You know, I can't stand to pay a lot of money for something I know I could probably make myself without having to spend near as much. Take, for example, self-watering window boxes and planters.
Since I divide my time between the mountain and town, it's impractical to have pots of flowers or window boxes at the cabin. Last summer was proof enough of that. I filled planters with lovely summer blooms and one pot with a tomato plant only to have them about die of thirst.
This year I found self-watering window boxes and planters online. What a great concept! They have reservoirs that hold extra water and so you don't need to be around every single day to give your thirsty plants a drink.
And for that privilege, you pay way too much money.
I put them on my garden "wish list" and 2 window boxes and 2 tomato planters as presents. But I could use a lot more of them, as the cabin gets sun while the house in town doesn't get much.
When I opened the boxes and saw how the things were constructed, I thought, hey, even I could do that! Maybe.
My rule for such projects is simple- you have to use what's lying around. No spending money on things that may not work out. (New rule set in place after the black landscape fabric fiasco.)
So, I had a pottery bowl that had been given to me as an intended future sink for one of my renovation projects that never happened, a broken fireplace grate left behind by the cabin's former owners, a plastic plant liner and an old dog pull toy made from braided rope that I found out in the field, abandoned.
The plastic liner becomes the reservoir. The un-braided dog toy becomes the wick to fit through the hole in the planter and slowly provide water and the purple sink is the new planter.
I suppose we shall see what we shall see.
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