Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid

Category Archives: Garden

Lessons Learned – Garden Variety

April 20, 2015 5:30 pm ⋅

Garden-CherokeePurple

This is the “Stuff” part of Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid. I promise I’ll get back to quilting just as soon as I get a few things planted. I already have a few “lessons learned” of the garden variety even though nothing is planted.  The tomato plant pictured above is one of them.

Read the plant tag not just the display box.

I thought I was buying a Red Beefsteak Heirloom and discovered this morning that I have a Cherokee Purple Heirloom. Oh, well.

Cut aeration and water holes BEFORE cutting the false bottom from the lid

garden-falsebottomI’m using larger 30 gallon tubs for some of my containers. The lid will be a false bottom sitting about 5-inches from the bottom as a water reservoir. There needs to be a couple of holes for the water wicking and lots of aeration hole drilled into the lid. I got excited and cut all three false bottoms from the container lids and now I have to figure out where to prop them while I drill the holes.

A little bit of spray paint can hide advertising

garden-buckets

It was my plan to pick up my 5 gallon buckets from Craigslist. But my timing was off. I found these at WM for only 58-cents more than the Craigslist bucket and I was already at WM.  Turns out these buckets are nearly the same color as our newly painted shutters and we have leftover paint.  So, no advertising.

shutters

Planting a garden is no different that other do-it-yourself projects — you will have to make multiple trips to the store

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Although I could fill my water reservoir via the overflow hole I’ve cut into the side of the bottom bucket, I’m going to make it easier on my back and add in a 1″ PVC pipe from the top. That means I need an 1-3/8 inch hole in the bottom of the top bucket for the pipe. Although I could probably do a rough cut, it will be faster and more importantly easier on my hands/wrists if I have a proper drill bit.  Also, the caulking I have to “glue” the wicking cup in the right place on the bottom bucket is dried up. So I’m off to the hardware store – again.

For at least this week it seems I’m limiting my quilting to after it gets dark.

Posted in: Garden

What’s On My Design Wall

April 20, 2015 6:28 am ⋅

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I’m sure this doesn’t look like I’ve gotten anything done this past week and there is some truth to that.  However, I did get the alternate blocks sorted out and they are sitting by my sewing table ready for me to stitch together.

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Each block was taken off the wall and laid out the way it is supposed to go together with  sheet of paper between them.  I hope this allows me to get the blocks back up on the wall in a short order. Of course it might be quicker if I actually sat at my sewing machine and sewed!

I’ve decided to attempt to do a bit of gardening this year to see if I can grow a few vegetables. This past week I spent much of my ‘quilting time’ reading up on container gardening and deciding what I wanted to attempt to grow.  Saturday I worked for a couple of hours in the morning, then started gathering my supplies.

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I’ve started working on my first container. This one will get one of the tomato plants. It’s beginning to look like many of our home improvement projects — with multiple trips to the hardware store.  I hope it’s just one more stop before I can actually start to plant. So far there have been three — if I you don’t count the ones where I was looking before I started to implement the project.

With any luck, I’ll be back to the sewing machine before the end of the week.  May 16th will be here before I know it.

See more quilting over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: designwall, Garden