In preparation for a sale in Kelowna during the annual garden tour, I’ve been planting sedum from plugs into cute little 2” pots, planting large pots and anything that stands still with succulent plants and painting lots of garden signs. I love making signs that resemble something you’d find in an
old western town, with distressed edges and weather worn as though it’s spent the last century hanging in a ghost town. My favorite ones are made out of old barn board, which is getting hard to find – now people realize its value, and don’t just give it to you for free. Luckily, HH (Helpful Hubby) is a carpenter and brings home lumber cut offs from his projects. I usually either use a sponge to paint the first coat, leaving some of the grain showing through, and then paint the sign with a contrasting colour, or sometimes two colours. Then I sand or use steel wool to distress it and make it look aged. After I’m satisfied with the way it looks, I’ll coat it with my favorite diamond hard finish in a spray can. Here are some of the signs that I’ve made, and some twiggy handled boxes. The tour is June 21, so I have about 6 weeks to prepare for it. I’m stoked!
Other projects in the recent past were to renovate a perennial bed to grow onions – I feel like I’m building the Victory Garden during World War 2! I kept most of the perennials, but now they’re squished together in another bed and will probably look just fine. I also planted four kinds of potatoes in my leaf pile – Yukon Gold, Sangre, Warba and Russet Burbank. It doesn’t look like much now, but if my calculations are right, I should get about 300 lbs of spuds! Wow! I also have peas and broad beans up and growing, lettuce and mesclun which was started in the greenhouse, and broccoli, spinach and cabbage planted out in a raised bed. I gave up on growing my own tomatoes from seed, but the basil and parsley is tiny, but healthy. That’s all still in the greenhouse, which despite a frost last night, stayed above freezing. Luckily, as I had, in an optimistic moment, moved all the non-hardy succulents in there!
old western town, with distressed edges and weather worn as though it’s spent the last century hanging in a ghost town. My favorite ones are made out of old barn board, which is getting hard to find – now people realize its value, and don’t just give it to you for free. Luckily, HH (Helpful Hubby) is a carpenter and brings home lumber cut offs from his projects. I usually either use a sponge to paint the first coat, leaving some of the grain showing through, and then paint the sign with a contrasting colour, or sometimes two colours. Then I sand or use steel wool to distress it and make it look aged. After I’m satisfied with the way it looks, I’ll coat it with my favorite diamond hard finish in a spray can. Here are some of the signs that I’ve made, and some twiggy handled boxes. The tour is June 21, so I have about 6 weeks to prepare for it. I’m stoked!
Other projects in the recent past were to renovate a perennial bed to grow onions – I feel like I’m building the Victory Garden during World War 2! I kept most of the perennials, but now they’re squished together in another bed and will probably look just fine. I also planted four kinds of potatoes in my leaf pile – Yukon Gold, Sangre, Warba and Russet Burbank. It doesn’t look like much now, but if my calculations are right, I should get about 300 lbs of spuds! Wow! I also have peas and broad beans up and growing, lettuce and mesclun which was started in the greenhouse, and broccoli, spinach and cabbage planted out in a raised bed. I gave up on growing my own tomatoes from seed, but the basil and parsley is tiny, but healthy. That’s all still in the greenhouse, which despite a frost last night, stayed above freezing. Luckily, as I had, in an optimistic moment, moved all the non-hardy succulents in there!
7 comments:
Nice planters! I like the look of the foliage with the brown of the shoes.
Neat ideas with the barn boards too, I never thought of doing something like that.
300 Lbs of potatoes is a lot of potatoes! Just think of all the yummy dishes you'll be making.
I love the shoe planters.
Hi Cinj, thanks for visiting! I love to find new uses for old junk, and those shoes and boots are now on their third life - first as HH working attire/dancing shoes, then as dog toys (yes, I know, bad idea!) and now as planters. The barn boards ideas come naturally, I just look at the grain and the pattern of the knots and defects and see what I want to do with it. Fun! And yes, I'm looking forward to having my own potatoes that I know don't have any pesticides or other garbage in them. Grand Forks farmers grow lots of spuds, but they grow them over and over in the same fields, so you know they have to be spraying and adding all kinds of horrible stuff to the ground. Yuk, takes all the joy out of it!
Aunt Debbi, thanks for your visit too. I'll be looking for more old boots at the thrift store to plant, as well as whatever else I can find - old enamal pots, clay planters, plastic bowls so I can make hypertufa....the list goes on!
LOVE the planted up shoes and weathered looking signs! We're just getting into veggie growing - bought the lumber for building raised beds yesterday! Hooray! As well as two gorgeous oak barrels we'll be converting to rain barrels. I'm very, very excited :)
Amy, glad to catch your eye, and it's so nice to inspire and excite your imagination! When you build your raised beds, I hope you're not using treated lumber - it contains arsenic and some other toxic chemicals which plants, people and animals shouldn't be in contact with. I like your idea of the rain barrels, I'm doing the same thing, but mine are only plastic or metal.
Lovely shoe-pots. Absolutely outstanding! I'm also a sucker for all the vintage signs and plaques, but am not as lucky as you in finding some, if any. It is a wonderful addition to any garden. My area also gets quite dry sometimes, but luckily we managed to restore an old grandpa's water well as the area is rich in water resources, and rarely dries out, so I can't describe the feeling of joy when strolling down the sun-scorched garden path with the hose & sprinkles up my sleeve ;-)
Viooljte, thanks for visiting! My signs are all handmade as I either could never find what I liked, or they were way too pricey. It's taken me a while to get good at it, some of my first attempts are laughable now. On one of my other posts http://bluefoxgarden.blogspot.com/2008/02/doors-and-signs.html
I went into more detail on the painting. It's all fun and games!
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