♫ "I Am Free" - Newsboys ♫

What a beautiful sight! Ode to a plowed garden......

An injury had me flat out on the couch,

with ice bags a chillin'

t'was trapped in the house.

My knee was so swollen,

it looked like a melon!

With surgery pending

I was crazy and yellin'

"No garden for me in 2010"

Who knew a year later

I'd weep at the sight,

at a patch of tilled garden

and golden sunlight!

There's nothing like DIRT!

Beautifully tilled by  my dear husband John.

Cowboy Boots Planter

Cowboy Boots Rock!

I was looking for toddler sized cowboy boots because I was inspired by my  favorite blog

 "Prairie Woman" by Ree Drummond.

However, I only found these cute bulging cow eyes rain boots........

Then Mike my soon-to-be Son-in-Law gave me two pairs of his old work boots.......FABULOUS!

So how did I turn them into the cute planters that are now on my front porch? 

I'll show you....

Step One:   Remove any lining, padding or insoles out of the insides of the boots.  Any fabric will just get moldy. Yuck!

Step Two:   Use a drill gun and drill holes in the bottom of the boots.  Don't forget to drill in the heels.



Well, Mike's boots didn't need holes drilled in them!  He had already done that for me.  :)

Step Three:  fill the foot portion with gravel.  This adds weight so they don't knock over and it adds drainage.  Don't try to fill the entire boot with soil.  It won't be heavy enough at the bottom and it won't drain well enough.  Use marbles, or pea gravel, but not chat off your driveway....just trust me.

Step Four:  Drill holes in the plastic lids.  I used butter tub lids and gladware lids.  Whatever is handy to use and it flexible and drillable.



Step Five: push a lid into the boot on top of the gravel.  This will hold the soil and not let is dissolve into the bottom of the boot.  Just experiment and cut it to fit snug. 

Step Six: Fill it with quality, lightweight potting soil with fertilizer in it.  I actually used my own mix that I make myself so I added a bit of  slow release granular fertilizer. 

Last Step:  Add a plant or seeds......I'm cheap!  So I used seeds.  I will post pictures to show you their progress as they grow!  In Mike's boots I planted dwarf basil because it will make a 10 inch tall round bushy plant.  In the cow eye rain boots I planted chives because I wanted it to look like hair or grass sprouting out of the top!

This kind of planter will look great in that little where a round pot is just too boring!  I'm going to place the rain boot on my patio table and the cowboy boots by the back door or on the front steps.  They just add a bit of whimsy and reuse an item that would otherwise be tossed into the trash!  Besides they are cute!

If you give this a try...send me a picture....I would love to see it.

Do you know what this is???

Does anyone recognize this pretty blue can?

It's an old milk pail.  It was my grandmother Helen's.  I love it. 

Can't use it for real food anymore, so I use it for a very noble use......

Organic trash!  

My grandma called it the "chicken bucket"

but since I don't have chickens (yet)

I keep it on my kitchen counter so it's handy to dump stuff in.

I put the stuff would put in my compost pile. 

Coffee grounds,egss shells, veggie clippings,  

anything I can put in the compost! 

no dairy or meat scraps allowed!

More early Spring happenings.....

WHAT IN THE WORLD?????????

"Thank you"  to my soon-to-be son in law Mike for these old boots.  I went second hand shopping
for toddler sized cowboy boots and rain boots to make into cute little planters for my front porch.  No such items to be found.....but Mike gave me these and they will do just fine.........

I did find these cute rain boots at the Goodwill.  They have big blue bulging cow eyes!  LOL  Won't they look cute with something growing out of the top? 

Let me know what you think...what will annual type plant will look cute in these? 

Watch for this project in future blogs this weekend.........

What are the first signs of spring in your yard?

 In my yard I always want to know when to start that garden going?  I need to know when the frost will be over, when the ground is about 50 degrees and when it hits about 70 degrees.  I don't need it to be exact.  I'm old fashioned.  I watch the earth and let it tell me what's going on.   When the nights are around 40-50 degrees and the days turn sunny and warm, the chives and early blooming perenials start to show up.  That's when I know it's time to get things like seed potatoes, onion bulbs, and elephant garlic ready to go out.  I also plant cabbage, broc and cauliflower, lettuce and spinach seeds started in the house.  Of course I add a few bedding flowers to fill in the perennial beds as well. 

Russian Sage coming up.

chives coming up too...

It's Spring! All things being made new........

     Today is the first day of lots of things; spring (ok I'm off a few days), daylight savings, my garden planting and Bloom! the eBlog.  I have decided to blog mostly because I don't like blogging. Shocking, I know.  Then why do it? Why start a blog?  Especially since I consider blogging a strange picture of one person's narcicistic and ego centric mind.  With that said, I have also found my own blog reading and following a sort of unhealthy voyerism that has led me into many fits of techno rage, that did no good for myself or mankind.  

     However, the world being as it is,  full of wars and rumours of wars, I have had the need to find a peace and "shake the dust" off my feet in some cases.  In the process, I want to have a place to share the good things in my life.  So I offer my blog as a soft place to land and the location of a word or two of encouragement.  

     It's not all about me.....email me your pictures and share your thoughts and maybe I will post them on the blog.......