Cute container garden idea

Got this at the Little Italy Farmer’s Market on Saturday. The booth at the farmer’s market was called “Castaway Shell Garden.”

I’ve been wanting to buy some cactus or some sort of succulent plant but I’ve got so many seeds waiting to be germinated and potted.

Anyways this was an impulse buy and I thought it was a cute idea. Maybe when my wildflowers begin to germinate I’ll try to transfer to a shell

Tip: You can cut off off one of the buds and put it in another another pot. The bud roots itself in a new container and voila!

Update on gardening

So far we (me and the boyfriend) have been doing so much porch gardening. It seems like every week we’ve been buying new seeds or collecting new seeds. It started with only four seeds — basil, chives, cilantro, and green onion (note, need to redo the pictures…the link of the pictures seems to be broken 80% of the time).

The following week was wildflower seeds and blue bells.

The week after that was red chili peppers, spinach, red and green bell peppers, and persian buttercups.

Definitely been growing a lot more stuff. Here’s a picture of the persian buttercups bulb before I put it in a bag to germinate.

Dehydrated!

Here’s a picture of the bulb in a Ziploc bag with a wet paper towel after one hour.

Completely plump!

To try things out, I put a bulb directly int the soil just to compare but it seems like everything that has started in a plastic bag has germinated. I sure would like to try other things though.

In other news since my “backyard” is really a porch, I’ll design something to keep plants and vegetables together and NOT take up space in a 3 by 6 ft porch. I really am enjoying my urban garden experiment and I urge you to try to do the same.

Almost finished

Thank you Valspar Antiquing Glaze!

Also the paint I used was Glidden Duo in Deepest Aqua (can be found in Home Depot and Walmart). It made the perfect Tiffany Blue. They sell this color in a sample size.

Also I got the drawers from IKEA — the wood was untreated. Perfect for those who like to get a little be creative.

This one is before I put glaze.

Here are the “after” pics.

This part of my room is empty but I’m really happy to make thing happen. I guess my “to do something creative everyday” is really coming along. The paper underneath the drawer is actually liner paper. I should start cutting that out .

My finishing touch would be replacing those wood knobs for brass knobs and it would look complete.

My next upcoming project would be make a bookshelf for the empty living room.

Some good garlic bread

My boyfriend made some garlic spread for the garlic bread–it’s probably the best I’ve tried. Well better than me and the other times I’ve made garlic bread.

• Butter
• Garlic
• Garlic Salt
• Basil

Use amount to as much as desired

It went well with this pesto dish.

 

 

The sauce recipe is found in an older post. Did some modifications though like subbing PLAIN Greek yogurt instead of Parmigio-Reggiano Cheese and it tasted better.

Happy cooking!

All grown up!

Moved the cilantro, basil and chives to the bigger pots. Still waiting for the onions to get bigger.

In the meantime I want to grow more flowers.

Green Thumbs

So last year, Julie’s Christmas present was a garden. A while back she mentioned that she wanted to try growing her own vegetables. I wanted to make this a surprise but then I popped the question: “What kind of vegetables do you usually use?” This pretty much ruined the surprise. Me of all people should know since she frequently cooks for me. Shameful…

Anyway we decided to get: chives, cilantro, basil, and green onion. So far the project is going smoothly and it also has inspired her to grow some wild flowers. I also picked up another very unique plant that is known for eating bugs… the Venus Flytrap! I’m hoping it grows because I want to use it to ward off insects and birds if possible.

The cost for everything was pretty minimal. Less than $20. Includes the dirt, pot, seeds.

First step: getting the seeds to germinate. Here are some seeds that have been sitting for a week starting on 12/28/11 – 1/4/12

Here are some photos of some that we started a week prior to the picture above.

Basil at 2.5 weeks from 12/17/11 – 1/4/12

Green Onion 2.5 weeks from 12/17/11 – 1/4/12

Cilantro 2.5 weeks from 12/17/11 – 1/4/12

Chives 2.5 weeks from 12/17/11 – 1/4/12. The leaf is towards the bottom of the cup. You can kind of see it.

Present Day, about 20 mins ago….

These Chives were put into a cut up bottle to mimic a green house to protect it because its so small. We’re not sure if we can leave it outside yet.

Green Onions. Just like the Chives we kept these indoors to protect them.

You can definitely tell these are Cilantros.

Last but not least, Basil.

The wild flowers haven’t started blooming yet but pictures will be posted when they do. I hope the plants don’t get eaten by birds or other pests otherwise I would be sad =[. That Flytrap better work =p

Cool Blues

Here is one of many of my latest project.

I guess I want to do more DIY stuff and here it is. I’m even thinking of taking an interior design class — it’s free and I need to pay for the materials fee .

Here’s the inspiration:

(source)

Dang! Shipping alone is 85 dollars??!

Here’s my version so far…

I only bought a sample size of the blue paint. It was the perfect robin’s egg blue I was looking for .

Anyways I’m thinking of adding a little bit on contrast in the drawers, particularly with the knobs and the trim. Here’s some color schemes I was looking at.

all from design-seeds.com

from http://www.webexhibits.org

A little bit backlogged

Anyways here was New Years Weekend in LA. Me and my other half went to L.A. on Friday all the way until Sunday. It was a good weekend indeed–saw old friends, saw even older friends, and saw Elijah Wood and the mini-mart from Superbad.

Oh ya! We even met another celebrity, Lamb-Chop. She sure liked Khoi!

 

On New Years Eve we went to a comedy club (that was on my 101 things list).

Khoi even went on stage and met all the comedians!

And the night ended with some dessert and champagne.

Was a good ending to 2011 indeed!

New Years is overrated

Reading through Facebook news feeds on how 2011 “sucked” and expecting maybe 2012 would be better maybe consider this advice instead:

Why wait a whole year for this one day for hope and changes?

You’ve got everyday– 365 chances in the whole year to turn your life around. Instead of living up your year. Live up your days.

Cross one more thing on my list

Met a celebrity. Not sure which number it is, but I know it’s on the list.

Just saw Elijah Wood at Target.