A Few of My Favorite (Inexpensive) Things

We are having carpets cleaned this morning...so Joe is off exercising and I am home trying to find things to do while the carpets are being done. I organized my magazine baskets first then on to the kitchen to do the spice cabinet. Tossed some old spices and rearranged the shelves. Now I'll hear, "Where's the ..... and where's the ......" from my fellow cook, Joe. I tried to put the seasonings that we use most on the first shelf and then the upper shelves are in alphabetical order.

A Few of My Favorite (Inexpensive) ThingsLater today, if I still have energy...I am going out to the garage to organize my garden things. I only have a small space, so I have to be very efficient. Plant foods, and fertilizer on the shelf and my tools in a bucket made just for that purpose. I bought it with birthday money one year and have really found it to be a life saver. I can put all my hand tools, seed packets, twine balls, scissors etc in this handy thing and carry it to the back woods. When I first started gardening in this yard, I would go to the woods and invariably forget something that I needed. I had to trek back up to the garage and get it. Then I decided to haul this bucket in my lawn cart, so everything would be handy. There was no lawn cart when I moved here...how does any gardener get along without a lawn cart? Mine is cheap, plastic, and lightweight when empty....but when it is full...sometimes it is hard to pull. I haul 40 lb bags in the trunk of my car. I move my lawn cart up even with the trunk and just pull the bag to the edge and dump it in the cart. Easy peasy! Then, like the other day, I try to dump two bags in....to save time....too heavy! I can remember my 4ft 10in mother in law trying to haul bags of white rock in the trunk of her car. She always used this rock for her Japanese garden and around her little patio. One day her little car was actually riding low on her tires....she had so many heavy bags in the trunk. She would wait for company to come and direct them out to the car and ask if they would help her haul bags to her garden. She struggled so with those bags, but the outcome was a beautiful garden.

Another thing that I find helpful in my gardening is my plastic rake. It's not a big fan shaped one, but just a small one with a long handle.I use it for so many things....pulling leaves out from between evergreens, going up and down the evergreens to get wind burned needles off, to skip over perennials without disturbing them while trying to get debris out of a garden bed. When I am using the big rake...I let Audra use this one...she can't do a whole lot of damage with this one. It's a handy rake with a very light touch. I carry a ball of jute twine in my pocket...this is handy for tying up vines, tomatoes and anything that needs tying up. An old pair of fiscars scissors comes in very handy. I use these to cut most everything from deadheading to cutting thin wire. Sometimes my wire cutters are in the garage and I need something to cut with. And last but not least my gardening jacket. It is pillow ticking denim with a snap front. It is old as the hills and I will have it until my gardening days are done. It hangs on the coat rack, year round, in the mudroom. It has two upper pockets and two big pockets below. I start out the season with a hooded sweatshirt underneath and then, when the weather warms I wear it without the sweatshirt. It has other uses too... I use it as a tarp over branches collected in my lawn cart, or spread out on the ground to sort out some flowers that I have picked for bouquets. I have put it on my bench, when it is wet with dew. It's the handiest tool that I use when gardening. These are just a few simple cheap things that I find handy. What are some tools that you can't live without?

Balisha