Bits and Dabs

by Charlene Burgi

The quest to learn more about gardening always turns up bits of information that are then tucked into the “Garden Idea” file on my computer. These ideas stimulate the desire to copy, modify, build upon, write about or leave to vegetate.

The saved ideas come from garden magazines, commercial grower ads, farming magazines, blogs, catalogs—and now Pinterest. Alas, my two 22-year-old granddaughters decided I haven’t lived unless they signed me up for this website. I gingerly typed “gardens” in the search portion of the website, not knowing what I was getting into. The avalanche of ideas that tumbled forth thrilled me beyond words.

I immediately started copying these ideas into the “Garden Idea” folder and then learned I could create my own “board” on the website. I was like a little kid in a candy store. Jack groaned as he recognized the honey-do list on my desk growing by the minute.

Greenhouse January 2013

One idea I discovered was to place black garden hoses under the compost pile to warm the water with the heat generated by the decomposing matter. This seemed like a fabulous idea since I was trudging through snow carrying buckets to the greenhouse to water since the hose was frozen solid. This exercise really made me appreciate the instant gratification of turning on a faucet and getting water when and where we need it. (It also reminded me that I need to talk about protecting your outdoor water system with pipe insulation and backflow prevention device blankets—stay tuned.)

As I scanned through the pictures on the website, I also saw a great, inexpensive organizational tool created by nailing good pallets onto the side of the garden shed to store long-handled garden tools. In the same picture, I noticed straw bales randomly stacked alongside the garden shed. The offset bales made wonderful shelves for hand tools, buckets and pots. A shed roof of recycled material was built over the structure of straw to protect the contents beneath.

The ideas on this website extend far beyond gardening and are too numerous to detail. There is no cost to check out this site, with a few exceptions. One, the time lost finding exciting projects geared to sustainability and environmentally sound ideas. The second exception was viewing one of my granddaughter’s boards labeled, “Things grandma can make for me.”

Happy viewing and happy New Year!