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D.I.Y. Chalkboard Calendar

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A D.I.Y. chalkboard calendar is the perfect winter activity, and you probably have the materials lying around already!

With rain falling outside and breath forming indignant clouds inside, winter is not a time for us to slow down, we might just freeze where we sit! That is how I found myself up a ladder one wintry morning paint roller in hand… some people might call me spontaneous, perhaps our new housemate considered it impulsive. But in the end it was a triumph in transformation!

Our shed overflows with old paint cans, boring whites, charcoal leftover from some craft activity or other, tiling grout and random rollers galour! I don’t think this is an uncommon sight, it’s a crafter’s goldmine!

Link to my inspirations one, two, three.

ingredients

White interior paint
Black paint (interior or acrylic, any colour you like)
White tile grout
Masking tape
Containers with tight lids for mixing (1 per colour)
Spoon
Stick to stir paint
Small roller or paintbrushes
Old sheets to cover floor to prevent splashes
Paint roller tray, any shallow flat container will do

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Hover over to help shake the paint! 


method

That’s it, too easy! The only problem after I finished was realising I really didn’t have that perhaps my social life isn’t exciting enough to display at that scale!

  1. Cover floor with sheets and put masking tape on light switches, skirting boards and window jambs, anything you don’t want to get paint on.
  2. Masking tape the area you want for your chalkboard, I just did the whole wall because there was some unfortunate post party graffiti up there, you know the kind!
  3. Mix tile grout with white paint in a ratio of 1:8 (about 2 tablespoons for 1 cup of paint)
  4. I put both in a container with a tight lid and shake it like mad to mix it thoroughly.
  5. Pour this base coat into the tray and apply to the entire surface you want to cover with a roller.
  6. After this has dried layout your basic pattern in tape, as some lines will overlap you’ll have to do this in stages. If you are doing shades of grey like me you might want to layout all the white shapes first, then light grey and so on with black last. I didn’t do that, that was dumb!
  7. Mix colours/shades as for the base coat, just adding different ratios of black and white (or colour).
  8. If you don’t have many brushes start with lighter shades first and work your way up to black, to reduce time spent washing brushes between coats.
  9. Let it dry! Some people recommend sand papering it and conditioning by rubbing chalk over everything and wiping it off. I didn’t, I’m lazy that way!


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Marking triangle locations by dangling a weighted string to line up the triangles.


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Hover over to see before and after! 


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Garden

HOMEMADE NEWSPAPER POT MAKER

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newspaper-pot-seedlings

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high summer preparation
free, easy mulching solutions for the busy gardener to replenish nutrients in their soil and protect their plants form the hot weather.


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Recently I was asked by MINTI to do a workshop for their Harvest Festival on making newspaper pots for seedling propagation. It was obvious that not everyone has a lovely newspaper pot maker like myself, so I decided to make one. And guess what? It worked way better than the bought one!

Give rubbish new life! Learn how to make an eco pot!

WHEN TO USE MILK CARTONS

Newspaper pots aren’t good for all plants. They disintegrate very fast so not for plants that need a lot of time in the nursery. They also tend to collapse when you make them too big so not for larger plants like pumpkins, zucchini and eggplants. For those guys you might as well use a nice sturdy milk carton pot.

WHEN TO USE NEWSPAPER POTS

But that ability to disintegrate is why they are so great for the fast growing, quick to transplant seedlings. There is virtually no transplant stress and unlike with the milk carton it will completely disintegrate into the soil.
Try: lettuce, spinach, tatsoi, mustard, dandelion, amaranth, silverbeet, coriander, mizuna

If it fruits then it’s bigger and prefers hot weather, if it leafs then it’s faster and newspaper’s the answer.

INGREDIENTS:

1 glass jar around 6cm diameter and 12cm+ high
3 jar lids 6cm, 5cm and 3.5cm so they fit inside one another
Blu-tack or glass/metal glue
Electrical tape
Newspaper
Scissors


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POT MAKER METHOD:

 
1Blu-tack the smallest lid inside the biggest. This should leave a groove big enough for the middle lid to fit into loosely.

2Tape these to the bottom of the jar with the bottom facing out.

NEWSPAPER POTS METHOD:

 
3Take your sheet of newspaper. I find a double thickness 42x20cm rectangle to be optimal. That is a broadsheet folded in half and cut into thirds along the long edge, or two tabloid pages cut into thirds. I like to fold over the top edge to strengthen it.

4Roll the paper around the jar with 6cm extending over the bottom. Fold this into the centre.

5Place the remaining jar lid on a stable surface bottom facing up. Then seal your pot by placing the jar on top and pressing down firmly. It’s that simple! No need to pay $20!

I make my pots 6cm because that is the size hole my bulb planter makes, I just dig a hole, lift out the soil and drop the pot in, so easy!

My pots end up being around 6cm diameter x 12cm high and can hold up 2 months before needing to be planted.


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Garden

double-decker poly wicking bed.

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tomato experiment preparation




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Whenever I passed the Queen Victoria Market there was always a mound of polystyrene broccoli boxes so impressively high that it reassembled a hot weather igloo palace. It was kind of sickening and ever the innovator the powers that be came up with a solution to this spectacle pointless waste – hide them out the back and crush them out of sight and out of mind.

I could only reduce those insatiable mountains of foam by 20 boxes, but if you feel inspired to make a double-decker wicking bed too too dear reader, perhaps we can get something started! I have a concrete driveway beginning to be filled with poly wicking beds for my tomato experiment.

Tomorrow we’ll work our way up to lofty heights of Everest, today let’s start local!

WHY A WICKING BED?

On those exhaustingly hot weeks you just don’t want to find yourself hose in hand every night after a long day in the office with mosquitoes buzzing around your ankles.

Wicking beds have a water reservoir at the bottom so you have to water less often – about every two weeks. The water is down deep so it encourages deep roots, so stronger plants, more resilient to a bit of sunburn. They offer a more constant water source too, so in theory it should be perfect for things like tomatoes that split and carry on if their water supply is erratic.

WHY POLY BOXES?

There is so much embodied energy and money that goes into making a regular wicking bed, what with the pond liner, the brand new poly pipe, agi pipe, shadecloth, etc, it doesn’t seem the right fit for the home garden. A poly wicking bed however is entirely made of unwanted materials, so you can feel smug while you make it! Ha!

WHY DOUBLE-DECKER?

I’ve seen single poly wicking beds before, but I wanted to make them for deep rooted plants like tomatoes, so why not simply make them stackable?






INGREDIENTS & METHOD:

1LEVEL GROUND – a level surface allows water to be evenly distributed. Concrete driveways and paved areas often have a slight fall to them which could lead to water pooling down one end. Cans and pots of varying height can be used to elevate the boxes off the ground and create a more level base. A builder’s level is accurate but unnecessary, you can simply fill the container with a little water and see if evenly covers the bottom or pools at one end.

2SEALED CONTAINER – no plastic pond liner or staple guns required, a broccoli box has no holes and is well insulated against temperature extremes. I simply snap the top lip off and place it on the can/pot base.

3WATER DISTRIBUTION – another chance to raid the recycle bin. 7x600mL bottles with their bottoms cut off instead of the usual PVC and agi pipes. Wide mouthed ones are best because a standard hose can fit in the top, but otherwise just cut the tops off. On such a small scale, the gaps between the three bottles laid on the bottom will be enough to ensure even water throughout the reservoir. The remaining four stacked will allow you to deliver water right to the bottom of the wicking bed.

4WATER RESERVOIR – no more than 30cm deep to avoid stagnant water. Can be filled with scoria, gravel, broken terracotta pots…anything that allows big pockets of water between and can become saturated to encourage the wicking/capillary action up into the soil above. Nothing too fine as it will clog the plastic bottles. Fill with water to level out the scoria, then use a sharp stick to make 1 or 2 holes at the opposite end to the filling end. These act as overflows to prevent flooding when it rains.

5SOIL SEPARATION – something to prevent the soil from getting into the resevoir, but that allows water to wick through. Hessian or old sheets can be used, they will eventually need to be replaced, but in such a small wicking bed that’s no big deal. Use shadecloth if you are looking for something more permanent. Fold the hessian up the edges of the bed so no dirt gets through and so it is easy to remove should you want to take the wicking bed apart.

6NUTRIENT STORE* – high nitrogen poultry manure mixed with high carbon straw or dried leaves will make a most delightful reward for plants that grows nice deep roots. Then fill this to the brim with homemade potting mix.

72ND STOREY – cut the bottom out of the second broccoli box leaving a lip for it to sit on the one below. Fun fact: in a moment of despondency when my scissors broke in two I found that a half scissor works a treat at sawing through polystyrene, don’t throw them away!

8PLANT POCKET/SUPPORTS – As I have mentioned before it is best to prepare any garden bed at least 2 week to a month before you plant out plants that hate transplant to avoid soil settling crushing delicate roots . That is why I made a cardboard mould the size of my plastic bottle greenhouse so I can fill the wicking bed with soil and get the companion plants established before the tomatoes are ready to plant out. It is then as simple as pulling out the mould and slipping the tomato in the hole. Add stakes/supports now to avoid disturbing roots later.

8POTTING MIX – fill in the gaps with potting mix, plant some companions plants and mulch thickly. Voila, now it’s ready to plant out your tomatoes when the temperature reaches a consistent 10C+.

*TOMATO FACTS
Although tomatoes love nutrient rich soil do not spoil your tomatoes by over fertilising the soil with high nitrogen manures! They will become brattish – soft and lazy, shallow rooted plants that appear green and lush but require constant watering and attention susceptible to disease with thin skinned tomatoes prone to rot.
Additional nutrients should be delivered in the form of compost/seaweed teas ONLY once a plant has already started fruiting to extend cropping and overall yield. An even better idea is to bury poultry manure out of reach 20-30cm nearby or under your plants so their roots will access it only when they have grown deep and their fruit is ripening.





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Garden

THE TOMATO EXPERIMENT – HOW TO MAKE A PLASTIC BOTTLE GREENHOUSE

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Watercolour design for a re-used plastic bottle greenhouse/pot for seedlings

Watercolour design for a re-used plastic bottle greenhouse/pot for seedlings

It begins…

with your overflowing recycling bin and a sigh of shame that you are not doing enough to be sustainable. But be warned what begins as a wholesome notion to re-use can quickly escalate and before you know it you’re that crazy lady

looking at the neighbours’ bins with a twitching desire to rummage through them for treasures.
It’s best to dial it back a notch at this point and stick to finding alternate job descriptions for your own rubbish, we can’t all be Tiffany Sedaris.
And besides when you have five housemates you have plenty of material to keep you busy.
The youngest drinks at least one 3L plastic bottle of orange juice a week, two if there are no bottles of coke in the fridge, that’s over 52 binned a year!
They might be recycled into the latest in green bag technology or a jazzy promotional hat, but I’m sure that comes at a huge energy cost. It seemed like a waste, so I started thinking about what else I could do with them…



 
 

Empty plastic orange juice bottle
Cutting bottom off plastic bottle
 
Plastic juice bottle pots with bottle water tray

 
 

Watercolour design for a re-used plastic bottle greenhouse/pot for seedlings
Autumn came and it brought with it a slimy army of snowpea killers! I sliced the bottom off the juice bottle and dug it into the soil to became an impenetrable snail guard. The peas climbed upwards and their salvation became their prison as they clawed at the closed bottle lid. I set them free with a twist and the snails savaged them with a crunch.
I retaliated, slicing the top off the bottle as well and added another, then another bottle, stacking them to form a tower, the peas grew tall and strong and when they were released the snails turned up their nose at the strong tough stems and didn’t think to crawl upwards to the tender shoots.
The weather cooled and the bottles doubled as greenhouse to encourage young lettuces to be sweet while their unbottled neighbours grew world weary and bitter.
And now we come to the current day, the weather has mellowed and soon I will need to start planting my tomato seeds and I thought…

tomatoes despise being transplanted almost as much as they hate the cold, dry soil and wet feet!

Coupled with a general lazy attitude toward fiddly potting on, the bottle greenhouse was born!



 
 

Cutting bottom off plastic bottle
 
Plastic juice bottle pots with bottle water tray
Plastic juice bottle pots with bottle water tray



 
 
Juice Bottle Greenhouse

Now we finally come to my experiment (Don’t you hate it when people take ages to get to the point? Ha!).

The “pot”

is a bottle with the top and bottom removed and is filled 3/4 with potting soil, then a piece of damp newspaper and 1/4 of seed raising mix. After this has settles the seeds are planted in the top in the more friable, low nutrient soil, when the roots are large enough to break through the thin paper they get a boost from the more nutrient rich potting soil.

A half bottle cut length wise is

the water “tray”

at the base. The “pot” is placed in the “tray” before it is filled which prevents the soil from falling out. Then from the top the soil is well watered until the water pools in the tray. While the seed settles the soil moisture levels will stabilise so it is neither too dry or too wet, if it is hot additional water may have to be added to the tray before planting. When the seeds go in the top should be gently misted and the tray filled with water.

The seeds won’t be washed away by overenthusiastic water spray and the water in the tray will slowly wick up through the soil to the developing seedling’s roots as it needs it.
Even it hotter weather the tray doesn’t have to be filled everyday so you are free to leave your nursery for a long weekend beach break without coming home to crispy reminders of what could have been. It will also encourage deep roots, which are preperable as shallow roots are more likely to dry out when planted in the garden.
A bottomless bottle acts as

the “greenhouse”

in cooler weather it keeps heat in and as it warms up it prevents too much moisture loss. Ventilation is important as the soil can get mouldy so the top can be left off. If pests are a problem the lid can be left on and small ventilation holes pierced around the bottle neck, too small for a slug.
When it comes time to transplant the “pot” can be gently buried, the roots undisturbed grow out the bottom into the soil with no transplant shock. The tomato experiment? More about that soon…


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