Space for my little garden station is tight because we have a two car garage and park two cars in our garage . . . but we figured out a way to fit enough room for some shelves and one very smart table top.
Showing posts with label Organize: Garage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Organize: Garage. Show all posts
Monday, June 10, 2013
Our garage garden station
One of the questions I get frequently is about our garage. Generally the garage is considered Lee's domain . . . but I do have my own little corner. It's our garden corner. I keep everything to do with gardening there (except the lawn mower).
Space for my little garden station is tight because we have a two car garage and park two cars in our garage . . . but we figured out a way to fit enough room for some shelves and one very smart table top.
We couldn't fit a table in the garage for potting, but this drop leaf table top from Ikea is perfect!!! It's their Norbo Table and it's just under $40.
When we aren't using it . . . it folds up and sits just over 3" off the wall.
To organize the shelves (also from Ikea), I found these blue plastic containers from Dollar Tree. I store our blood meal, and our bone meal (both we used up when we planted our cedars and hostas last week). As well as our hanging basket, slow release fertilizer.
We store all the bird seed in this tin container with a little scoop. I found it back in August of 2010 (here's the link to the post I wrote about it).
I also keep our sunflower seeds (for larger birds) and some extra fertilizer on the middle shelf as well.
I installed a couple of hooks under the bottom shelf and hung up a little garden bag (I found it at the Salvation Army Thrift Store). I keep all of our small garden tools in the bag, it nice because I just grab the bag when I need to weed the garden, or prune a tree, I have everything right there.
I also keep a little spool of twine so I can do a quick tie up of a vine, it actually comes in handy more often then I thought it would.
Beside the shelves we store our rakes, and shovels. We found this organizer from Amazon . . . it's awesome! Super easy to use and keeps them up and off the garage floor.
I've shared this part before but I thought I would share it again . . . we store our potting soil in a big garbage can from Ikea, and in the smaller can we store Corn Gluten (a natural lawn fertilizer) in the summer, and Salt (for de-icing our steps) for the winter.
So there's our little garden station. It is really handy to have somewhere for all the bits and pieces that go along with gardening. If you are like us and have to store your garden gear in your garage and still want to park two cars in there I hope this post was helpful.
(and to be perfectly honest if I was really potting that fern on the table there would be a MUCH bigger mess on the table ;)
Space for my little garden station is tight because we have a two car garage and park two cars in our garage . . . but we figured out a way to fit enough room for some shelves and one very smart table top.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Potting Soil!
If you missed our houseplant tour from around the Manor you can catch it here. The reason I bring up the 'ol houseplant tour, is because all those houseplants need soil. We like to keep a good supply of potting soil on hand, so the question was how to store it!
We use to buy it in the big bags from home depot and until now would just store it in the bag, leaned up against a wall. But we've recently discovered that it's much cheaper to buy potting soil by the bucket full from our local nursery!
Long story short here's how we store our potting soil:
White garbage can from Ikea.
The Stainless Steel Scoop comes from Lee Valley.
We also have smaller white garbage cans for our salt during the winter, and our bird seed during the spring and summer :)
We use to buy it in the big bags from home depot and until now would just store it in the bag, leaned up against a wall. But we've recently discovered that it's much cheaper to buy potting soil by the bucket full from our local nursery!
Long story short here's how we store our potting soil:
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Getting Ready for Fall: Terracotta Pot Storage
Our deck is very small and on the second level, so all of our greenery is grown in containers. Terracotta containers to be exact. There's something so rustic and Italian about terracotta pots. I can't wait to have a set of front stairs to run a group of terracotta pots filled with red geraniums.
I've never been a huge fan of the burnt orange hue. But once they grow the green algae on the outside I'm in love. Although Lee can't understand why I don't clean it off (to be fair he's use to cleaning our fish tank and the whole point is to get rid of the algae).
There are somethings you can do to ensure good storage and therefore an easy spring.
First
Make sure to wash and disinfect your terracotta pots. Washing them year to year helps prevent fungi, bacteria and viruses.
-Remove all loose debris using a hard bristle scrubber or some steel wool.
-Wash inside each pot with soap and water.
Second
-Kill bacteria, there are two ways of doing this
a) Heat your oven to 220 degrees F and heat each pot in the oven for 1 hour. This is a very effective, natural way, albeit stinky way. Seriously it smells so bad.
b) wash out or soak the pots (your choice) with a ratio of 10:1 Water to Bleach. We wash out the pots instead of soaking them because, like I mentioned before, I like the green algae on the outside.
Third
Try not to Store terracotta pots within each other, they might get stuck and you'll crack them trying to get them apart. We do however store smaller pots inside of larger pots. Pack newspaper around the pots and store indoors if possible, or in a cool dry place.
If you have neither of these options available to you, store close to the house, far away from winds and extreme weather.
Another Item done and checked off the fall to do list.
Note:
The white build up on the sides on terracotta pots, is a fertilizer build up, to get it off, make a paste out of water and baking soda and scrub off, if you like it keep it.
The green build up is algae, it doesn't hurt the plant so it's fine to leave it, I love it, but if you don't use the same baking soda, paste and scrub to remove.
I've never been a huge fan of the burnt orange hue. But once they grow the green algae on the outside I'm in love. Although Lee can't understand why I don't clean it off (to be fair he's use to cleaning our fish tank and the whole point is to get rid of the algae).
There are somethings you can do to ensure good storage and therefore an easy spring.
First
Make sure to wash and disinfect your terracotta pots. Washing them year to year helps prevent fungi, bacteria and viruses.
-Remove all loose debris using a hard bristle scrubber or some steel wool.
-Wash inside each pot with soap and water.
Second
-Kill bacteria, there are two ways of doing this
a) Heat your oven to 220 degrees F and heat each pot in the oven for 1 hour. This is a very effective, natural way, albeit stinky way. Seriously it smells so bad.
b) wash out or soak the pots (your choice) with a ratio of 10:1 Water to Bleach. We wash out the pots instead of soaking them because, like I mentioned before, I like the green algae on the outside.
Third
Try not to Store terracotta pots within each other, they might get stuck and you'll crack them trying to get them apart. We do however store smaller pots inside of larger pots. Pack newspaper around the pots and store indoors if possible, or in a cool dry place.
If you have neither of these options available to you, store close to the house, far away from winds and extreme weather.
Another Item done and checked off the fall to do list.
Note:
The white build up on the sides on terracotta pots, is a fertilizer build up, to get it off, make a paste out of water and baking soda and scrub off, if you like it keep it.
The green build up is algae, it doesn't hurt the plant so it's fine to leave it, I love it, but if you don't use the same baking soda, paste and scrub to remove.
Getting Ready for Fall: Storing Outdoor Cushions
Just this week we'll be doing our practical chores in order to have an easy transition into Fall.You might have seen our first installment of getting ready for fall or our second post Fall towels near entrances for dirty little paws.
For our next installment, we'll be storing our deck cushions, we've had a big rain storm recently and it became clear that we would have to store them a little before schedule.
We simply store them in our attic, but it's what we do before we store them, that keeps them looking new year after year.
Two words, CLEAN & DRY.
First make sure they are clean and dry before you store them. You should take a peek at the washing instructions label, but if your cushions are like ours they don't have a washing instructions label.
So what we do is:
1)Take a bucket of hot water and some soap, we use Dr. Brommers pure castile soap, we don't measure how much just a couple of squirts to a liter of water.
2)Take a hard bristle brush and scrub the cushions, until they are clean. Let sit for 10 minutes.
3)Then simply hose off the soap, making sure that all the soap is gone (otherwise you'll end up with soapy residue when they dry).
We wait for a sunny day to clean our outdoor furniture, so that the cushions can dry out completely in the sun.
I've never tried to wash them in the washing machine, I didn't want to risk shrinking them. But that's an option too :) Always check your labels!
The next CLEAN & DRY part is to STORE them somewhere Clean and Dry. We are lucky to have an attic space, it's very clean and very dry. Dry is probably the key word, because you could always clean them later but if you put them away wet, you'll get mildew and well. . . . . mildew is bad.
So one item on my check list is complete, on to the next.
For our next installment, we'll be storing our deck cushions, we've had a big rain storm recently and it became clear that we would have to store them a little before schedule.
We simply store them in our attic, but it's what we do before we store them, that keeps them looking new year after year.
Two words, CLEAN & DRY.
First make sure they are clean and dry before you store them. You should take a peek at the washing instructions label, but if your cushions are like ours they don't have a washing instructions label.
So what we do is:
1)Take a bucket of hot water and some soap, we use Dr. Brommers pure castile soap, we don't measure how much just a couple of squirts to a liter of water.
2)Take a hard bristle brush and scrub the cushions, until they are clean. Let sit for 10 minutes.
3)Then simply hose off the soap, making sure that all the soap is gone (otherwise you'll end up with soapy residue when they dry).
We wait for a sunny day to clean our outdoor furniture, so that the cushions can dry out completely in the sun.
I've never tried to wash them in the washing machine, I didn't want to risk shrinking them. But that's an option too :) Always check your labels!
The next CLEAN & DRY part is to STORE them somewhere Clean and Dry. We are lucky to have an attic space, it's very clean and very dry. Dry is probably the key word, because you could always clean them later but if you put them away wet, you'll get mildew and well. . . . . mildew is bad.
So one item on my check list is complete, on to the next.
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