How to Get Rid of Flies in Compost

We've got a bad case of the flies this year in our compost.  Here's a few things that are working for us:

- Turn more brown into the compost
- Add diatomaceous earth to top layer
- Boiling water over the top
- Top with leaves

Preparing for the Spring Garden

Our dollar store has seeds out!  I picked up veggie and wildflower seeds, and I'm preparing the beds with leaf and twig mulch, kitchen scraps, Starbucks used coffee grounds, and wood ash.

Pinning gardening ideas at Pinterest. Check it out here.

Our small pond sprung a leak, so I'm turning it into a veggie garden in the spring.  I've been prepping it with aquarium prunnings, leaves, sticks, and kitchen scraps. In the spring I'll add a few bags of soil.  Source.

 The idea of this layering method is from this book:  

Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding!

Cool Weather, Smores, and a Homemade Fire Pit

It finally cooled off and stopped raining, so we were able to build a fire in our homemade fire pit and make smores.

It's not as aesthetically pleasing as it was ten years ago, but it functions beautifully.

It's a pit lined and stacked with broken concrete from my neighbor's driveway demolition. I have a thrifted oven rack that I lay across for cooking outside, also a big outdoor thrifted roaster pan with lid.

We burn off found and salvaged fallen tree limbs, twigs, leaves, and paper recycling before we buy any new wood.

I burned off a lot of ivy on the bed behind it, so it's looking dismal. I'm thinking of adding some native berry bushes there instead.

Happy autumn to my northern hemisphere friends.

Hay for Natural Garden Fertilizer in the Fall

It's almost that time of year again. Time to cover your garden beds for the winter with hay, and you'll be ready to combat spring weed emergence, and the hay breaks down naturally for fertilizer.

Simply turn it into the soil in the spring, or make spaces between it for mature plants.

Save some money and check out Craigslist or other local used sales listings for hay. We usually get ours for half price or free from community organizations after they are done with bales used for hay rides in October.

Recycling Plastic Plant Containers

I just noticed that Lowes will recycle your discarded plastic plant containers. I always hated throwing those out when I purchased new plants. See here.

Seeds Have Sprouted!

A mix of wildflowers and vegetables - cucumber and green peppers. I used this bed as a kitchen compost heap and added used grounds from Starbucks in the winter, then  covered it with straw and leaves in late winter. Once spring came, new soil was added on top.  There are numerous of worms in there...good nutrient soil for plants.

Spring in my Garden: Perennial Mayapples and Dutchman's Breeches

Eggshells in the Garden

I crush up eggshells every morning and toss them into my garden to add calcium to the soil and deter slugs and snails.
Here are seven other things you can do with eggshells.

Vertical Garden Using Recycled Plastic Bottles

Directions are here. I am going to try this inside my the kitchen!

Vertical Garden: Over the Door Wire Rack Kitchen Garden

So clever! See here.

DIY Covered Raised Bed Greenhouse - Extend the Garden Season

Source

DIY Portable Greenhouse From Recyclables

See here for tutorial.

DIY Inexpensive Adirondack Chair Tutorial

See here.

Alternatives to a Grass Lawn

Our backyard has a good number of oak trees, which is wonderful during our hot summers, but means growing and maintaining a grass lawn is quite labor intensive. We gave up watering the lawn years ago, and now there are bald sections due to droughts. I decided to grow something green that would be helpful to the wildlife and be low maintenance. I chose white clover . I put down about a pound of the seed two weeks ago and already, with all the spring rain, it is coming up.

 There is also an "estate lawn" mix - grass and clover that looked interesting: Ecology Lawn Seed- 10# Low Grow- No Mowing

Free Food: Eat Your Weeds

Source: bhg.com viaAlexandra on Pinterest

Great photo identification slide show for "weeds". Identify them and then find out if they are edible. See here.  See here too.

Weeds have many vitamins and minerals, and they are free for the taking. See here: Five Healthiest Backyard Weeds.

   The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants

In the Garden

Broccoli! A volunteer found in the back of my garden. I've already cut off a few florets to eat.

Hugelkultur Low Irrigation Garden Progress

Working on my Hugelkultur garden today! I've been throwing composting material in it as well as leaves, twigs, and some rotting logs. I'm going to make a run to a Starbucks to see if I can get a bag of used coffee grounds before they throw them out. This makes the soil so rich!

DIY Seed Starter Window Insert Shelves

Source: manditremayne.blogspot.ro via Alexandra on Pinterest

See here.

Hugelkultur Low or No Irrigation Garden Beds

"Hugelkultur is a German term that roughly translates to “mound culture”. The hugelkultur gardening method has been used in Eastern Europe for centuries and is essentially a sheet-composting method that involves burying woody debris (logs, branches, sticks) and other organic matter under a mound of earth. This gardening method mimics nutrient cycling that occurs in nature. When trees and branches fall to the floor of a forest, they act like a sponge as they decay. That sponge-like property allows the wood to soak up rainfall and then release it slowly into the soil use by surrounding plants. Hugelkultur beds are designed to take advantage of this natural water-retention cycle – so much so that some gardeners who use this method claim they never water at all." Read more here.

Source: arcadia-farms.net via Jan La Claire on Pinterest

Planter on Wheels: Repurposing a Galvanized Tub

I love this idea. I'm going to try to make this for inside the house. Tutorial here.

Source: indulgy.com via Alexandra on Pinterest