No Guts, No Glory ... or, Repurposing Throwaways as Planters

I've still been busy starting more seeds, but since it was a cloudy and rainy day yesterday, I took some time to finally get the coleus and impatiens into their forever homes in the containers in front of the house.  I'm surprised they survived as good as they did in the tiny pots, especially since I bought the coleus on the 'scratch and dent' rack at Lowe's on sale.  Even being root bound, they look amazing.

Just prior to planting

I have a fire pit in the backyard, but since I never use it for its intended purpose, I took the 'guts' out of it, and put flowers in the remaining block structure instead.  The guts (the piece that looks like a giant wok) was rusted through in several places so I almost threw it out, but then had an a-ha moment and decided to put flowers in it too.  I planted the three different variations of coleus and impatiens in that and my old washtub, but it's the fire pit planter I'll share photos of today.

The parts that were rusted through were big enough that I knew it wouldn't keep the dirt from falling through, so I put a layer of weed cloth in it first.

Too hole-y to hold the dirt

Dirt in place

Now to decide what goes where

Results

Bit of color near the porch

It was chilly overnight, and temps are still going to be lower than normal for a couple of days, but they all survived ok, and look great this morning.  

I put a brick under each of the back legs to tilt it forward just a little, and I'm really happy with the way it looks so far.   I need to decide on mulch for a finishing touch, and since it's a shallow container, that should also help keep moisture in.  I tried not to crowd it too much in hopes that the roots would be able to spread out, if not down, so hopefully the plants will forgive me for, and tolerate, the lack of depth.

Keep an eye out for my post about the old wash tub.  I'm pretty pleased with that project too.

~ Marie Anne

It's in the Bag!

Tea bag, that is.

Four days ago I stuck one bean in a used black tea bag, and planted another in a green tea bag the following day.  As of this morning, the first one doesn't appear to be doing anything, but the later one has already busted free of the casing - green tea for the win!  I just moved that one to a small pot and I'm hopeful that I'll see a spot of green poking up from the dirt in a few days.

Tea bag nurseries ... green tea has nurtured its baby bean well

It's about time that I see some amount of success with these stupid bush beans.  I lost a few that I planted in little pots that never germinated, and a couple more in the paper towel that sprouted but got mold, but I have two coming up nicely in pots now, and I'm hopeful for the one I planted yesterday that did well in the paper towel.

Planted 9 and 6 days ago

We're expecting a storm to blow in soon, so none of us will enjoy Vitamin D therapy outside today.  I did get a nice walk in the sunshine yesterday, but I guess it'll be the treadmill in the gloomy garage today.  It's also time to start looking for bigger containers for my little garden.

~ Marie Anne

It's Bean a Trial

After several false starts, I finally had two little bean sprouts that broke soil yesterday afternoon ... hooray!   I don't know what was different about these two, but I'm hopeful that I can get a few more to follow their lead, as just two bush bean plants will hardly be worth the effort to keep them alive.  I also planted the single bean that didn't mold in the paper towel, so hopefully that'll pop up in the next couple of days, and I still have two beans sitting in teabags that I'm keeping an eye on, but see no signs of life there yet.

Two beans and a couple of tomato seedlings
(Click to enlarge)

It was a beautifully warm and sunny day, so I took advantage of it and put my little pots outside to enjoy some natural light.  Both the beans and tomato seedlings soaked up the warmth and reacted favorably.  One of the little tomato stalks had been looking a little droopy, but perked up nicely after some Vitamin D therapy, and by the time I brought them in late in the day, the beans were visibly taller in just that couple of hours.  They continued to do well overnight, and are both even stronger this morning.  It's supposed to be another hot one today, so they'll go back outside in a bit.

The five lettuce sprouts are still hanging on. Since they're a cooler weather plant, I haven't brought that pot inside at all, and it hasn't been cold enough overnight to bother them.  I'm hoping to keep it going through the summer by moving that pot around to where it won't scorch in the NC heat. I need to thin these out soon too; two of them are right on top of each other, and two others are also too close to grow to maturity where they are.  I'll probably yank two of them and see if this pot can hold three, at least until large enough to transplant safely.

Lettuce sprouts

If I decide to plant more lettuce, I'll probably do so in a bigger, light-colored pot where it will take a little longer for the soil to absorb the heat.  I don't know if it'll make any difference, but it sounds logical and won't hurt anything to try.

On today's agenda is to get a couple more tomato seeds and beans planted, and maybe I'll get the first cucumbers planted too.  The yard is badly in need of a haircut (me too!), but first I'm going to head out for a much needed walk, something else that I've been neglecting, before it gets too hot.

~ Marie Anne

Maybe It's Just Not Meant to Bean

I've mentioned a couple of times what's happening, or rather, NOT happening on with my beans.  So far I've planted three directly into soil, soaked one overnight first then put into soil, tucked four in a damp paper towel, and just yesterday decided to try one in a used teabag.  None of the four that are in the dirt have sprouted at all, and it's long past time for something to have happened there.

The paper towel beans finally started to break free of their casing yesterday, and I had intended to plant them today if I saw a little more progress this morning.  Well I just looked; there is definitely more progress, but not exactly the type that I was expecting.

The roots have popped out nicely, but the stupid things have mold on them!  Three of the beans have a small dark spot on them, so they will get tossed out.  I'm so disappointed.  I've never planted a bean that didn't come up and result in a plant, so all of this is very puzzling.  These beans are organic, so maybe they're more delicate, not having been treated with anything?  I dunno.  And I'm sure I've planted organic beans in the past, although I couldn't swear to it.

Moldy beans - who'da thunk it?

I'm going to try to salvage the last paper-towel bean and watch it for a day, and if it doesn't show any signs of mold, I'll pop it into some dirt and see if it'll do something productive.  I still have the one I put in a teabag yesterday, and I put another one in the bag from this morning's cup of tea, so I'm not giving up, but I'm honestly not sure what other methods I can try.

On a good note, when I checked on the lettuce seedlings last night, I thought I saw another popping up, and this morning I see that there are two new ones, making a total of five that germinated out of the six I planted.  I'd like to say that that made up for the crappy bean situation, but I'd be lying.  I'm still bummed.

Good germination rate on lettuce, 5 out of 6

My tomato seedlings are still doing ok, so if I could figure out how to grow bacon from seed, I could subsist on BLTs this summer.  Well, I could if I liked tomatoes, which I don't.

~ Marie Anne

Lettuce Talk Beans and Teabags

Quite a combination, don't you think?

For some reason, I'm having really bad luck with sprouting beans this year.  I planted three beans in little pots the same day I started my first tomatoes, and they still haven't sprouted.  The package said you could stimulate sprouting by soaking the beans overnight before planting, so I tried that a couple of days later.  Still nothing.  Beans are supposed to sprout anywhere, and they always have for me before, so I began to wonder if I had a bad batch.  I mean, anyone can grow beans, right?

A few days later, I decided to try the paper towel method of getting beans to germinate, something I had never done before.  I placed four beans in a saturated paper towel, and put that in a plastic container that I could cover.  It's been probably 3-4 days and I'm finally seeing one bean that looks like it's going to break out of it's casing.  Woo.  Hoo.

This morning as I went to put my recently brewed teabag into my compost container, I paused and thought a minute ... hadn't I read somewhere about starting seeds directly into a teabag?  A quick online search led me to many sources that said people do it all the time.  Ok, I'll give that a try too and see if I have better luck with my beans.  Maybe they need a jolt of caffeine.

I cut a slit in the teabag and tucked one bean inside, then put it in the same container as the others in the paper towel, watered it a bit, and put the lid back on.  Will keep you posted on how that works out.

Last week I planted some lettuce seeds in a pot, and I'm finally seeing sprouts this morning.  I planted in three areas, I think two seeds each.

The three little buggers that poked their heads out this morning give me a 50% germination rate so far, and I'm good with that, and there's still a chance others will show up soon.  I'm not sure I'll be able to keep lettuce going through the hot summer here in coastal NC, but I'm going to try.  As long as I keep it in pots, it'll be easier to move to a cooler location throughout the day.  Fresh lettuce on a tuna sandwich is a real treat, and I need to get my cucumbers planted so I can have salad too.

But that's a project for another day.

~ Marie Anne

Planting This-n-That

I'm supposed to be working on the front containers today, but I haven't fully given up on the frame/bottom of the washtub, so don't want to get that planted until I figure out what to do.  In the meantime, I had a couple of things that needed to be re-potted, so decided to get that out of the way first.

The sedum a friend gave me needed to go into a larger pot, so I tackled that first.  It was root-bound and STUCK in that little clay pot, and even watering it well wouldn't get it to budge.  After saturating it, I had to dig around the edges with a teaspoon to get it to loosen even a little to where I could yank it out.  Good thing it's a sturdy succulent ... a more fragile plant would have disintegrated.

This sucker was stuck in that little pot

Since this sedum (which I believe is Autumn Joy) does better in full sun, I don't think I'll put it in the containers in front of the house after all, as they only get late afternoon sun.  I settled it in a larger pot for now and we'll see how it goes, and maybe later I'll put it in the little circular flower bed in the middle of the front yard that does get sun pretty much all day.  Today it's enjoying the company of the flowers in my old fire pit in the back yard.

Next were tomato seedlings that have shot up out of their eggshell cribs.  I planted one of them by cracking the bottom of the shell and planting the whole thing in a pot where I could put it deeper and put soil higher up around the leggy stalk, like I explained in this other post.  I still haven't seen any true leaves on them yet, but they should be starting to show up soon.

The other egg had two seedlings in it, and it was a bit more challenging to get them both into a new pot.  They're still very fragile at this stage and I would have liked to have had them be a little stronger before potting up, but there was no room left in the shell to put more dirt around to strengthen them, so it needed to be done.  I managed to bust open the eggshell, but the two seedlings were so close together, I couldn't nudge them apart without damaging them both.  I set the tiny clump with both of them into the new soil, then added a little more around each of the stalks, gently moving them to opposite sides as I did so.  That seemed to work to separate them on the surface a bit, but the initial roots at the bottom are still right next to each other.  I'm hoping that as new, sturdier roots grow just under the new soil, that that will be enough to keep them safely separated until I transplant again later, even if the initial roots end up tangled.  Time will tell.

I also did a thing ... I cut two small pieces of strawberry from the grocery store and stuck it in some dirt.  I did some searching the other day and while most 'real' gardeners will tell you that planting a strawberry isn't a good way to grow new plants, there are many people who have done just that and ended up with nice strawberry plants, so who knows?  If I don't get anything from doing it, no big deal.  If I get one or a couple of strawberry plants that come up, I'll stick them in bucket - maybe a hanging basket that I have on hand - and see what happens.

Oh, while playing with the tomato seedlings, I had a visitor.  I was scooping soil from the bag into the pot when I saw a tiny flash of something wiggling.  It was a tail and it was moving to scoot deeper into the dirt.  Since I didn't want to plant a lizard in the pot, I dumped all of it it into a larger container to scoot him out of there.  A couple different types of lizards have always loved that particular spot alongside my house, even before I had my potting supplies there.

I knew I saw something shiny flashing

He buried himself good!

But I found him!  (and of course set him free)

I'm sure I'll be seeing him, or some of his family members, another day.

~ Marie Anne

Gardening Means Having to Be Flexible

I ended up visiting with a friend yesterday so I didn't get the goodies from Lowe's planted in the front containers yet.  We traded some plants and seeds, and I came home with a cute little sedum plant that I think will make a good addition to the containers, so I'm excited to get my hands back in the dirt today.

I did try to get the antique washtub situated in a good spot, but without much success.  Because of its age, it's no longer square or very sturdy, so getting it to sit well on solid ground has always been a challenge.  No matter how I maneuvered it, I was never able to get more than three of the legs to make contact, and that wasn't going to work.  I even dragged regular and landscaping bricks over there so the legs would be on something solid, but all of my efforts were for naught.  It doesn't help that the tub itself doesn't sit square on the base either, so even if I think the legs are sitting solidly enough, once I put the tub on, everything moves and I have to start over.

I finally threw in the towel and thought maybe I'd just set the tub itself on the ground without the base.  It's not what I want, but I guess that's what it's going to be if I want to use the tub at all.  I leaned it on a couple of bricks to get a bit of a tilt to it, but left it at that for the night and will play with it again today and see if I can come up with something a little more to my liking, and get the plants into their new homes.

Lonely washtub waiting to be filled

Plants waiting to get their roots in the dirt

I'm certainly not going to get rid of the base of the washtub, so I need to figure out what to do with that too.  Any ideas?

Lonely, naked base needs a new purpose

~ Marie Anne