Embellish: gardening

5.09.2011

{free printables & tutorial} Garden Herb Sticks

I've had these wooden craft sticks laying around for quite sometime waiting for them to inspire me. This past week I finally decided to put them to use by making garden herb planter sticks.

{Please ignore my stubby thumbs. I was once told by a little girl at a camp I was working at that they were a Jewish trait called, "Oshinazi Thumbs." Not sure if I should believe her. Whether they're Jewish or not, they're stubby. I've grown to like them.}

Enough about my thumbs. Onto the sticks! Sometimes I get a little ambitious and pot too many herbs to keep track of. I find it difficult to tell the difference between thyme and oregano, so I created these HERB PRINTABLES to give me a hand. It also adds some color to your potted herbs. Living in New Mexico, the landscape here is mostly tints of browns so anything that adds a punch of color I'm all about. PLUS, if you have unique herbs planted in your garden those are sometimes hard to pick out.

4.22.2011

{tutorial} Upside-Down Hanging Tomato Plant

Have you seen these? They're ingenious!

I love the idea of an upside down hanging plant. I've been wanting to do this for awhile and bought the plants to do so about a week ago and then FORGOT completely about them and they died. So... while my mother-in-law was in town I decided to use her gardening expertise and hunker down and get 'er done!

Needed:

Hanging basket and mossy-like insert
Perlite
Potting soil
Plant food
Tomato plant yielding medium sized fruit
2 Basil plants (or any other herb you desire)
Shovel, hose, bucket, scissors or a knife & gloves
sunlight, water, love, patience, perseverance...yada yada yada

Okay, so first you'll need to take your handy scissors, knife or sharp edged shovel and make a slit in the bottom of the mossy-like insert.

Next, ever so kindly shove your tomato plant through the slit, plant-head first.

Now, I'm NOT and let me emphasize NOT like three more times...NOT NOT NOT an expert in gardening and have always killed my plants. Keep the kids alive first, then the dogs and if the plants are lucky they get fed. So I had to do some research online before I dove into this endeavor and I read that one would need to use Perlite. Perlite is a product that helps the plant retain moisture, which is needed in hanging plants with their roots being more exposed.

I (I should say "we", because my talented mother-in-law was there to hold my hand the entire way) mixed 3 parts potting soil to 1 part Perlite in a bucket before pouring it into the hanging basket.

Doesn't that plant look lonely and bare on top? I think so too! So onto the basil.

I dug out two holes and inserted the basil plants. I was a little worried that the two differing plants would compete for nutrients, but I read online that some plants actually do better together. However, because tomato plants soak up a lot of nutrients from the soil a good plant food is required in order for both to thrive.

All done! Now feed your plants. That's really a reminder to myself. My plant food requires that you mix 1 tablespoon of plant food to 1 gallon water, but make sure you read the directions on any plant food you buy. Oh and also make sure your plant receives approximately 6 hours of sunlight/day.