steam plant

shutter slat plant markers

Here's a quick one! I picked a pair of shuttered closet doors up from the free pile awhile back, and I've used the lumber + hinges from the frame elsewhere. I have a ton of these useful little shutter slats, though; they make nice, sturdy plant markers together with a little permanent pen.

 

Way better than the plastic tags that come with the plants, much sturdier than popsicle sticks, and the slats are pretty easy to come by at Habitat ReStores and other recycled building supply places.

Spring is springing! Gotta catch up with the weeding, so I'm keeping it short. Thanks for reading!

Linking up to:
My Repurposed Life

mammoth sunflower seeds

My sister-in-law packaged up some seeds a couple of Christmases ago and sent them out to all of us. Over that summer, she and my brother and the kids had grown the Mammoth sunflowers (possible varietal name Russian Mammoth) in the backyard, and we were assured that they'd been HUGE.

They sprouted well, even after more than a year of waiting to be planted. The above photo is from early May, when the seeds we'd started got transferred into the beds.

This one is from late August, when the sunflower stalks surpassed roof height on the studio.

I've grown some sort of Mammoth sunflower in the past, but I don't recall the flowers ending up quite as huge as these. A twelve-foot stalk and a sixteen-inch head were the largest we measured this year; most of the heads were in the twelve-inch range!

I'll be passing them back around this year; I know my sister-in-law is looking forward to keeping the seed swap going!

I have a seed packet design I'll be sharing in a future post, so check back soon if that's your thing!

Thanks for reading!

updated: seed packets? right here!