Today in Our Garden #GardenCuizine #gardening CANCER WARNING on my gardening gloves... say what?

Today in Our Garden

July 14, 2019

We've had a great gardening weekend, as always! I was hoping to attend Pat Sutton's garden tour yesterday, but we didn't get our reply registered in time. Maybe we will make it next year. As it turned out we got a lot done in our own wildlife friendly, native garden.

We added a few new stepping stones in Harry's Native Pocket Meadow. Recently, we have been diligently weeding out invasive mugwort. 

Check out the video I posted on Twitter this morning. Click here. Native plants in the video include: Hairy Mountain Mint, Woodland Sunflower, Blazing Star Liatris, Echinacea and Big Blue Stem grass.

Our lizards weren't out yet at the time of my video. We have lizards everywhere in the front and back yard. They are friendly and like the sound of human voices. They wait until the concrete stones are nice and hot from the sun before they emerge from their hiding places. I did get another video clip with a Lizzy. Stay tuned. I'll post it asap.

Yesterday, we got the supplies we were looking for; Harry replaced another rotted out raised bed. Raised beds made w/wood don't last forever. Wood rots and gets termites. We had some cedar planks that rotted and needed to be replaced. We bought concrete corner pieces and wood at Home Depot for the new bed (shown in photo above).

I also bought a much needed pair of new garden gloves. I was shocked that they came with a cancer warning!! Say what? ...Go figure, a cancer warning on gardening gloves! I found that really strange. I got the gloves at Home Depot and they said: WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov on the label. Had I read the label before I got them I would not have gotten them. I still have no idea what in the world is in my gardening gloves that could lead to cancer. Why would Home Depot even carry them? "Made in China"...

I took Mom out for a garden tour today! She hasn't been out back in a while. Here are a few photos of our outing. Lots of butterflies and blooms; we had fun!

 Blog post and photos Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved.

How-to-Build Your Own Garden Raised Beds #GardenCuizine #gardenchat #doityourself

How-to-Build Your Own 

Garden Raised Beds

Yesterday, Harry made another raised bed to replace the rotted ones that we ordered online. They are quick and easy to make; he is making more today. We could have saved money if we made our own in the first place. Well, we did make our first two, or I should say - Mom made them! She built two, really sturdy raised beds years ago and then as our garden grew we added several more raised beds that we ordered online. 

We decided to keep the design simple and low cost using just one, single-panel on all sides. If you wanted your raised beds deeper, just increase the height of your corner pieces to allow for as many additional slats of wood desired.  

Also, you could increase the thickness of the panels from 1x6 to 2x6 and use 4x4 corners; but beware, that increases the cost and the weight! You can make your raised beds any size you want. Here's how we built our 5-ft x 6-ft, single-panel raised beds:

Supplies Needed to build one raised bed
4, 1x6, 8-ft treated wood panels (cost: we paid $5.57 ea at Home Depot)
1, 2x4,- 8 ft treated wood for the corners (we paid $4.17)
16, 2-inch galvanized deck screws

Equipment Needed
Wood saw
Electric screwdriver
Drill and drill bit
Clamps (optional- a handy tool if you want to build it alone)

Putting it all together
Saw the wood: 7-inches long for four corners; two, 5-ft long and two 6-ft long panels
Drill 2 holes per panel on each corner
Add screws to hold together
Move to desired location and fill with soil

Happy Gardening!
Blog post and photos Copyright (C) Wind. All rights reserved.