to create a plant stand.  I wanted straight, long sticks that would work for the top and legs for the stand.  I also wanted some smaller pieces for supports.  All the wood I used I found on the ground and did not cut anything from a tree.  At the same time I did not want anything that had been down very long as it may have started to rot.  Once I had some supplies, I was ready to cut!

I began by cutting the branches into smaller pieces for the legs and the top.  Now, normally I like to plan how I'm going to make a project.  I will draw diagrams, look up different ideas, make very careful measurements.  With this project, I totally improvised everything as I went along.  In hindsight, this was not the best idea and I definitely could have benefited from a little more planning.  In fact, I ended up starting from scratch half-way through the first try.

Also, if you ever do this, use a miter block or a chop saw.  Your cuts will be much straighter than mine and
the time it will take will be drastically reduced (especially with the chop saw).  I did however know how large I wanted the top to be.  I wanted the top to be 12"x12".  I cut 2 - 10" sticks that I could secure the top to then I cut 9 - 12" sticks that I glued to it.  The legs were all cut at 14".  

Once I had my top and legs cut, I glued the top together.  I used screws to fasten the legs to the top.  From there I screwed in some supports.  The side supports I drilled holes into the legs that the supports could fit into and slid them in with a small amount of wood glue.  Overall I used four screws, some wood glue, and some gorilla glue to fasten the wood together.  I did not want to use too many screws as I think they take away from the overall natural look.

We now have a rustic plant stand for our growing container garden on the balcony. We have yet to decide if we want to stain it to match the bench we built out of branches as well or if we'd rather leave it natural.  Not only is my wife happy with the end product, the plants are loving it, too.

 - JOHN

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Summer is my absolute favorite time of the year. Bring on the heat, the sun, the longer days, and the festivals and fun!  One of my favorite things about our apartment is the awesome balcony we have created. It's our first balcony and boy are we making use of it! 

We bought the side table and chairs the moment we signed our lease because we were that excited for our balcony! We eat dinner out here most evenings and love watching the neighborhood kids practice their skateboarding tricks every afternoon.

It's also a great retreat from our warm apartment (we haven't turned on our air conditioner yet) once the temperatures cool at night and the perfect spot to watch summer thunderstorms.

Our vegetables are growing like crazy and the cayenne peppers have little white flowers.  John keeps checking the carrots sure that they are ready to eat but they still have about a month left of incubation.  On the left are our bell peppers that I can hardly wait for.

As you can see, I got a little zealous with my basil seed planting and now our basil has taken over our entire garden....we have 25 individual basil plants. If anyone has any delicious basil recipes, please share. We've been eating lots of basil and mushroom pizza and will be making some pesto in the next week or so.

There are also some flowers dispersed here and there - marigolds and alyssum.  They haven't started blooming yet but I can't wait until there is some color mixed in with the sea of green.

Don't forget to pass along those basil recipes! I'm off to enjoy the sunrise while sipping on my coffee out on the balcony.

Balcony Gardens

It's that time again - time to start planning your vegetable gardens! John and I have been brainstorming what type of plants we'd like to grow this year. After doing some research, it seems as though many vegetables grow just as well in pots as in the ground which is good news for us apartment dwellers!

Our sunny balcony

Last year we grew lots of herbs - thyme, oregano, basil, rosemary - and lettuce in pots lined up along our windows. We didn't have a balcony in our last apartment so our garden was an experimental one.  We learned that oregano and thyme grow well in a window but basil and rosemary do not. We also learned that lettuce is a very easy plant to grow in an apartment, but don't let it bake in the sun in the middle of summer.

Last year's herb garden

With our successes and learned lessons we hit up the garden shop last weekend.  We walked away with seeds to grow bell peppers, cayenne peppers, carrots, lettuce, spinach, oregano, thyme, and marigolds.

I've been perusing garden websites to get an idea of how I'd like our balcony garden to look. My number one goal (after producing edible vegetables of course) is to ensure we don't create a jungle where there is no room for us to enjoy the balcony and sit outside.

spotted at Home Grown

I want it to be welcoming with a variety of pots and containers and plenty of space for our table and chairs

spotted at Garden Tranquility

spotted at Blue Lotus

I'd love to get a couple planters to hang - it adds differing heights and frees up room.

spotted at Free Gardening Advice

I've been saving toilet paper rolls to use as seedling pots and will probably plant those in the upcoming week or so.  For now we have to work on using up the firewood that we still have....here's hoping for a few more cold nights so we can get as much use of our fireplace as possible.

Have you tried growing vegetables in pots before? What's your favorite plant to include in your summer garden? This novice gardener would appreciate any advice from wise gardeners out there.