How to Start a Garden When You Live in an Apartment
April 29, 2019
Just because you live in a small space or lack a private yard doesn’t mean you have to give up on all of your gardening dreams! No matter your situation, you don’t have to have a huge yard and tons of time on your hands. You simply have to think small and get creative with the available space at your disposal. Here are some tricks on how to maximize the potential of your apartment for growing your garden!
1. Observe how much light each room or outdoor space receives during the day
Depending on how much sun your apartment gets everyday will determine what kind of plants will thrive in the space. Plants usually come in three varieties: full sun, partial sun, or shade. If
you don’t get a lot of sun, you may want to consider shade-living plants. If your apartment has tons of windows that bring in lots of natural sunlight, plants that love partial or full sun will thrive in this environment.
Don’t have enough sunlight but love sun-loving plants? Bring in some artificial sun! Plant sunlight lamps allow you to supplement the sunlight your plants are missing. Sunlight lamps are especially handy when you are trying to grow flowers, herbs, or vegetables from seeds or seedlings. You can even put the lamp on a timer so you can shut off the light at the same time every night.
2. How much of your living space are you willing to sacrifice?
The average apartment size in America is 941 square feet. That’s not a lot of space if you have a lot of furniture and other belongings. Now, there are ways to maximize the available space in your apartment so you can still have tons of plants. Add wall mounted shelves to the wall and line them with your favorite potted plants. This is perfect for smaller flowers such as African violets or even common cooking herbs.
You can even create a modern floating effect by mounting terra cotta planters directly to the wall. Check out this DIY Terra Cotta Pots Planter Wall blog for step-by-step instructions on how to create an entire garden space right on your living room wall! This not only saves space in your apartment – but it also saves you money since you won’t have to buy any decor!
3. Buy the appropriate pots or raised gardening beds for your plants
Here is the fun part, buying all the pretty pots to plant your flowers in! If you already have planters or flower pots no problem, but if you don’t, now is the perfect time to consider creating a cohesive design. For example, choose flower pots of all one type such as the traditional terra cotta pots. Or you can choose planters of all one color to complement your home decor. Whatever you choose, make sure you have the right planter for the job.
Do you want to grow vegetables? Depending on the type of vegetable you may want to consider specially made containers or raised garden beds. Raised planters give you ample surface area while keeping the dirt and plants raised to a comfortable height so you can easily weed or prune as needed.
Bonus Idea: Consider purchasing a free-standing shelving unit where you can arrange all of your potted plants and herbs. This allows you to keep your garden in one convenient location, and it takes advantage of unused vertical height.
4. Plan Ahead for the winter months
If you live in sunny California or temperate Florida, this may not be a problem for you. But if you’re like the rest of us, cold weather hits once a year and seems to last forever. So you should plan ahead what you want to do with any potted plants you have on your balcony or patio. Annual plants only last for one growing season, so by the time winter hits they don’t need to be brought inside. Simply store the planters for next season!
Perennial plants last for more than one growing season, so you will probably want to bring these plants inside for the winter months. So before you decorate your patio with tons of perennial flowers, please be aware you will have to bring these plants indoors for the winter months so they don’t die in the cold weather. Make sure you plan ahead and have space for these planters once the snow starts to fly.
5. Most importantly – don’t go overboard!
Remember, this is how to garden while living in a small space. Your space will get even smaller if you go overboard and fill your home with tons of plants! Pick the flowers that are most important to you and bring you joy, and have some fun tending them this summer!
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Meringue Mushroom Recipe
April 24, 2019
Prep Time: 45 minutes Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes Total Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
Ingredients:
2 large egg whites (room temperature)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
Kitchen Tools
Large cookie sheet
Parchment Paper
Wilton 2A tip with a piping bag
Instructions
Prep: Preheat Oven to 200° F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper (not wax paper).
- Add 2 egg whites, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/8 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp cream of tartar and beat with whisk attachment on high speed 7 min or until you have glossy ribbons and the peaks stay fairly stiff (cold whites take longer).
- Transfer meringue to pastry bag fitted with a 3/8″ round tip and pipe onto lined cookie sheet (about 1″ apart).
- Mushroom caps should look like large chocolate kisses (1 1/2″ diameter at the base) with the tip swirled into the side so you get an even top. If you’re a perfectionist; you can smooth the mushroom caps with a wet fingertip. Mushroom stems should look like slimmer/taller kisses (3/4″ diameter at the base) and tips pointed up.
- Bake at 200˚F for 1 hour 30 min. They should slide easily off the parchment paper easily when they are done. Remove from oven and pull the parchment paper off the baking sheet . Let cool on the paper completely to room temp. They will harden as they cool.
- Assemble the mushrooms by combining the cap and stem. Rotate the tip of a small paring knife in the center of each mushroom cap to cut a small hole just large enough to fit the tip of the base.
- Melt chocolate and transfer into a ziploc bag. Snip off a tiny hole from the corner of the bag and pipe chocolate into the holes of meringue. Stick the bases into the holes and leave them upside-down until chocolate hardens and sets.
- Dust the tops and stems lightly with cocoa powder. If you like, you can smudge the cocoa powder with your fingers to give them that natural dirty glow. This can be done before or after you assemble the mushrooms, whichever works best for you.
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10 Ways on How to Organize Your Home on a Budget
April 22, 2019
by Laura Sage
Organizing your home can seem like it’s out of your reach budget wise. However, there are tons of things you can use to organize your home that aren’t expensive. You can basically just reuse a ton of items that you already have on hand and make them fit your organizational needs for your home. This will make organizing your home more budget friendly for you and you will not have to worry about spending money on a bunch of new storage items.
Most of the things on the list below are things that you already have in your home or things that you buy on a regular basis. This means you’re not actually spending any money out of pocket, you’re just repurposing items that you already have laying around your house or items that you currently just toss in the trash after you’re done with.
- Boxes: Boxes come in all shapes and sizes. You get them when you order things online, you get them when you buy shoes. Repurposing a box that you bought something else in is a great organization method. Shoe boxes are the best because they have lids on them so it makes it easier to store and not lose things in the process.
- Food Containers: What do you do with your empty food containers such as sour cream or butter bowls? Most people just throw them away, however they are a great tool to use to organize small things in for storage after they are washed out!
- Glass Jars: Glass jars are great for organizing pencils, pens, crayons, markers or any other office supplies. If you buy mayonnaise, jelly, pickles, or peanut butter those containers would work well too.
- Baskets: If you have spare baskets laying around, they are great to repurpose for storage as well. They are great to organize toys, clothes or beauty items if the basket is small enough.
- Hangers: Hangers are great to organize your clothes better. Instead of having to store them all separately you could put the clothes on hangers based on the entire outfit. If you put the entire outfit on one hanger, this makes more room in your closet too! You can also organize your belts or ties on hangers to maximize space and keep them from getting tangled up.
- Mismatched Tupperware: If you have old bowls that do not have lids to fit them any longer you can repurpose them for storage purposes instead of tossing them because you no longer have a lid for it. Smaller bowls are great to put inside your drawers to organize things inside them.
- Binders: You can use an old binder to store all of your important papers in, to store menus in, or even to store recipes in. If you have all of your papers in one space then you will no longer have to search for them when you need them.
- Command Hooks: You can organize your jewelry by hanging command hooks on the inside of your closet door and this will ensure that you no longer have tangled up necklaces or bracelets to dig through. You can also organize your jackets, belts or other items on command hooks as well.
- Shoe Organizer: You can use a shoe organizer for a lot more things than just shoes. You can organize school supplies, office supplies, food items for your pantry, makeup, nail polish, and just about any other thing that you own a large amount of. A shoe organizer is great for storage because most of the time it’s clear and you can see what item you’re reaching for when you’re looking for something.
- Baby Wipe Boxes: If you have old baby wipe boxes laying around they are great for storing lots of things in. If you have tons of grocery bags they are a great dispensary system for them. They also work great for a crayon or pencil box. You can store lots of other things in them as well.
There are tons of way that you can organize your home at little to no money out of your pocket. You just have to know how to repurpose items that you already have. We listed a few ways, but there are tons of other ways that you can organize your home as well.
Be creative with the items you have in your home and make your home comfortable to all of your visitors instead of a cluttered place to walk into. It’s hard to organize clutter, so make sure you get rid of some of those items you don’t need before you begin!
Author’s Bio:
Laura Sage is the manager of Amish Furniture Factory since 2013. She’s a professional when it comes to hardwood furniture and home decor.