Spring is inspiring around the farm.  Spring cleaning.  Spring planting.  Spring painting. (Admittedly, this last one is Cowboy’s least favorite on earth.) One thing all farm girls know is that you have to find creative ways to be thrifty.  Around here, we call our style farm chic. Enjoy some of our easy tips for use in your farmtastic spring garden.

Last year I wrote about how you can use dishes to liven up the garden.  They are affordable, and can easily be picked up at garage sales and thrift stores for less than a dollar a piece.  Well this year I found an even more exciting way to use them.  As plant markers in your garden.  The beauty is that you can use a Sharpie marker to write on them.  Water won’t wash it off.  However, if you want to reuse the plates, the Sharpie will come off with household rubbing alcohol.  Magic!

Strawberry plants ready to bear some fruit, and of course sporting their plate marker.

My raised bed filled with plants and plates. Perfect eco-friendly, re-usable markers.

I’ve also struggled with finding pots that I love and that are affordable.  I just want to pot some plants not bury gold.  Terra cotta is classic, but it cracks and, let’s face it, it’s HEAVY when planted.  I’m not up for breaking my back.  So what’s a farm girl to do?  Galvanized buckets.  You can pick them up at your local hardware store. Simply drill a couple of holes in the bottom and line with a layer of pebbles or rocks for drainage.

A stock pot planter used as a perfect spot for a kitchen staple at the farm – rosemary!

Galvanized bucket filled with herbs and the adorable plate plant markers.

In the same realm, I had an old kitchen stock pot that I burnt and warped the bottom of.  (It was a braniac move where I put the pot on the stove and turned it on to heat up but got distracted.  I can’t imagine how I got distracted with the zoo of critters around here).  Anywhoodles, it’s making a great home for my rosemary, and it looks super cute to boot.

Admittedly, I’m a garden novice and still learning each season what works and what fails miserably.  But hey, it’s the journey not the destination, as they say. Let’s just hope this journey yields us some fresh veggies, fruits, and herbs this year.  Happy planting!