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The red-shafted flicker woodpecker in my garden.

Now that the temperatures are starting to drop and a lot of the work has come to a hault in my garden, I’ve turned my attention to attracting feathered critters into my landscape with the use of bird feeders.  Birdwatching may sound mundane and boring but once you start attracting birds into your cold weather garden it is far from dull and is often called a free ticket to the theater of nature.  Once you add fresh water and some bird seed you are guaranteed to always have a show. 

With the cooling temperatures birds need an extra addition of fat to help them survive so adding suet cakes is an important accompaniment to their fall and winter diet.  I am  so happy to have the ilusive red-shafted flicker woodpecker (shown above) frequently visit my garden since I’ve set out out the fatty suet cakes and bird seed.   If you’re not one to use animal products (most suet is beef kidney fat) you can easily make a big batch of vegetarian suet cakes and store them in the freezer for future use.  I found an easy recipe at www.suetbirdfeeder.net:

Wintertime Vegan “Suet”
The birds won’t miss the meat and your kitties will love to watch the action!

2 cups peanut butter
2 cups vegetable shortening
2 cups flour
6 cups cornmeal

Melt peanut butter and shortening in a large pot.
Stir in flour and cornmeal.
Turn dough onto a waxed paper lined 13×9″ pan.
Cut into rectangles for use in a suet feeder.
Suet can be stored in a freezer.

Here’s another easy project that I’m going to try soon.  All you need is a toilet paper roll, some peanut butter and bird seed!  Easy right? I’m sure the birds will love it.

Have you heard of peanut butter bird seed balls?  I made a bunch last year and they were gone in no time.  Hopefully I kept a lot of birds alive with all the fat I fed them! Click on the image for the Bird Seed Balls recipe…

 I hope these recipes and tips have inspired you to attract birds to your fall and winter garden.  What birds to you attract to your yard in the colder  months? I’d love to hear from you and even see photos.  You can share them with over on my Facebook page or via Twitter.  Tweet tweet!

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As I type it is still dark outside and the thermometer is reading 27°F.  Today my compost heap is going to get an extremely large addition of plants that were frozen overnight.  Before the frost hit I dug up and repotted some herbs and brought them indoors, did one last final harvest of green tomatoes, tiny squash, sugar snap peas and said goodbye to the nasturtiums and borage.  It’s always sad to see the gardening season end but, on the other hand, it’s also a good time of year to start planning next years garden.

tiny harvest before the freeze

Still trying to figure out what kind of squash that is...

goodbye nameless squash...

goodbye yummy dill...

Goodbye borage. I enjoyed you in cocktails. Sorry you're frozen solid right about now.

Well, it’s time to have some coffee and wait for the sun to rise before ripping out frost-bitten plants.  Enjoy your Wednesday everyone!

this will make me feel better

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Not junky bad, but junky good!

I realize it is appalling for some people to use junk in the garden but not to me.  Most of my garden “art” is aged, rusty, and weird but in my eyes it’s interesting to look at and the BEST part- most of it was free!  I admit and confess I’m a junk junky .

Recently I had a chat with someone that was down in the dumps because her garden was blah and boring.  She procrastinated doing anything to update it because she thought it would take wads of cash to even get her garden space comfy and inviting. This made me sad. 

For those with little money my garden is living proof that you don’t need a bunch a cash to create a unique garden of your own.  Here are some “dumpster diver” tips that I gave to the lady I mentioned before:

 Use splashes of color throughout your garden.  Here’s a couple of battered rusty chairs that a couple of nice guys dropped off for me.  Since they’re non-functioning I thought they’d add some interest and color in my flower bed…

Use similar found items and group them together.  As you know, I heart rocks…

Create flower/vegetable beds and borders out of bottles from your recycle bin or do what I did…put the word out on Facebook and you’ll have bottles in no time!

Make your own garden art by thinking outside the dumpster…literally.  Here’s some metal pieces that got a new lease on life.  The round metal rings were off a wine barrel planter that fell apart and the metal candlesticks were found at a second hand store for a few bucks…

Before you throw something out ask yourself if you can plant in it.  Here’s a couple vertical planters, one made from a heater that was salvaged from a house demo and the other from a rice bag…

So, I hope this has given you some junkalicious inspiration to get in the garden and be creative with found objects and items headed to the dump.  Gardening with reused materials sometimes is a better and prettier way to go,  especially,  when you don’t have a lot of money in your pocket. 

What sort of fun ways do YOU garden?  I’d love to hear from you!!!!

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Happy Friday everyone! 

The weekend has arrived and a lot of us gardeners look forward to playing in the dirt,  harvesting produce, dead heading plants, planning new projects and focusing as much time as we can being and living in our gardens.  Although some view tending to the garden as work, I view it as cheap therapy.  There’s something about the smell of a tomato plant, herbs, and even the soil that can lower my heart rate and lift my spirits.  With that it mind, let’s take a walk through my garden, the Dirt & Martinis little patch of heaven.

Welcome to my garden…

 I have a few butterfly bushes and lots of bergamot!  The bees and hummingbirds love it….

Here’s some Russian sage, more bergamot in the background and I don’t know what the red flower is, do you?  My garden is also full of rocks.  I heart rocks…

Along the way I have nasturtium, basil, dill and cilantro growing in pots.  Here’s some I have planted in an old toolbox… 

I’m fond of succulents, hummingbirds and, yes, there’s more bergamot…

All throughout my garden I have mystery plants popping up.  I think this may be a pumpkin that appeared one day from underneath the flowers. 

Here’s some echinacea.  I find the colors of this flower mesmerizing and I think the bees do too…

 

I do have lots of flowers, but I assure you I have some edibles growing too.  Here’s one that is both edible and ornamental, a daylily…

 In my veggie garden I have shallots ‘saffron’ from Annie’s Annuals…

Here are Kentucky blue pole beans growing up an old ladder… 

There’s more veggies in my garden to show you but it’s time relax with something icy….

  I hope you make time to eat, drink, and play in the dirt this weekend garden friends!  Stay cool and thanks for joining me on a short tour of the Dirt & Martinis garden!

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This post originally appeared on the #gardenchat blog.  You can follow #gardenchat on Twitter and on Facebook.

Reduce, reuse, recycle are words we hear everyday and sometimes several times a day. Specifically in the area of reuse, gardeners all around the world, from all walks of life and economic status have taken the incentive to use items that were headed to the landfill to create unique gardens.

Not only does reusing items help the environment but it allows us to get very creative in our garden spaces with little or no money. There are several ways to use junk and trash in our gardens .  For example instead of recycling, why not reuse cardboard egg cartons, toilet paper rolls and newspaper for seed starting? Mini blinds can be cut up for for plant labels, old windows can be turned into cold frames, veggie scraps and yard waste can be composted to create nutrient rich soil.

Another way to turn trash-into-treasure and reusing found objects is by creating funky planters. Here’s a peek of trash and junkyard finds that I’ve turned into planters.  My motto is if it has a vessel or receptacle you may as well grow in it!  The three materials I look for when proverbial dumpster diving are metal, wood and straw. 

Metal

Galvanized metal stock tanks and cattle troughs make excellent container and water gardens.  I love Pam’s article, on her blog Digging, No Bull!  Cattle troughs make great containers.  Keep your eye open for these cool containers at yard sales, second hand stores and flea markets.  I recently picked up two of these containers that a friend of mine was going to take to the dump.  Score!  Another fun way to use metal is by planting in cut-off pieces of metal pipe. 

Wood

Wood is another material that gets wasted and thrown into the landfill.  A vertical garden can be made out of a pallet, mini raised garden beds can be achieved from wooden wine boxes, a salvage door can be turned into a potting bench and an old toolbox can be transformed into a planter.  Here is a toolbox I rescued from the trash and planted with herbs…

Note:  Do not use railroad ties or other treated lumber in your garden because of chemicals thay may leach into the soil.

Straw

Straw you may ask?  Yup, I specifically look for those fabulous kitchy vintage Hawaiian straw tote bags .  Often found at second hand stores and estate sales these bags make great containers for planting not mention a playful conversation piece in the garden.  Yes, I’m a bag lady and proud of it!  Here’s my latest straw bag planter project that I created from bags purchased at a local second hand store for $2.

Do you use junk in your garden?