So my veggie garden is still under four feet of snow — does that stop a keen gardener from planning for a new planting season? Heck, no!

One of the first plantings that will go in (when Spring eventually arrives in Atlantic Canada) will be the salad garden of mixed mesclun greens and spinach and lettuce, not to mention some tasty lovely snow peas. These are all vegetable crops that prefer cooler air and soil temperatures, and will quickly fade when summer sun grows warm.

Stretch the Summer Salad Days

Did you know that you can grow salad greens in containers, if you don’t have a patch of earth for a garden? They look quite lush and lovely growing in pots, too.

Keep the harvest going by snipping off just the outside leaves, rather than the entire head of your lettuce plants. The plants will keep producing from the centre, and you get super-fresh salad for days and days on end!

Lettuce and spinach and other greens are easy to grow from seed. So easy, in fact, that I never seem to learn to scatter the seeds thinly enough — I’m always making allowances for seeds that might not germinate, and I end up with a crowded planting of tiny plants struggling against each other for light. Not so good for the air circulation, either, and some of my lettuce can end up composting itself if we get a few days of rain.

No big deal, though: just get in there with the scissors and thin it out. Cut off some of those tiny lettuce plants right at soil level when they’re just a few inches high, and start the salad season early. Thinning out will let the remaining plants grow better and avoid those nasty damp-related problems.

Slugs and Snails, Oh My!

Slugs and snails are the biggest threat to a nice salad garden, and you’ll have to be on your toes to keep ahead of them — they sneak out at dusk and can eat their way through a great deal of salad in one night, leaving silvery slimy trails all over the ragged green leaves, while you’re sleeping peacefully and all unawares… Unpleasant!

Some stores sell various kinds of “snail bait” and “slug powder” — but those are just another name for poisons. Nasty ones. And much as I find slugs to be one of the more disgusting creatures on the planet, I have no interest in sprinkling toxic chemicals around the vegetable garden. No amount of washing the lettuce would convince me that it’s not tainted. Some people swear by the new products made with iron phosphate, but I have no experience of them so you’re on your own there!

Here are two earth-friendly solutions that work for me to keep slugs and snails out of the salad garden:

One is the traditional trap baited with beer. You set a shallow dish into the garden soil just so the lip of it is even with the top of the ground, then pour in some beer. (Feel free to use the stale dregs left in the bottom of bottles after a barbecue — no need to waste the good stuff on your slugs and snails!) During the night, the slimey crawlies will come out and head for the lettuce… but they’ll get distracted by the beer, slip in for a drink, and drown. Ha!

The other solution is physical control — and no, I’m not going to suggest going out with a flashlight and hand-picking your slugs and snails out of the lettuce. Although I do know some people who actually do that. Ugh.

No, we’re talking about slug prevention here.

First, you make sure there’s not a lot of litter in the salad garden, such as fallen leaves and such, for slugs and snails to hide underneath in the daytime. Then, you put a little barrier around each lettuce plant.

A sprinkling of “diotomaceous earth” — ground up fossils, as I understand it — will scratch their little slug bellies, so a ring around the lettuce will keep slugs at bay. But I always worry about the cats and dogs getting into it and then licking their paws, and the white granules are not particularly attractive in the garden. Also, I’m not 100% convinced that diotomaceous earth is the way to go from an environmental perspective: surely there’s a finite supply of fossil bones to make it? And what’s involved in the processing and packaging and transportation?

I don’t know the answers, but these are questions that keep coming to mind — and I’d prefer not to do too much in the way of deep thinking when out playing in the garden.

Wood ashes work the same way as diotomaceous earth, by the way — and some gardeners swear by coffee grounds, cornmeal, and natural bran — but all of these barriers will only work if they’re dry. One good heavy dew in the late evening, and the slugs and snails can move right back in. Crushed eggshells and cedar chips are more effective, as they keep on working in all types of weather, but how many eggs can you eat? I don’t use cedar chips mostly because they keep the ground from warming up, and in this short Canadian growing season we really need to let the sun reach the soil as much as it can.

Generally, I just put a low collar of some sort around the lettuce plants. Cardboard won’t do it — the slugs and snails will just laugh merrily and climb right over it. What you want is a strip of copper. Slug slime reacts in some way with copper to basically electrocute the slugs. Ha!

And that’s where this iron plant crown (from Wisteria) comes in.

Granted, the crown is supposed to be for decoration — perhaps to make the lettuce plants feel important? at $39.00 per, they should! — but I say, if you’re going to have slug barriers around a bunch of garden plants, why not make them in a whimsical shape? And if, like me, you like to put the occasional pretty ruffled lettuce plant in among the garden flowers, too, a decorative iron crown might be the perfect finishing touch.

To make the crown a useful slug-proofing solution, however, just plain iron won’t do. Fasten a strip of copper around it to repel the slimy pests.

I’ve also had pretty good luck with previously-enjoyed tinfoil (aluminum foil) in place of copper. Now, I won’t swear that it will work for you, because tinfoil isn’t mentioned in any of my gardening books, but I first tried it because (a) copper can be pricey, (b) I am almost pathologically thrifty, as gardeners go, and (c) I had a slug emergency one year — and it works for me.

Crumple up your scraps of tinfoil left over from kitchen and barbecue use, and make a tiny obstacle course for slugs and snails to struggle across on their way to your plants. And if you hide the tinfoil inside a lovely crown, looking like something out of a garden fairytale, no one will be any the wiser to your frugal trick!

[Thanks to The Finer Things for finding the crown!]

I love some of the funky recycled stuff and general green goodness at EcoOutlet, but damn their blog for reminding me that it’s getting to be That Time of Year Again… Spring cleaning, I mean!

But let’s not think of that just now.

Let’s think of guilt-free eco-friendly frivolities to pretty up the garden… you know, for when the garden finally emerges from under the snow once again. Which I’m pretty sure it’s going to do… some time…

Reclectic Garden Lanterns

Made from the waste and recycled materials that result from the production of aerosol and soda cans in India, the Reclectic Lanterns are all produced using different remnants and mis-printed pieces so each one will be unique in appearance. — EcoOutlet

Yes, those clocks are one of a kind! That’s the beauty of handcrafted treasures that are magicked from mere trash…

Barak Barnoy’s stylish and eco-friendly wall clocks made of recycled aluminum come from Israel by way of the same fine folks whose African township-crafted recycled plastic bag roosters (you may remember) stole our hearts a few months back…

Wow! Imports buys only from the most ethical third world companies… because everyone deserves to be treated fairly, earn a livable wage and work reasonable hours, while working in a safe and pleasant environment.

Ron Askotzky, the artistic type who co-founded this family business with his brother Steve and wife Lisa, tells me they’re restocking even as we speak — and will be up to full inventory in the next two weeks, with lots more new fair-trade African beaded-wire animals and Christmas goodies.

Ron’s offering a 10% discount to Domestik Goddess readers throughout the Wow! Imports online store — and that’s in addition to free US shipping on purchases over $50.

Use coupon code DG10 to get 10% off your order.

Third world countries are plagued by high unemployment, poor education and diseases such as AIDS, so the crafters who produce our products benefit enormously from your patronage. You could send charity to a third world country, but providing someone with a job is even greater. As opposed to receiving a handout, having a job provides an individual with an invaluable sense of personal pride.

What could be more appropriate for a piece of art work created from found objects or recycled materials, than the figure of an caretaking angel?

Some of these angels will help to feed a hungry family in a developing country.

Some will help to care for helpless animals.

Some will bring a smile, or inspire an afternoon of laughter and family crafts.

And all of these angels make good and beautiful use of materials that would otherwise be wasted.

 
 
With each lovely blue Recycled Glass Angel purchased, The Animal Rescue Site will fund 14 bowls of food for animals living in shelters. Each angel is unique, created by a recycled glass cooperative and fair-trade imported from Guatemala.

Arncraft projects from Creative Kids at Home give ideas and instructions to challenge you to create new items from recycled materials, like this CD angel, created from an unwanted compact disc.

Disabled artisans at theBombolulu Workshop near Mombasa, Kenya, are employed, housed, and educated for their work in making jewelry, like this cheerful angel pin, from recycled materials.

“Each year we dedicate a week in December to Christmas crafts and baking, says Cheri, the TNfarmgirl. “This is a time for the boys to express themselves in a variety of ways, create handcrafted presents for family and friends and learn new cooking skills.”

Through the year, the family will collects items with crafty recycling potential, then pull them out for a big family craft bash. One year, they made lightbulb angels like this little cutie. You can leave her without the self-standing feet and hook her halo onto the Christmas tree, if you prefer a hanging ornament.

Recycled metal and wood pieces, together with found objects, take a turn as the hippest of folk art in these mixed-media angels. On the left, Angel Red Lace is by Tricia Courtney of Lemon Oak Studio. On the right is Tattoo, one of Elzabeth Frank’s Tin Can Angels series in carved wood, recycled tin, acrylic, and wax.

In my travels, I’ve seen some remarkable garden-art angels made from rusty angle-iron pieces that you’d never think could look so lovely… and a mosiac stepping stone with an angel motif, made from broken bits of patterned china… and years ago, the nursery school did something with toilet paper rolls and the coloured comic pages from the newspaper…

What recycled angels have you seen and admired — or made yourself?
Tell us about it in the comments, and do feel free to leave a link if you want to share a picture!

Tired of the same-old same-old Thanksgiving decorations?

You can’t go wrong with the classic turkey (or a cocky classic rooster, for that matter), but here’s a fun new twist on the rustic Autumn yard art.

No carving.
No mess.
Reusable for years to come, of course, and very affordable at $11.95 (or less) at Gardeners.com.

Just push these simple iron silhouette pieces — turkey or rooster — head, wings, legs and tail — into a squash or a pumpkin, or any similar large round vegetable, come to that… Instantly, you’ve got an amusing vegetable sculpture to strut its stuff on your front porch or lawn!