Talk with Martin

Lovely window boxes can up your curb appeal. Find out how to install one.

Which myths about wood stoves do you believe? Visit Three Woodstove Mythsto see.

Love using my griddle, here’s a blog to help you get started cooking with yours.

Now is the time to prepare your wood for your fireplace or wood stove in case you should need it this winter. So how does one chop wood exactly? Go here to find out: http://redhillgeneralstore.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-to-cut-firewood.html

Just sending out a congrats to my cousin Keith who is graduating from MSU.

I hope that you enjoyed every moment of it because now the real world starts.

Welcome to misery :)

LOL.

Just kidding.

Or am I???

Here’s to the memories of being kids, fishing trips, and spying on girls. Here’s to you deciding to go back to school, even after being out for several years, you deserved this second chance. Your life is beginning, make the best of it!

I wish that I had realized it was going to rain so much last week. I am mad at myself for wasting all that rain water that fell out of the sky over the past few days. I keep my rain barrels stored in my basement during the winter, so that the water won’t freeze in them and crack or warp them.

With the way the economy has been, my wife and I really want our vegetable garden to do well this coming year. Particularly, since I read an article that stated the USA’s food prices might skyrocket this coming summer and fall.

I worry about a drought affecting how well our garden does. A couple years ago I invested in 2 rain barrels and let me tell you what, they came in really handy last year. Another thing that some people do, I know my wife and I practice this if a drought season starts creeping up on us, is to save your bath and shower water and use it to water your garden. Then the water gets used twice and you help the environment by not dragging out the water hose when the water levels are already getting dangerously low.

I have also found that good mulch and/or compost can really help a garden retain its moisture. Which is handy during droughts or if you go on vacation and are not there to water your garden for a week or so. With mulch and compost your plants won’t die of thirst as quickly with a good moist compost on them. Not to mention that compost provides food for your plants and makes them grow so much better. I must brag on myself a little because my garden was definitely the envy of some of my neighbors last year. They could not figure out how my plants thrived so well during the dry season. If you want to know how to make compost I found a great Beginner’s Composting Blog Post.

So you can see how rain barrels really can help your garden, also being smart with bath, washing machine, shower, and dish water can go a long way in keeping your garden thoroughly nourished with H2O. Just don’t use the water if there are heavy chemicals in it. Like if you dyed your hair and rinsed it out in the shower, I wouldn’t recommend using that water on your plants. I haven’t tried it so it might not hurt, it just doesn’t seem to be a smart thing to do.

kileyrae:

new best friend.

The single serve coffee makers are the best. I have a keurig coffee maker, wonder how the mr. coffee compares???

Fashionably Green: The Urb Garden

fashionablygreen:

A vertical food garden for the urban gardener, by Industrial Design Graduate, Xavier Calluaud.

First, food scraps are places into the worm farm to produce liquid fertilizer. Water is then added to the fertilizer, and the liquid is pumped up to a holding tank by pressing down on a pedal….

Awesome little way to use food scraps, but another way is to use a compost bin made for keeping in your kitchen, either way, I think gardening wherever you are and composting to help that garden are great things!

ehmerapunjab:

Pesticide Sprayer (Punjab-India)

Interesting looking pesticide sprayer.

My wife and I were dejunking our basement this past weekend. Amazing how much junk and stuff has piled up down there. Although I can blame a lot of it on our parents. When we first moved in together, they decided to give us things that would help us in our new life together. AKA they were dejunking and wanted a place to put all that stuff. LOL.

A lot of the things that they gave to us really did help us out, however, the majority of it ended up in a dark and dreary corner of our basement and as my wife and I have continued to add to said pile it has become an unseemly monstrosity that needed to be taken care of.

Oddly enough, way back in the corner, we found these great old galvanized buckets and tubs. I think my father-in-law used these when he had a dairy farm (he now only raises beef cattle) as these buckets were pretty mucked up but in otherwise decent condition.

My wife has been reading a lot about container gardening, and she wants to try it with some of the flowers that she’s had trouble getting to thrive in the yard. So, naturally, I agreed to help her turn these tubs and buckets into containers that she can use for her flowers. I took them all out on the carport (we have a drain it, so it works for stuff like this) drug out my pump sprayer and blasted them all down with water to get most of the dirt, grime, and manure off of them. Then I turned the buckets over and drilled holes into the bottoms of them so that the water can drain out.

My wife ran to the local nursery to buy some soil while I worked on this project for her. She also bought some seedlings to add to the buckets. When she got back she had more than I had expected. Apparently she decided there were enough tubs to put on the back deck for a little herb garden. Which is fine with me as my wife is a wizard in the kitchen and herbs will only help in that category. Can’t wait to see what she cooks up this summer as the herbs get ready for use.