5 Ways to Accent Your Garden Space
May 6, 2019
Add charming style to your backyard garden or outdoor entertainment area with these products. This will give you some great ideas on decorations to add around the garden
1. Wind Chimes
Woodstock Wind Chimes
Relaxing outdoors has never sounded this good! Woodstock Chimes, a family owned business in Hudson Valley, NY, creates truly unique musical instruments for any outdoor space. From Amazing Grace to America the Beautiful, these outdoor chimes create a harmonious sound to bring relaxation and tranquility to your space. These wind chimes come in different sizes and colors, and they create different sounds to appeal to almost everyone.
2. Garden Signs
Whitehall Garden Signs
Add instant charm to your garden space with a garden sign. These yard signs from Whitehall feature cute sayings or quotes to welcome guests to your outdoor garden space. Simply push the two stakes into the ground to keep the yard sign displayed anywhere in the garden. Organize-It also offers lawn address signs you can display in your front yard, ensuring guests, visitors, or customers can easily locate your home or small business.
3. Bird Feeders and Bird Baths
Bird Feeders and Bird Baths
Bring all the neighborhood birds to your yard with these bird feeders and bird baths. Organize-It offers both standing and hanging bird-baths to give songbirds in your area a “splashing”‘ good time. Tempting birds into your yard has hidden benefits, such as flower pollination and insect control. This helps your garden to thrive, and you have the added benefit of making tons of new feathery friends! Tip: Place a bird feeder and bird bath outside of a large window so you and your family can watch the wildlife from the comfort of your home.
4. Weathervanes
Whitehall Weathervanes
Which way does the wind blow? Find out with these Whitehall weathervanes! To determine wind direction, a wind vane spins and points in the direction from which the wind is coming from. Therefore, if the arrow is pointing to the west, it is called a west wind, and so on and so forth. Organize-It offers rooftop wind vanes so you can display them on top of your home or garage, and garden wind vanes so you can stake them into the ground in your garden. Each weathervane features an ornament at the top to add a stylish touch to the weather instrument.
5. Outdoor Clocks and Thermometers
Outdoor Clocks and Thermometers
Keep yourself on schedule and keep an eye on rising/falling temperatures with these outdoor clocks and thermometers. These devices are available in a wide range of styles and colors to add eye-catching style to any outside space. These clocks and thermometers are constructed from rust-recycled aluminum and fade-resistant finishes. Available in separate devices or even combination units for a convenient design. Tip: place an outdoor clock or thermometer outside of the kitchen window so you can view the device while washing dishes or cooking.
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How to Start a Garden When You Live in an Apartment
April 29, 2019
Just because you live in a small space or lack a private yard doesn’t mean you have to give up on all of your gardening dreams! No matter your situation, you don’t have to have a huge yard and tons of time on your hands. You simply have to think small and get creative with the available space at your disposal. Here are some tricks on how to maximize the potential of your apartment for growing your garden!
1. Observe how much light each room or outdoor space receives during the day
Depending on how much sun your apartment gets everyday will determine what kind of plants will thrive in the space. Plants usually come in three varieties: full sun, partial sun, or shade. If
you don’t get a lot of sun, you may want to consider shade-living plants. If your apartment has tons of windows that bring in lots of natural sunlight, plants that love partial or full sun will thrive in this environment.
Don’t have enough sunlight but love sun-loving plants? Bring in some artificial sun! Plant sunlight lamps allow you to supplement the sunlight your plants are missing. Sunlight lamps are especially handy when you are trying to grow flowers, herbs, or vegetables from seeds or seedlings. You can even put the lamp on a timer so you can shut off the light at the same time every night.
2. How much of your living space are you willing to sacrifice?
The average apartment size in America is 941 square feet. That’s not a lot of space if you have a lot of furniture and other belongings. Now, there are ways to maximize the available space in your apartment so you can still have tons of plants. Add wall mounted shelves to the wall and line them with your favorite potted plants. This is perfect for smaller flowers such as African violets or even common cooking herbs.
You can even create a modern floating effect by mounting terra cotta planters directly to the wall. Check out this DIY Terra Cotta Pots Planter Wall blog for step-by-step instructions on how to create an entire garden space right on your living room wall! This not only saves space in your apartment – but it also saves you money since you won’t have to buy any decor!
3. Buy the appropriate pots or raised gardening beds for your plants
Here is the fun part, buying all the pretty pots to plant your flowers in! If you already have planters or flower pots no problem, but if you don’t, now is the perfect time to consider creating a cohesive design. For example, choose flower pots of all one type such as the traditional terra cotta pots. Or you can choose planters of all one color to complement your home decor. Whatever you choose, make sure you have the right planter for the job.
Do you want to grow vegetables? Depending on the type of vegetable you may want to consider specially made containers or raised garden beds. Raised planters give you ample surface area while keeping the dirt and plants raised to a comfortable height so you can easily weed or prune as needed.
Bonus Idea: Consider purchasing a free-standing shelving unit where you can arrange all of your potted plants and herbs. This allows you to keep your garden in one convenient location, and it takes advantage of unused vertical height.
4. Plan Ahead for the winter months
If you live in sunny California or temperate Florida, this may not be a problem for you. But if you’re like the rest of us, cold weather hits once a year and seems to last forever. So you should plan ahead what you want to do with any potted plants you have on your balcony or patio. Annual plants only last for one growing season, so by the time winter hits they don’t need to be brought inside. Simply store the planters for next season!
Perennial plants last for more than one growing season, so you will probably want to bring these plants inside for the winter months. So before you decorate your patio with tons of perennial flowers, please be aware you will have to bring these plants indoors for the winter months so they don’t die in the cold weather. Make sure you plan ahead and have space for these planters once the snow starts to fly.
5. Most importantly – don’t go overboard!
Remember, this is how to garden while living in a small space. Your space will get even smaller if you go overboard and fill your home with tons of plants! Pick the flowers that are most important to you and bring you joy, and have some fun tending them this summer!
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Meringue Mushroom Recipe
April 24, 2019
Prep Time: 45 minutes Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes Total Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
Ingredients:
2 large egg whites (room temperature)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
Kitchen Tools
Large cookie sheet
Parchment Paper
Wilton 2A tip with a piping bag
Instructions
Prep: Preheat Oven to 200° F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper (not wax paper).
- Add 2 egg whites, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/8 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp cream of tartar and beat with whisk attachment on high speed 7 min or until you have glossy ribbons and the peaks stay fairly stiff (cold whites take longer).
- Transfer meringue to pastry bag fitted with a 3/8″ round tip and pipe onto lined cookie sheet (about 1″ apart).
- Mushroom caps should look like large chocolate kisses (1 1/2″ diameter at the base) with the tip swirled into the side so you get an even top. If you’re a perfectionist; you can smooth the mushroom caps with a wet fingertip. Mushroom stems should look like slimmer/taller kisses (3/4″ diameter at the base) and tips pointed up.
- Bake at 200˚F for 1 hour 30 min. They should slide easily off the parchment paper easily when they are done. Remove from oven and pull the parchment paper off the baking sheet . Let cool on the paper completely to room temp. They will harden as they cool.
- Assemble the mushrooms by combining the cap and stem. Rotate the tip of a small paring knife in the center of each mushroom cap to cut a small hole just large enough to fit the tip of the base.
- Melt chocolate and transfer into a ziploc bag. Snip off a tiny hole from the corner of the bag and pipe chocolate into the holes of meringue. Stick the bases into the holes and leave them upside-down until chocolate hardens and sets.
- Dust the tops and stems lightly with cocoa powder. If you like, you can smudge the cocoa powder with your fingers to give them that natural dirty glow. This can be done before or after you assemble the mushrooms, whichever works best for you.
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