Backyard Preppers

This isn’t exactly a “prep” persay, but it is DIY and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna spend $30 on Amazon to buy something that I can make for $25 and an hour of my time (lol!). We have been having issues with the dogs sneaking up onto the counter and eating the fruit in the basket on the counter. It was a daily occurence to come home from work to find nothing left of a new bunch of bananas, aside from the stems on the living room floor. While cleaning up kids’ toys one day I had the brilliant idea to use the Dollar Store baskets they got for Easter and hang them for our fruit! Well, I will just say don’t try it with Dollar Store baskets. As soon as I put any weight in them the wicker cracked and we almost had a lot of bruised fruit. So, I went on a mission to Michaels craft store to find clearance Easter baskets and something more sturdy than hemp string to hold it together. Make sure the baskets have a metal frame or thick, strong wicker, or it will collaple under the weight of all your produce. I ended up finding some cheap baskets, and some not-so-cheap chain and metal rings to use, but I was done shopping around for materials so I just bought them. If I did this again, I might use circular baskets instead of square, but I think it still turned out OK.

Pliers come in handy. I connected the chains to the handles of the smaller top basket like so:

Then I connected the chains from the bottom corners of the smaller basket to the top corners of the larger bottom basket:

And TADAA!!

Make sure you use a sturdy hook in the celing. You wouldn’t think bananas and apples weigh that much, but it adds up quick. Hopefully the dogs won’t jump up and rip it out of the celing! It is also nice to have reclaimed some kitchen counter space. Happy fruit hanging!

Spring has sprung and with that comes the early planting of fruits and vegetables. Enjoying the warmer weather and planning what to plant and when can be challenging. One thing that always comes to mind is growing healthy snacks for our kids to eat all season long.

Strawberry’s have been a part of our backyard garden since our oldest was a baby. We have a row of Strawberry’s in our flower beds along side our house. Growing in the ground can be challenging to avoid pests without using chemicals and over watering from the lawn sprinklers.

Over the weekend I installed a new rain gutter over my garage on the front of the house and had some extra parts. I had purchased 20 strawberry crowns earlier in the week and just didn’t know where to plant them. We will be moving sometime in the near future so I had an idea come together while weeding the front yard.

The Gutter Garden I built is a stand alone frame that holds three gutters about four feet long. I can put it anywhere and take with us when we move. I built a simple shelf out of 2 inch by 3 inch lumber 8 feet long with some 3 inch brass screws. I attached feet on the bottom of the shelf and braces so the wind would not blow it over. We get a lot of wind in the spring time here in Central Washington. Next I cut the gutters to fit the shelves and screwed them down to the wood. I added small 1/8th inch drain holes to the bottom front of the gutters.

My 2 year old Alex helped fill the gutters with organic soil. We planted 12 of the crowns in the three gutters and watered them in. The drain holes in the top gutters help water the bottom ones when draining.

Happy Planting,

Dug

Doing practical things for self reliance

Monthly Archives: April 2013

Hanging Fruit Basket

The Gutter Garden