This lovely little candle holder was given to me by a little friend last December. I’ve been planning to write about it ever since. This candle is holder is a great weekend gardening project you can do with your kids.

You will need:

craft glue
an assortment of seeds, beans, dried corn, etc.
an old muffin tin (one you don’t plan to use again for baking
tealight

In a plastic bowl, combine the seeds and beans. Gradually add some craft glue and stir the mixture until the glue evenly coats all the pieces. Transfer mixture to a muffin tin and press lightly so that the mixture takes on the shape of the tin.

Take a tealight and press into the surface of the seedy blob until you’ve made an indentation the same size as the tealight. Allow to dry.  White craft glue usually dries clear.

Pop the candle holder out of the muffin tin. You’re done!

This little candle looks pretty in any room of your house, and makes the perfect gift for the gardeners in your life.

Earlier this spring I took the plunge and joined an organization called Seeds of Diversity. Seeds of Diversity is Canada’s answer to the growing need for preservation of heritage varieties of annual and perennial flower and vegetable seeds. According to the Seeds of Diversity website,

Seeds of Diversity is a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to the conservation, documentation and use of public-domain non-hybrid plants of Canadian significance. Our 1400 members from coast to coast are gardeners, farmers, teachers, scientists, agricultural historians, researchers and seed vendors. Together we grow, propagate and distribute over 1900 varieties of vegetables, fruit, grains, flowers and herbs. We are a living gene bank.

Because it was a little bit late in the season when I joined, I had limited time in which to request any seeds of my fellow members. I was super-excited to learn that some members even accept Canadian Tire money in exchange for seeds. (For my American readers, Canadian Tire money is sort of like a shoppers reward points system for one of our major retail outlets. Instead of loading up a plastic card, Canadian Tire gives its customers paper money which they can then spend at any Canadian Tire store.) We always have Canadian Tire money hanging around the house in desk drawers, bedside tables, kitchen counters…it’s all over the place.

I decided that I didn’t want to put my membership to waste this year (most of the members place a deadline for seed requests up until May 1), so I requested Dragon’s Tongue beans from a fellow member, paying with $3.00 in Canadian Tire money. The payment for seeds covers the cost of the postage for the giver of the seeds, plus a little extra for their trouble.

My Dragon’s Tongue bean seeds arrived in the mail yesterday, with a lovely, but brief handwritten note from the member who had given me the seeds. When they’re all grown up and producing, the beans will look like this:

Today my husband Graham and I (well, mostly Graham) installed our rain barrels, which we purchased at a local shop called Envirosponsible.

Graham went to the hardware store and bought four concrete blocks to sit the barrels on top of. They would be fine on the ground, but raising them up a bit makes it easier to use the tap at the base, and allows space for setting a watering can down beneath and filling it up. He also picked up a couple of ready-made plastic downspout extensions. These are usually used to extend the downspout or to direct water away from your foundation. In our case, they’re going to direct water into our rain barrels.

First Graham cut some of the length from the downspout. He placed the barrel nearby to get a rough idea where he should cut.

Next I leveled out the ground beneath the downspout (I had moved a perennial plant out of the way while he was at the hardware store), and then Graham placed the heavy concrete blocks in place.

Then we positioned the barrel on top of the blocks.

You’ll notice that the blocks were too close to the foundation, so we had to adjust their positioning a little bit.

Next Graham placed the downspout extension over the piece of downspout at the side of the house. If he looks a little annoyed, it’s because he really wants me to put down the damn camera and give him a hand, already.

Graham then cut a hole in the lid of the barrel to fit the end of the fitted downspout piece into the barrel itself. He did this with a utility knife with a curved blade, but a jigsaw would work, too.

Ta-daaaa! Done. The rain barrel was installed.

And, as if on cue, the rain started to fall…

At the back of our yard against the fence, six old apple crates are stacked up like shelves. My mom has owned about twenty of these crates for ten years or so. Well, she probably doesn’t have that many anymore, but I think she might have ten or twelve. A farmer sold them to her for some obscenely cheap amount, like a dollar each. Many of them had lids, too. She used them for a long time to store all kinds of things, in lieu of an indoor storage unit. For awhile I used one as an end table. It went perfectly with the rest of my university-era furniture.

When my mom moved in with us in May, she brought along several of these crates to store her gardening supplies. They sat at the side of our house all closed up until recently, when she moved them down to the back of our yard, near the compost pile and closer to her garden. They look really great back there, and will be perfect for storing her pots, shovels and other gardening things.

What gardening storage solutions have you devised?

Back on May 4th, I wrote about moving my clematis from a full-sun bed in the middle of my yard to the side of the house near my potting up and work area.

I thought you might like to see how it’s doing now.

May 4:

June 13:

There are some lobelia and coleus planted at the base.

All spring I’ve been eying a clump of mature perennials (read: needs dividing) that has been situated in the newly expanded vegetable garden. I’ve been meaning to move them into the new perennial border. I’ve sat on the deck, pondering where to put them. Gearing up, so to speak, to move those suckers. “I’ll get around to it,” I told myself. First I wanted to wait until the columbine was finished blooming, because it really is spectacular, and I didn’t want to cut that bloom time short. Then my allergies became the prominent excuse. I think this out-of-place clump of perennials is why I’ve been straggling to get my peppers and eggplants actually planted. Those perennials were standing in the way of my vegetable garden vision. Not that having flowers in a vegetable garden is by any means “wrong”…in fact, I have marigolds edging the tomatoes and a big clump of ajuga sits at one end of the vegetable patch. Nasturtiums and scented marigolds will likely feature as well. And I’m not moving that poppy that has unexpectedly laid claim to another corner. I just knew I didn’t want that clump there anymore.

Finally, this morning, the urge struck me, as I knew all along it would, and I got them moved. The day lilies put up a valiant struggle, but in the end, the Gardener Prevailed. Even now, as I type this, sweat rolls down my back, there’s grit in my teeth (patooey) and a fine coat of dust covers my arms. But I’m happy, proud, victorious as I stand and admire my handy work. The border is filling in. Now I can properly envision and plant out the rest of the vegetables.

Back out I go. (Hi ho, hi ho.)

Over the long weekend Graham and I got a considerable amount of work done in the back yard. Too many little things were done to itemize here. Instead, enjoy these photos of our progress thus far.

Ever since I worked a brief stint at a garden centre, I’ve been a lot more confident putting together annuals in containers. I like to combine different varieties in my pots and hanging baskets, and much prefer making my own to paying too much for a basket that’s chock full of one kind of plant. Hanging baskets with more than one variety are usually WAY overpriced, up to $40 and over. It’s more fun to create my own.

This year I bought a whole bunch of different annuals, mostly in purples and deep reds (I even got some morning glories called “Scarlet O’Hara”). Last night I potted up hanging baskets for the front porch, kitchen door, the fence outside the kitchen door, and a few little pots for the back of the yard, where E.T. hangs out.

The first weekend of real spring weather is upon us! It’s the time of year when you really start thinking about garden projects. I’ve begun to collect large coffee cans again, and I thought I’d remind you of a great little project I wrote about last spring. This project provides a colourful way to recycle your coffee cans and bring some character to your outdoor (or indoor) gardening space.

Coffee Can Project