All Tied Up!

A few weeks (ok - maybe months) ago, I showed you one way to use those newspaper bags that you might get on your paper.  Where I live I still have a delivery person that brings my paper to a box and the weather is so up and down from rain, snow, sleet, sun and wind, sometimes all in one day!  So the paper company puts the paper in little plastic tubes.

I showed you before (see that blog here) that those tubes can be used to mark plants and keep birds out of beds by tying them on fencing or plant supports and letting them flutter a little - its scary for some of the animals and birds.  Some of them of course don't care.

I always struggle with the recycling part of the bagged newspaper - the paper part is easy to recycle but I often worry that those little bags dont actually make it to a recycle place and actually get recycled into something else.  I have always envisioned them making it to the ocean and wreaking all sorts of havoc with the animals and fish there.  So I found another use for them - and I had run out of Velcro!

First thing to do is cut the bag cross wise to make rings of plastic.  See photo below.

Once you have the rings you can use them as is or break them into strands of plastic and use them to tie up your tomatoes, cukes and anything else that needs a soft touch and a firm hold.

I tie them gently around the plants the same way you would using twine and whatnot.  The plastic has a second useful life and unlike twine, string, yarn and some of the other things it dries easily and doesnt seem to hold onto the dirt even.

If you need a longer piece of plastic, daisy chain them together the way you would rubber bands and you can make a full on rope out of them!

Because we are having a fantastic summer this year my greenhouse is growing amazingly well - I have to re check the plants about every other day and tie at least some of them up again.  To save me having to run all over the greenhouse back and forth to the bins, or from having to stuff a bunch of ties in my pocket, I used some of the bigger bags (Sunday paper), and filled them with the tie rounds, then tacked them up in strategic locations throughout the greenhouse so I always have at least a few ties on hand no matter where I am!

There is always a way to use even the smallest item and make it useful again, and may you always need more ties for your plants!  Grow on!

A Journey of Growth

The journey of growth starts with a seed - a seed can be for a plant or for an idea or inspiration.  Each and every one of us holds the power to make something grow for the good; be it through green plants, music, crafts or love.

I was recently inspired by this video that someone shared with me to just begin planting.  Plant those seeds, plant those trees, teach others how to do it as well!

 http://www.permaculture.co.uk/videos/planting-trees-india

We have been gardening now at Houston High school for about 3 years and we have developed some really great systems for growing and expanding what we have with very little, using innovative growing techniques.  For example we have taken our strawberry patch to new heights - actually we are in the process of taking it to new heights - by using a transplanting/runner growth technique that I got from my dad at Snowfire Gardens.

Our strawberry Hugelkulture produces a ton of berries, and it also makes plant runners that try to go all over the place!  So we started with a 3" deep flat that we filled with good growing medium.  We set them at the bottom of the hills of the hugelkulture bed and we trained the berry runners into the soil.

The runners take root in the flats and then you just snip them off and you can transplant them safely to the spot you want them!  It works slick as a whistle!

 In the above photo you can see we have two flats and you can see where the strawberry plants are growing well already - in the right side of the photo you can see the empty row that we need to fill with berry plants.  The flats will go right into the end of the row.  Next year when this row is full we can start a new row or have some plants to sell!  Win-Win!

This is a super simple way to plant that seed and begin a journey - even if the destination is just to have a full strawberry row!