Sedums Planted In Recycled Farm Junk ~ Thursday in the garden.

I have so many old and rusty poultry watering containers. Many began to leak years ago so I piled them into the storage shed near my feed room. Last spring I decided to use them as Sedum planters. The planters are hanging on the outside of my goose pen where there is plenty of sunshine and they're easy to water since I have to replace the water in the goose pen every day. ( The geese love to play in their water troughs.)

I bought some of the trailing non-sedums when they went on sale in the spring. The sedums themselves flourish in many plantings I did years ago so I simply pulled them up and planted them in the old poultry waterers.

Sedums planted in old cans I spray painted sitting in an old freezer basket I nailed to a poultry shed wall.

The same poultry shed wall with old pots and pans and a basket of sedums.

This sedum planting is hanging in my Blue Bottle Garden. It thrives here and drops new baby sedums beneath it. All the more sedum starts for next year's spring plantings.

Blue-Bottle Herb Garden

 The dovecote my husband built me for my herb garden makes me happy . I especially love the detailing in the roof ridge that mirrors the roof ridges he put into our larger dovecote , the goat house, and also the grape & kiwi arbors.

 I keep only 2 doves in my herb garden, my Blue Bottle Herb Garden. You can see how we decided on the name...

 ...there are blue bottles everywhere in this garden.

 These blue bottles are holding the prongs of upside down tomato cages together to form supports for my comfrey . Comfrey loves to get big and floppy , and does so very quickly, often taking over this shady corner of my herb garden if left unattended too long. I use a lot of comfrey for my livestock, poultry, and also make poultices out of it for my feet which have a tendency to get very dry and crack & bleed. Comfrey poultices are great for this. ( I will do another post on this later.)

 Our dog Hawk keeps me company as I weed the garden.

 This old bike holds an old milk crate stuffed with blue bottles and flowers. It is leaning up against a picture window we had to replace after a big earthquake here a few years ago caused the window to split & crack. I like the window in this garden and it helps  keep the woods on the other side of the garden fence at bay.

 Fennel has a lovely licorice scent and thrives in my garden. The fennel has seeded itself in other parts of the herb garden too. It is like growing feathers ! You can see some of the sage and Lady's Mantle growing at the foot of the fennel.

 Lovage also thrives here. I have metal cages and stakes around and through the lovage to keep it from bending and breaking. I love this herb. It tastes like celery, the leaves are yummy chopped up and used in salads, eggs, soups. Anything celery adds flavor to would benefit from lovage. It has a little stronger celery taste, so not too much is needed. The stems grow up to 6 feet in my garden and are hollow so if you strip them of leaves ( or not ) you can use the stems as straws in any drink you might garnish with celery such as tomato juice, delicious!

 My rosemary grows quickly in this garden, and thrives all year, even in the coldest winters. Since my older rosemary plants are now unruly bushes I decided to start 2 new rosemary bushes and encourage them to be more orderly and well-behaved. I placed a large tomato cage upside down over rosemary planted in a large pot. The blue bottle holds the prongs of the cage together. I like the touch of blue it adds.

My blue bird bath sits in the thyme portion of the garden, along with a sun-dial ( not shown here). There are several varieties of thyme in this garden and when they bloom it looks like the bird-bath is perched on a beautiful carpet of color. Our honeybees love the thyme garden especially. My Blue Bottle Garden is a source of herbs my husband and I use for cooking . Some of the herbs are especially beneficial to our health. The garden is also a place of delight on sunny days to soak up the sights, sounds, and scents of Cedar Pond . God is so good and we are truly blessed !

I am joining the Thursday Farm Blog-Hop*. Please check out all the blogs offering useful and inspirational information regarding all things farm,gardening, crops, food preservation keeping poultry & livestock...decorating too. You don't need to have a farm to appreciate all you can learn as you visit these blogs !*

Farm Junk Planters

 A person can get pretty creative with old farm junk. Old rusty chicken feeders and waterers make interesting and even quirky planters.

 This old rabbit feeder stuffed with pansies and lobelia hangs on my feed room door.

 The sedums and Ajuga come up every year all by themselves. I have only to remember to bring the junk out from behind the chicken pens where I hide it during the winter months. Sometimes I add a little topsoil or compost .

This pile of farm junk sits at the fence line separating our back yard from the woods behind the house  and close to my chicken & sheep pens. Momma hen has been taking her new little chicks for walks around the junk . The hummingbirds are enjoying the blue Ajuga spires. The wild birds perch on the old stuff as if I put it there especially for them.

I have a bit more junk stashed away . My visit to the Country Chicks event in Rochester, WA last week has inspired me to use it all or get rid of it. ( I know which option my husband is hoping for.)

Today I am joining the Thursday Farm Blog Hop * .

Country Chicks Big Event ~ Rochester, WA

 A friend posted an announcement about the Country Chicks * event to be held on a farm in Rochester, WA last week. On the spur of the moment I packed up my sunglasses, sun hat, bottles of water, loaded up our dog Hawk, to discover what all the excitement was about. Rochester is about 45 minutes away from my home. It was a pleasant sunny day and I knew the drive would be scenic. I took my time on this sweet country drive using back roads going past small towns and farms. This is just a sample of the many, (and I do mean MANY ) booths presented by the Country Chicks , offering a variety of vintage and farm junk gone creative for sale. I will leave off commentary for you to peruse some of the pictures. Click to enlarge any pictures you might wish to further scrutinize.

 What did I buy? Well, since I discovered my whole place could qualify as a Country Chick booth, I realized I lacked nothing for pretty much any of the items that caught my fancy. I only bought this bird cage stuffed with bedding plants. Yes, I do have several old bird cages in my feed room, but the price of this bird cage was cheaper than it would cost me to buy all the plants stuffed into it to turn my own cages into centerpieces. Plus, now I have the tangible idea of this planting here for me to remember to plant up my own farm junk!

Some people's idea of junk is another's idea of treasure, and my day with the Country Chicks inspired me immensely. I decided if I cannot use the last of my farm junk by the end of this year by creating and crafting worthy projects I will really sell it or donate it to those desiring it. How about you ? Do you use your seemingly worthless farm & vintage items to create interesting items for your home, garden, or friends?  Do you sell it at bazaars or on-line? Is it fun ?!?

As I told my sister & husband about my day with the Country Chicks I also informed them that if I should drop dead anytime soon, they only needed to add price tags to most everything around the place to cash in on my "estate" ! All in all, the sunny day driving in the country, seeing the local farms, enjoying the fresh air, and strolling through booths that all reminded me of my home, also reminded me life is good, we are blessed, and anyone can take the bad things in life that might be considered trash or tragedy and turn them into treasure. It truly is in the eye of the beholder.

Farm Junk & Sedums

Old farm junk, the kind of junk cast off into fields, barns, the dump. The milk cans were given to me by my father after he saved them from the metal salvage place he worked at.The old stove would still work fine if there was a need for it , but now serves me well in my back-yard as a place to grow sedums in thrown away pots & pans.

This little nest was found in our driveway after a windstorm.

This sedum is growing in an old pan stuck into an old metal chicken feeder.

A chicken bucket makes a handy-dandy planter for sedums too.

Sedums grow in arid conditions, and in the too-wet conditions we in the Pacific Northwest are used to. This has been an unusually wet year for us and my sedums are proving invaluable as a source of color and bloom. The honeybees especially are flocking to the sedum blossoms in droves, and for that alone the sedums deserve their right to grow where they please around here. Right now I have many white blossomed sedums showing their splendor, but the bright pink sedums are starting to show their color, as are the yellow blossomed sedums. All the rusty, hole-in-the-bottom buckets, old cast away pots & pans, old chicken feeders & waterers, old boots, interesting planters and wire baskets, are perfect for planting sedums. After planting, the care is simple ~ water when I remember and they will thrive, bloom, and make me and the bees happy ! Simple blessings are among the best of blessings.