So I am so excited to get going on my new yard that I am trying to keep myself from going out and start digging in the snow.   Of course, that would be a little hard since the ground is frozen so, to keep myself from going crazy, I’ve been looking all over pinterest.

Well, I ran into this project that I know I am going to have to try!!! I had to sell my garden bench when we moved and this would be just too cute to replace it!! Now I know what I can do with some of the dumpster dived wood we’ve been collecting!  You can see how they did it here at studiogblog.com but I think it originally came from junkmarketstyle.com

-Tawra

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Using Leftover Tomatoes

If you have mounds of tomatoes you have just recently picked from the last of your garden, here is one more idea about what to do with them:

Vegetable Juice

Wash, core and puree the tomatoes in a blender. Add a little lemon juice, onion and celery to taste. This tomato puree makes a great vegetable juice to drink or to cook down and use as spaghetti sauce or pizza sauce, adding extra seasonings.

You can easily freeze tomato puree.

Ketchup Lids 

Ketchup lids get so nasty sometimes and are hard to wipe off. Save a lid from an empty bottle of ketchup and run it through the dishwasher. When the lid from the new one gets gooey, replace it with the clean old lid and then run it through the dishwasher so you always have a clean one handy.

Photo By: Luke Addison

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Saving Vegetable Seeds

From: Lora

If you grow green beans in your garden, leave some of the green beans pods on the plants toward the end of the growing season and just keep them there until they dry up. The seeds in these green bean pods will now be next year’s seeds to plant.

You may not get the exact same variety of green beans to grow but my dad and I have always had a wonderful new crop of fresh green beans from the previous years free seeds.

Just pick the dried up pods before the frost comes, continue to dry the pods indoors, separate the seeds from the pods and plant as usual for the following growing season.

Wintering Over Plants

From: Janet

My Mother always took pieces of her geraniums and planted them in pots in August, only bringing the pots in before we had our first frost. She over wintered these clippings in the basement, then transplanted them out into the garden the following spring, after the last frosts.

My Dad, trained Fuchsias into trees. He would take a Fuchsia and train it up and keep it trimmed so only the top part had leaves. He’d gently tie it to a stick that was as long as he wanted the trunk to be, and this was done in a movable pot.

Then, in the fall, it would come in the house and be kept in the basement until spring. It didn’t get a lot of light in the basement and it only received enough water to keep it alive. The following year, it went back outside.

From: Kootenay

Use mesh onion bags to store bulbs for the winter. The circulation will keep them from rotting.

Leaf Shredders

From: Donna

The best gardening investment I have ever made was to purchase and electric leaf shredder. The initial investment was a bit over a hundred dollars, but I live in a heavily wooded area and I have made mountains of leaf mulch to use everywhere. I usually have enough mulch just from cleaning out the leaves in flower bed areas, but if I need more I have a limitless supply from the woods. 

The shredded leaves are also put to work in my compost bin. Because they are already chopped up, they compost very quickly. I have had to buy replacement filaments, but now realize that I can make my own from the much less expensive rolls. I consider my shredded a wonderful investment.

If you often wonder where all of your money goes or if you need a more frugal mindset, check out Dig out Of Debt and learn more about how to keep more of your money.

Photo By: Chris Radcliff

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Save Money Harvesting Your Own Seeds

From: Christy

When you grow marigolds in your garden, make sure to break off the blossoms after they die off and save them in an empty coffee can. Cover it with a plastic lid with holes punched in it. The dead blossoms will continue to dry up and, the following season, you won’t have to buy marigold seeds or marigold plants. In the spring just take your supply of dried up marigold blossoms to the garden area where you want them to grow and simply rotate the dead blossoms between your fingers until they flake apart. Then just lightly cover the area with fine garden soil, water and watch your free marigold plants emerge.

Note from Jill:

You can do this with zinnias and other flowers too. A word of warning, though– Marigolds are beyond hearty and will often come up the next year without reseeding. Ask me how I know this as I pull up yet another marigold plant.

Photo By: Alan Levine

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Bean Philosophy – How the garden can cure your troubles!

Laurie put a cute saying on the blog and I didn’t want you all to miss it. She said her great grandma had a saying which went, "When you are tired of life and all of it’s scenes- go out into the garden and hide behind the beans."

I love it and it sure would beat hiding in the bathroom because my kids would always find me there. Once I tried hiding in a closet just to try something different and they told the dog to track me down. The silly dog actually found me. I didn’t think he had it in him. He surprised us all.

Even after my kids were grown and married, they still seemed to have an uncanny knack for finding me. I would go somewhere with a friend and they would track me down. My friend used to shake her head and wonder how they could do that.

It’s nice to be needed… I think… You have to love them anyway.

      -Jill

Photo By: feather

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