New life/ old bowl Update

Things have gotten off to a bit of a faltering start... due to family illness we have been unable to launch any more new projects this past week. The good news is that our first blogged project, New Life for an Old Bowl, is coming along nicely. Today, which is day 4 of our lettuce growing venture, our first sprouts peeked out from their loamy bed... 35 of them! We don't have any sleepy seeds around here... ours are a full day early!

We will be back up and going shortly, hang in there until next time!

New Life for an Old Bowl (and a few other things!)

First, welcome to my blog. This is my very first post on my first blog ever, so bear with me. It only gets better!

Today's project is finding something to do with a large old ceramic bowl we had that was just lying about taking up space. My daughter came up with an idea... to grow lettuce! Turtle Princess gets what Turtle Princess wants, so we went to the garden store where she bought some organic potting medium, and a packet of mixed gourmet lettuce seeds. But before we could plant, there was a little work to do. That bowl needed a drainage hole!

A little handiwork with an improvised drill and voila!

However, we'd only just begun. Next, she filled the bowl up with potting medium to about 1 inch below the rim. Then, I made little indents in the soil 1 inch apart, in a clockwise spiral pattern toward the center. You can plant your lettuce (or other shallow rooted plant) however you like, but this makes it interesting when the seeds sprout. One seed per indentation, and then it was time to cover them up, so the birds don't eat them! Just a sprinkling was enough, lettuce needs to be close to the surface to best sprout.

Here is my fabulous little helper gently patting the soil in place.

One thing though... how were we going to water it? The re-purposed milk jug I use to water my other plants would scatter the seeds everywhere and make a big mess! Again, Turtle Princess came to the rescue with another idea, to use an orange juice bottle. With some modifications, it was the perfect thing.

First came popping holes in the lid with a little five-penny nail...

Star holes!

I made the holes in a star pattern, but the important thing is that it has about 10 holes spaced evenly apart.

With a watering bottle made and filled, we could complete the last step; a nice gentle watering.

She watered the seeds thoroughly, until water came trickling out the bottom. "The baby seeds are thirsty", she said. "They need the water to grow". I smiled... they sure grow up fast.

Stay tuned for the next project, and look me up on Facebook! Turtles Eat Lettuce