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.

Tom Tomato

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There is nothing better than a vine ripened tomato in the summer.  I have dreams of having some fresh tomato sandwiches with homemade bread, a few leaves of basil, mozzarella cheese, and sliced fresh tomatoes.  Unfortunately, Kristen hates tomatoes with a passion so I rarely get to partake in this delicious summer snack.  Last summer a student of mine brought me a small basket of cherry tomatoes that her mother grew.  I ate all of them before I made it home from work. 

So when Kristen thought it would be a good idea for us to grow a tomato plant on our balcony, you have to believe how shocked I was.  I have been so excited ever since.  I check on it 3 times a day constantly wondering if it needs more water.  I even have named the little guy - Tom Tomato.  Tom's pretty freakin' awesome!  I personally think it was a ploy for Kristen to get me more involved with the garden and growing plants.  It definitely worked!

EDITORIAL NOTE from Kristen: I'd just like to go on the record that John begged for the tomato plant like a kid in a checkout lane and he has yet to water it in the month we've had that stinky plant.

Tom has been growing like a weed and the teeny pot he was in was not helping his growth spurt.  We needed a much larger home for him.  We were walking through Goodwill today and found this pretty sweet Monday Night Football tin for only $1!  One man's trash is another man's treasure!  It is the perfect size for Tom and he has plenty of room to spread roots.

 
We punched 3 holes in the bottom of the tin for water drainage and then spray painted it a not-as-eye-catching green.

Now I know what you're saying.  Why would you guys want to paint over a piece of history.  I mean, this is a piece of Monday Night Football memorabilia.  I thought the same thing until I remembered that ESPN bought the rights and now Monday Night Football is only aired on cable television depriving millions of Americans of football on Mondays.  Cheap bastards, I will paint over you!

Anyways, I digress.  The new green pot looks lovely with the other pots and fits perfectly on our balcony.  I see many flowers starting to appear and I am very excited for tomatoes.

Do you have any good suggestions for the tomatoes?  I was just going to make a lot of sandwiches but I would love to hear some of your delicious ideas.

 - JOHN

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

Back from Vacation with Plant Results

There's nothing sweeter than coming home after a wonderful 11 day vacation.  I love walking in and hearing the familiar sounds, looking out the windows and seeing the familiar sights, and laying in my very own bed.  John and I had a fabulous time with his family in Maryland and some of my family in Virginia.  We went fishing, played games, ate amazing food, had late night chats, and greatly enjoyed being with our wonderful families.

Coming home I was nervous about our plants. Before leaving I set up a vacation watering system in our bathtub designed to keep the plants watered.  I was mostly worried about the fact that the bathroom has no access to natural light and our vegetables were sun loving fiends.  

At first glance everything looked pretty good...until I started pulling the plants out one by one and taking them outside for a better look.  We had some hardy survivors, mostly houseplants acclimated to less sunlight.  We also had some victims, mostly newer plants I had just planted or transplanted that lacked the root system necessary to survive a stressful 11 days. There wasn't a single plant that had dry soil, but several had grown mold from the wet, hot, and humid conditions in the dark bathroom.

Here are some basil I transplanted just a few days before leaving as well as some newly sprouted flowers that didn't make it through our vacation.

Established basil rocked the vacation watering system as did the thyme.

Our main focus was our vegetable garden. We were worried our vacation would ruin our dreams of homegrown carrots, bell peppers, and cayenne peppers. I'm not sure yet if the dreams are dashed.

The carrots are looking yellow and wilted from the lack of sunlight and one plant had some mold growing on it.

The bell peppers are looking a little stronger, but the tops of each plant are crispy.  When we left the plant was covered in white blooms which have all died away...I'm worried this means no bell peppers for us.

Our houseplants rocked the vacation, though, and all survived including this one.

We learned several lessons through this self-watering experiment.  First, when seed packets say the plant needs full sun, they cannot go 10 days in a dark bathroom.  If I were to do this again, I would remember to keep the bathroom light on for at least a hint of light for the plants and I may even try to decide if a particular plant would survive no water or no sunlight better.

I'd also turn the fan on in the bathroom and perhaps bring in small fan to keep the air moving. With all the water and the heat in our apartment, mold grew on the weaker plants.  Perhaps creating some air movement would help lesson the humidity and also cool down the plants a tad.

I wouldn't call our vacation watering system success, but with the amount of survival, especially considering we were gone for 11 days when the temperatures averaged 90 degrees, it was far from a fail.  If anyone has any advice on nursing our plants back to health, please share.  Also, if anyone knows if vegetable plants still produce vegetables after losing their blooms, I'd love to hear.

Vacation Watering System

Summer is a time for vacations and for that I love summer.  Summer vacations, however, tend to bring up a lot of obstacles when you're new to a city and don't have any friends to casually leave your house keys with and ask that they water your plants a few times while you're gone. We just left on a road trip to see family and we had almost forgotten about the fact that we didn't have any of those old amazing friends we were so lucky to rely on for help.

Just a day before the big road trip did I remember our balcony container garden as well as my very loved houseplants.  The heatwave we've been having for the last three weeks worried me about how our plants would survive for ten days without water. I immediately went to google for some suggestions and learned that almost everyone alive has close friends to ask (at least that's what all the suggestions were on the message boards to those few loners who had no trusted friends, like us).

I guess the saying is true - necessity is the mother of invention.  Sitting down with my thinking cap, I came up with two ideas. The first was to fill empty bottles with water, stick them in the plants and allow the water to slowly moisten the soil.  I came up with this while remembering those self-watering bulbs you can buy for $10-$15 at garden stores. I decided to try it out and soon realized that, unfortunately, my idea was flawed. The opening of the beer bottle was too large and the water drained into the soil within a couple hours. That would not work with our ten day vacation coming up - we needed something that would slowly ensure that our plants were hydrated for at least a week or so.

Enter idea number two: fill the bathtub with water and place the plants on top of something that would wick the water from the bathtub into their soil.  I have a large variety of pots and plants and therefore a garden with a large amount of varying water needs. Some of the plants get upset with too much water - so I couldn't just dunk them in the tub of water.  Some other of our plants fear dehydration and beg for water constantly - so I had to ensure they'd be kept moist.

I ended up gathering up our baking dishes and placing them upside down in the bath tub.  I filled the tub until the water was slightly above some of the smaller baking dishes and not quite covering the other larger baking dishes.

I then covered them with a towel, making sure to drape the towel into the water between the baking dishes. I knew the towel would wick the water up and stay moist.

I carefully arranged our plants in the bathtub, placing them on the towel-covered baking dishes. The plants that love water I placed on the lower baking dishes that were covered while the plants that enjoy some drying out were placed on the higher dishes that were not submerged in water.

I also have a couple pots that don't have holes in the bottom. For them, I watered the soil extremely well and placed them on the edge of the tub hoping that the extra humidity from the water-filled bathtub would help them a little.

I've been keeping my fingers crossed that my plants will survive our vacation.  After starting many of them from seeds and taking in dying plants from friends and nursing them back to health I would hate to come home to a plant-less house.  I'll keep you updated on how this watering system worked, but until then, perhaps you could cross your fingers for us too?

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.

A Tin Man in the Garden

As the thermometer has been inching up, I've been enjoying our balcony more and more! We've filled it with plants, a homemade bench, and a sassy chandelier and absolutely love eating meals and reading out there in the evenings.

I did go a little crazy in my seed planting (it was my first time planting seeds, after all) and my plants have grown out of control.  Hating to weed out (i.e. kill) some of the plants that are crowding my pots, I decided to just repot some of them.  Enter my need to find some new planters.  I'm sure you can guess that I upcycled some piece of household trash!

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After glancing around the house for containers of some kind, I happened upon the canned tomatoes I was using to make spaghetti sauce.

A light spray with some spray paint plus some punched holes in the bottom and voila!  Some pretty, upcycled, free pots that are now housing my out of control basil.

I'm loving these little pots and look forward to adding more as I need to.  Different foods and brands have different rib patterns and I think an entire container garden of mix-matched tin cans would be funky and fun.  How I wish I had thought of this before purchasing all these other pots!

Stay tuned for some shots of our balcony and entire garden tomorrow!

Apartment Gardening

Living in an apartment has some drawbacks when it comes to growing plants. In our last apartment we didn't have a balcony, but our abundant windows faced west and we were able to make due with small pots of herbs on our window sills.  This year we moved into an apartment that has a great balcony...of course the drawback this time is the northeastern direction it faces. I guess we can't win but we can make due because that's the mantra in apartment living.

We are excited to try growing a vegetable garden for the first time ever this year!  We started carrots, bell peppers, cayenne peppers, and lettuce out as seeds and they are all growing quite quickly!  In an effort to be green and stay on budget, I fashioned some seed pots out of toilet paper rolls. They worked really well and I loved being able to just peel the paper off easily when it came time to plant the seedlings in larger pots. I always struggle with breaking roots when I pull teeny seedlings out of pots.

DIY seed pots

I will definitely be using toilet paper rolls next year to start seeds! They worked wonderfully!

Lettuce

Our young lettuce when it was just starting to sprout....look at it now!

Our lettuce today

It's amazing how much more lettuce we find ourselves eating now that we have it growing on our balcony. I can't wait for the rest of the vegetables - we'll be the healthiest people ever.

Carrots

I'm worried that we have too many carrots in too tight of quarters...what do you think?

Peppers

I can't remember if these are cayenne or bell peppers. Guess it'll be a mystery!

Basil

Basil and I don't get along too well. Typically within a couple weeks of growing it it dies horrifically. I'll keep you updated on this little guy.

I can't wait until we get our balcony cleaned up and pretty...now if we could just do something about the excess firewood we have.  We do have one thing planned for some of it - stay tuned for a bench we are building with some leftover firewood!