After spending almost a decade in the event decorating industry I have repetatively heard "I can do that". Instead of being dismissed by creative minded people, I want to show you how I do "that" so you can be sucessful in recreating that inspiration image. I just might have a few tricks that you haven't seen yet!
The one thing that I appreciated from my childhood was just how many skills I learned from my parents; cooking, gardening, home repairs, auto repairs, and so much more. Part of this appreciation is seeing how many of these skills have become less and less commonplace in the younger generations. And it’s so promising to see a growing number of people seeking to learn these skills now.
Today I wanted to share a monthly experience that we have with our kids. Craft days!
I’m aware of three box stores in my local area that offer a free craft to kids; Home Depot, Lowes, and Joann Fabric. None of these stores are sponsoring this blog nor have they compensated me for this post. I mention them by name for the sake of helping out fellow parents who are looking to foster these skills in their kids or grand kids. They are free, which is perfect for families who don’t have the budget to purchase supplies.
Here’s what the corn hole craft project looked at the beginning of our morning.
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We’ve been doing these hardware store crafts for five years now. And as long as the days get with small children, the time really flies by and they pick up the skills of using a hammer and screw driver too quickly.
This miniature corn hole craft was the first one where I sat down with my youngest and purposely focused on just being support. (The older kids decided they wanted to fly solo–time goes by too quickly where you’re sidelined on these crafts!).
My solo crafters wanting to build with no help.
Instead of telling my youngest how to build, I had him pull out the pictograph directions and tell me what we were doing for steps. I was just there to hold pieces for him while he built away.
My one and only job for the day, hold the project in place.
This is the child that loves having things in a certain order and done a particular way. But it was fun watching him process the building information and doing it the way that he saw makes sense. But what was a good surprise was seeing him use the claw end of the hammer when the nail wasn’t lined up the way he wanted it. He didn’t want to make corrections the way that I would. He wanted to fix the error his way.
This reminds me of a series of lessons from a virtual life skills summer camp that I watched with my kiddos this past month. This was a series teaching basic home electrical repair skills to teens. I watched it to learn for myself because this was one skill that I didn’t learn from my dad, but there’s times where my husband is so busy that I could do these things home repairs without waiting for his schedule to slow down for him to do it.
What’s amazing about whole families learning new skills is that we’re not dependent on one person taking care of a honey-do list. We’re enables to work as a team to get something done.
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For example, even though my oldest is still in early elementary, he’s able to take care of nail and screw projects. I learned some new electrical skills to help my husband out. And my husband has been learning new food preservation skills to help in the kitchen.
For our family, it’s important to learn new skills and “cross train” because it creates value in our family. One person isn’t dumped on and obligated to do certain tasks by themselves. This can be overwhelming, especially as the adults in the house, because we’re constantly juggling our schedules and to do lists. Sometimes surprise tasks just become overwhelming because there’s not enough time in the day.
But when another family member knows how to do a task alongside you, it turns into a quality time moment instead of a stressed out I-don’t-have-time-for-this.
I don’t know about anyone else’s family, but my kids are already at the age where they want to feel valued and appreciated. And by giving them fix-it skills, it’s one thing where my kids can do something for my husband or I, feel accomplished, and then feel valued with a “thank you” and “you did a good job”.
And it’s not just with tools. The kids have been learning how to cook things on their own and they’re so proud of being able to cook breakfast for the family.
It doesn’t matter the age, people thrive on feeling appreciated and knowing that they contributed something. And that value isn’t taking into consideration the memories that are made in the process.
One of my favorite memories of working on cars with my dad was when he had me crawl under a car and do an oil change with only him available to talk me through the process. It was the late 80’s and one of the biggest fads for girls was wearing press on nails.
It was when I was removing the last bolt that two of my nails popped off and landed in the oil pan just as the oil gushed out. I started freaking out. My dad thought I had lost the bolt in the pan. He and my uncle started laughing their butts off when they found out that I was looking for my nails!
Let’s just say that after I fished the nails out of the oil that it didn’t take me long to realize that there was no way I was going to be able to salvage them.
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There’s nothing in the world that would exchange for the memories that I have with working on cars with my dad. Nothing goes right all the time. And it’s these memories that bring patience when I’m working on skills with my boys. Things will go wrong. Some of those things will be hilarious. And it may only be these funny memories that they remember for the rest of their lives. But that’s okay.
I know that they don’t remember the times they’ve hit my fingers with a hammer. They won’t remember the frustration of first learning how to press down on a screw driver and turning at the same time, all just to get that screw to go down into a project. But their muscle memory will live on forever as they grow to learn more skills, such as home electrical repair, car repairs, garden building projects, making meals, and so many other valuable life skills.
What they will remember forever is that their mom and dad believed in them that they could make something. When frustration sets in, they know they can problem solve their way out of it because they were believed in. But above all they will take on the new challenge of learning something new because their parents continue to learn new skills.
We’re never too young to learn a new skill. Neither are we too old.
Maybe one day soon, they will learn a new skill. And as they show us, my husband or I will learn that new skill because they want to teach us something.
So whether you have kids or grand kids or not, learning a new skill is ageless. It’s a great memory building moment to teach the young (even teens) a new to them skill.
And it’s never too late to learn a new skill for yourself.
What new skill are you ready to learn now or pass on to the next generation?
More and more people are moving to containers for growing their home gardens. So what do you do when you get sticker shock over the container prices online or in the box stores?
You build one!
Everyone talks about pallet projects. But I want to introduce you to crate raised beds.
My husband works for a company that builds machinery. The crates that are used there are tossed. Being resourceful and having access to free crates to reuse and repurpose, this is the way I build the majority of my container garden. This also has the added bonus of solving my time problem. I have so much on my plate, that building raised beds from scratch isn’t an option.
AND if you know how to use a pair of scissors and a staple gun, you can absolutely make this garden container!
There are so many different crates out there. The ones that I have and use as raised bed were formerly forklift crates. (They originally housed large machinery parts.)
With the crates you source, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.
If there is plywood (whether the floor or sides), you will need to remove it and replace with wood that hasn’t been chemically treated.
The crate floor should be solid. This will help contain your soil.
The sides are okay if they have gaps. We’ll line this and the soil will stay in.
Is this going to be a permanent or temporary container for your garden?
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This last question is very important. It will determine if you need to source other materials for your container. You may find that you need screws, power drill, or even other parts if you plan on turning into a cold frame or want to add features like hoops.
The containers that are brought home to me are made out of pine. The boards are stapled together.
The containers that are brought home to me are made out of pine. The boards are stapled together. I know that these crates were not built to last forever. They’re not even sealed for weather. But being limited in time for my garden builds, I opt for leaving my crates as is.
Tip: you can weather protect wood by scorching it with a torch.
If you find that your crate is stapled together, this feature is going to limit how many seasons you will get out of your container.
For example, the boards of my 36″ x 36″ potato crate (above) started to pull away at the start of the third year. The wood is weathered but still as strong as the day the crate came home. This is one crate that I wished I would have reinforced with screws before filling. This crate got place before filling with dirt. And with the exception of this front face, there’s no easy way of coming back in to push the board back in place and screw in. It’s tightly spaced with other structures.
Tip: My hindsight advice is to increase the longevity of your crate container, reinforce the boards with screws, right from the beginning. This will prevent awkward maintenance in a few years.
Let me walk you through how I make my raised beds from crates
I’m using the smallest of my new crates 12″ x 32″ and about 18″ deep. (This one has been sitting for a couple months waiting for me to decide what I wanted to plant in it this season. I was gifted some pepper starts and knew exactly where they were going to go.)
Items you will need:
Wood Crate
Garden Weed Barrier
Scissors
Staple Gun
The first thing I do is fold over the edge of the garden barrier, to make a smooth finished edge, and staple it down across one edge of the crate. It’s not necessary to make a finished edge. I just like this step because sometimes the cut on my roll of barrier is slanted. So by making a new straight edge, this makes it easier to lay the barrier without worrying about it running sideways across the crate.
Note: When I line a crate larger than the width of my garden barrier, I line one side of the crate. Once that first piece is secure, I run a second piece for the opposite side of the crate. The overlapping of the barrier happens in the middle of the crate. There is no need to secure in the center floor of the crate because the weight of the soil will keep the barrier in place.
With this first edge of the crate secure, I drape the garden barrier across the top to make sure I’m laying it in centered and straight. Then I push the barrier down into the crate and make sure that the barrier has enough give to accommodate the full size of the bottom of the crate.
As you can see in the second picture, I trim my garden barrier a little longer than I need to fit inside the crate. One reason is that I usually don’t cut a straight line (obviously seen here). But more importantly, I learned over the last two years that you want more barrier inside the crate than you will think.
The crates I lined the first year, fitting the liner tightly to the inside. The following spring I noticed that these barriers started ripping out at the staples after the first winter of water and freezing. The barrier needed some flex that I did not allow for. So now I give some allowance.
Before I put my garden barrier away (and focus on securing the lining), I cut the width of the short side of the crate. Then I fold this strip of barrier in half and cut. Each half will line the sides of the crate. These side pieces I set aside (or stuffed in my pocket for this crate because of the wind). I set the roll of barrier to a side and go back to folding over the edge of this second crate long side, and staple it down in place.
Once the long sides of the crate are secure, I secure the edges along the short side to hold them in place before securing barrier down the short sides. This keeps them up and out of the way. And if you’re lining a crate while it’s windy out, you will thank me for having the barrier stay in one place so you can move through this project in the least amount of time.
First I take the overlap, from the edge of the crate, and fold this corner down before stapling. This gives a reinforced edge as well and bringing the excess barrier down inside the crate. This doesn’t look pretty, but this is all about telling the barrier where you want it to go and keeping it contained.
Can this excess be trimmed off?
Of course it can. But you will see in just one moment, by keeping the excess length and tacking it up the side, you are creating a barrier that will keep all your soil in your raised bed without having a completely sealed liner. I use the weight of my soil to work for me so I have less steps to take.
For the next step, I pull out one of my side crate pieces of barrier that I just cut and line my first short side. I fold the edge of the barrier down, just like I did with the long side of the crate, and stapled down this top edge and pushed the rest of the length of this side down over the rough edges that were tacked down from the longer side. This flap is great because not only does it cover the edges of where dirt could go down and over time wash out of the bottom of the crate, but it also redirects any of this soil movement back toward the center of the crate.
So if you have the choice of having a generous flap (like seen here in picture two) or trimming it down, make an educated decision in favor of what’s going to help you maintain your soil. After all one of the problems with container growing of any kind is the loss of soil, mostly through drainage at the bottom of your container.
Once you secure the second short side of the crate, you will see here in picture 3 that you have a fully lined crate.
The first time I lined a crate, with no one telling me how to do it, I must have taken an hour to do this. Even with taking pictures, this only took me about 15 minutes. The larger crates don’t take any additional steps. So it really is time efficient to take a fully made wood crate and line it to make your own raised bed.
If you did not line your crate where you want it’s forever home to be, make sure that you move it now. Even with this smaller crate, the weight of it filled is more than I can move on its own. Even with a hand cart, I still wouldn’t want to move it because I could just see myself knocking it over and spilling all my soil all across my yard. For my sanity (and your own), I just make sure I place my crate raised beds before I fill them.
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How I fill my raised beds
I’ll start by saying that I don’t fill my raised beds like everyone else.
One reason is that I don’t have the gardening budget to buy as much soil as I would need to fill all my crates, especially the large ones.
Another reason is that I’ve talked with many people about different types of gardening are available for each of us to choose from.
The drawback to container growing (even raised beds) is that there comes a time where there will be a depletion of nutrients in soil. So even though I do top off my crates with raised bed potting soil, I choose to think long term with my raised beds.
Hugelkultur and Mound gardening have beautiful foresight in them. Both of these forms of gardening is that they put long term “food” into their structure building. Both contain wood (usually in the form of branches and limbs of trees, logs in larger structures) which is slow release nutrients that takes many years to decompose and incorporate nutrients back into the soil. If fact, this is the best way of getting the micronutrients into the soil that standard commercial fertilizers do not ever put back into your containers.
For this reason, I went back to my yard waste and compost. I grabbed some pine branches that we recently trimmed off of our trees, and a couple of handfuls of grass clippings. Especially with the large crates, these fillers are going to be amazing.
In the bottom of my crates I put the largest branches. Normally I put in camp fire sized pieces of wood in the bottom. This small crate doesn’t have depth for that. So I started off with what I consider my second layer, thin branches. Ever green boughs are perfect, not just because of the thicker needles (which take longer to break down than leaf waste) but also because they take up space.
Next I put down green grass clippings. One, they take up space and leave nice medium for plants to spread out their roots. Two, the grass fills in the branch gaps and holes perfectly.
Think of that science experiment where you’ve seen rocks added into a jar first. Then it’s followed by pebbles, then sand, and then water. It’s a perfect example of maximizing the fill of a contained space with an incondensable material like rock.
I pack my raised beds with as much long term nutrients as I can. And this method of packing with larger material first, working your way down to the smallest, is the best way of packing your container box.
From here, I went back and grabbed a couple of pitchforks worth of raw compost (complete with some of my worm residents) and the last of my current supply of raised bed potting mix.
Of course it was the moment that my kiddos saw me grab the compost that they came rushing at me. My youngest dove in and tried to rescue the worms from being placed in this crate. He was acting like I was kicking them to the curb and evicting them. It took me a moment to tell him that he didn’t need to take them back to the in ground garden, I need them here.
And that’s one thing that I haven’t heard anyone talk about. We all know that worms are great for our garden. In fact we don’t give them a second thought in our in ground garden. So why aren’t we talking about them in our container gardening?
Worms are very much needed for a good growing biome. They help break down materials. And since I put in some large materials, I could let them do their own thing, or I can see if I have some worms who want to take advantage of this new home. (And this is another reason why I don’t fully seal off my lining in the crates. The worms are free to come and go as they move their way through any loose openings that take place over time. (And these openings do happen, but they’re more controlled.)
Anyway, I chased my youngest down and got my worms back in my compost. Then I quickly dumped the potting soil down on top to keep him from digging them back out. (I swear that child loves worms!)
I finish off with the raised bed potting soil because that is ready to go and host my pepper starts.
The down side to this layered nutrients in a raised bed
You may want to choose to do straight soil. Especially if you’re planting starts that will shortly need to have structures to assist in their growth. Just like these peppers will need some structure.
This layering, especially in this smaller size of crate, makes it impossible to add bamboo stakes for my peppers. They were just falling over. Fortunately, I have some carbon fiber cold frame hoops. I haven’t added them yet to this crate, but I’ll put in a hoop over each row to drop lines for the peppers to grow up.
I mention all of this, because if you choose to layer and expect it to hold up a stake or tomato cage, this first year just doesn’t give it the soil density to hold up a structure. So be prepared to come up with an alternate plan.
Another disadvantage to this layering is that as you can see in these pictures, I filled my crate up to the top. Over the course of this growing season, and especially over winter (when the rain helps to draw all the smaller soil material to settle into the branches in the bottom, I will see that this crate will only be half full next spring.
In the spring, I’ll add more compost and soil into this crate. At this point I can add mulch on top and the volume of the crate will not go down any further.
Again, this isn’t a horrible down side. It’s just one to be aware of and plan for. But this crate is now set up for many years of container growing. It will be sustainably nutrient rich, especially when I add the mulch and keep that going every season.
How do you like to container grow?
Here are a couple items I find useful in my garden.
This post contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commissions on products purchased through these links, but at no extra cost to you. These items listed here are from Amazon but may be purchased at local markets.
[…] Make a Container You Will Love is how I start off all my new boxes. This time I reused one of my existing boxes. My onions didn’t do so well in it this past grow season, so I’m changing it up to see how my garlic will do here. […]
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