DIY Life

I am not a weed vigilante. I do not obsessively seek to control the weeds in my yard. "Live and let live" is usually my philosophy.

Some weeds, however, are just begging for a fight. They spread everywhere and are super-tough to eradicate. Crabgrass (Digitaria spp.) has to be one of the top weeds on most gardeners' lists. It's pretty harmless-looking, pretty even. But it spreads relentlessly by seed, taking over patches of lawn and spreading into garden beds.

Got a crabgrass problem? Check out the following tips and reign it in!

Leave it to Better Homes and Gardens. Somehow, they're able to inspire me without making me feel like a second-rate Martha Stewart wanna-be.

Since we joined our CSA farm last year, it's been a pleasure to have new fresh flowers in the house every week. BHG has created a gallery of flower arrangements that can be done in five minutes, and that look positively stunning. Some of their winning combinations:

• poppies surrounded by hosta leaves
• geranium leaves, roses, and trailing vines
• lavender stems and geranium leaves
• hydrangeas with bachelor buttons
• mounded zinneas with bleeding heart foliage

What I really love about BHG's arrangements is that most of the blooms could be found in your own garden, or even in a wild flower field. That makes these arrangements economical, too.

I've been combining wild yarrow with daylilies and daisies for a pretty display on my kitchen's center island. What's you favorite quick and easy flower arrangement?

I am in desperate need of a kitchen apron. I have been cooking since I was 8 years old, and I have always absentmindedly wiped my hands on my clothing, even though there is always a dish towel nearby. Yup, I need an apron.

DIY Maven on Curbly has written a fabulous tutorial, complete with awesome pictures, teaching us how to turn large cloth napkins into a kitchen apron using a sewing machine. You'll need several yards of ribbon for tie strings and for the apron collar, and of course, some basic sewing skills.

This apron is perfect, not just for the kitchen, but also for gardening. The pockets in the apron could hold your kitchen gadgets, or your gardening tools. Of course, I always absentmindedly wipe my dirty hands on my clothes when I am gardening too.

Check your local thrift stores for some awesome napkins. Mine always seem to have the prettiest sets of fabric napkins on hand, and for the price they sell at (6 for $1.00), there are plenty available to make as gifts for my gardening and cooking friends.

Got a kiddo who's driving you stir crazy on a rainy day? Or maybe you just have a budding botanist in the family. Either way, this kid's terrarium from National Geographic is sure to be a hit with kids of all ages.

Have a responsible child run down to the basement and dig out that old fishbowl... you know, the one you bought after you won that goldfish at the county fair? Wash it out with soap and water, then rinse well. While it's drying, gather the rest of your materials:

• potting soil
• horticulture soil
• small stones
• plants of your choice
• scissors
• water
• decorative figure of your choice (a Polly Pocket? Ben 10? Let them decide.)

Visit National Geographic Kids for details on the how-to of this nifty terrarium, but basically you're going to layer the stones, then the charcoal, then the potting soil. Put your plants in the dirt, decorate, and place in a sunny place! Leave it to your children to prune the plants as necessary... responsibility is good for them!

(via Craft)

Your front yard doesn't have to be perfectly manicured or professionally landscaped to look good. It is, however, your public face -- of sorts. Plus, your neighbors are forced to look at whatever you put out there!

Be a good neighbor: banish the following items from your front yard.

1. Plastic foliage. I'm talking anything you got from a craft store. Like this, for example. Plastic ivy. Faux dried sunflowers. Silk chrysanthemums. Plastic wreaths. Fake autumn leaves strung into streamers. Shudder.

Plastic flowers are tacky in the garden. They're unnecessary. After all, you have Mother Nature at your disposal! Why choose fake flowers? Finally, they evoke the cemetery. Enough said.

Colony collapse disorder, the mysterious phenomenon that has entire colonies of honeybees vanishing into thin air, has brought the state of our bee population to the forefront. Not many people realize this, but bees pollinate about 90% of our flowering crops. What that means is: without bees, we don't eat.

Creating a bee-friendly yard may not solve the issue of colony collapse disorder, but it is a great way of doing your part to encourage a healthy bee population. It'll also ensure that any of your own fruit, vegetable, and flower crops get pollinated, so that you have fresh food to eat and a beautiful yard to enjoy. In addition, the same plants that draw bees bring other pollinators, like butterflies.

So how do you go about attracting bees to your yard? It's not difficult at all. Read more about it after the break.

I dare you to find an American household without any carrots in the fridge. Granted, most will probably be the scrubbed-clean, prepackaged, more expensive baby carrots. If you'd like to save money (and waste less food!), read on.

First of all, buying whole carrots -- or, better yet, growing them -- is cheaper than buying baby carrots. A good thing, right? Well, if you learn how to peel them just so, you'll be able to save more of the carrot... and more money.

According to eHow, if you peel away from you with a sharp-bladed peeler, you'll peel off less carrot. Additionally, if you peel the top until no green is showing, then peel the tip as well -- no chopping -- you'll end up with more of the carrot.

It seems like a simple way to be frugal while respecting the Earth's resources.

Summer vacation keeps rolling along. How long until your kids go back to school? Are they spending too much time lounging on the couch? Here are a bunch of summer projects to trick your kids away from their air-conditioned sanctuary and out into the great outdoors of, er, your backyard.

Okay, okay. So the backyard is not the great outdoors. True. But the main thing is to get the kiddos out in the fresh air, learning about nature, and learning about the noble pursuit of maintaining a garden.

Getting their hands dirty
1. Ask them to help with the weeding. Pay them a small amount of pocket money for their time.

This is the first year we've used a CSA, and every Tuesday we get a delivery of fresh-from-the-farm vegetables. Last week, however, our delivery came the night before we left on a camping trip.

Since I wasn't sure all those goodies were going to last until we got home, I decided to freeze what I could. That's when I had a "why-didn't-I-think-of-that" moment.

After doing an internet search to find out if my green onions and garlic scapes could be frozen (they can, though they should only be used for cooking, not raw, afterwards), I discovered Biggie at Lunch in a Box. She recommends freezing green onions and chopped herbs in plastic bottles, so that they are simple to pour out and measure when adding them to a recipe. Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that?

Here at DIY Life, Earth-friendly ideas are always a popular topic. So, when we heard that our sister site Green Daily is running a fantastic giveaway from Gardener's Supply Company, we couldn't wait to tell our readers about it!

One lucky reader will win a complete composting kit, featuring more than US $300 in supplies. The centerpiece of the prize is the Earthmaker Composter (a $225 value), but there are also plenty of accessories in the package, including a nifty odor-busting crock in which you can collect your kitchen scraps before putting them in the compost bin.

To learn more, and enter, please visit the giveaway post at Green Daily and follow the instructions: all you have to do is leave a comment telling them what you would compost if you were the winner. If you've never commented before, the system will require you to confirm the comment with a legitimate email address. Good luck!

If you don't win, a few great DIY composting ideas may come in handy. Check out the following posts:

• Bethany's Start your own worm composting bin
• Create a compost pile in your back yard, also by Bethany
• Francesca's Make a compost bin from shipping pallets
• Anna's 163 items to add to your compost

Where I live, it's been an unusually rainy spring, so rainy that my garden seems to grow overnight (as do the weeds). I know to be grateful for this kind of rain -- not too much, but also not too little. The southeast U.S. is in its second year of a painful drought, and water bans severely limit gardeners on how much they can put on their backyard crops.

Whether you're living in an area that gets enough rain or not, it still makes sense to help your garden retain as much water as possible. Water use increases in the summer time, raising both your water bill (we get charged for sewer use even if the water goes onto our garden, which never fails to infuriate me) and your impact on the environment.

Canadian Living has some simple but surefire tips for helping your garden and lawn retain every drop of rain or water that it gets. One of their tips for water conservation includes making a rain barrel, and our very own Bill Volk can show you exactly how to make one. And if you're under a strict water ban, Ilona has some great ideas for no dig, low-water gardens that will help you grow your veggies without much water at all.

Dreaming of a Mediterranean-style oasis in your own yard? Me too! Okay, let's get inspired!

So, what makes certain gardens "Mediterranean," anyway? Well, for starters, they're designed to withstand both lots of heat and irregular rainfall. The garden designs are visually appealing, true. But they're also low-care and eco-friendly. Because plants are selected for toughness, and lawns are absent or insignificant, there's less need for chemicals and watering.

1. It's all about contrast.
Mediterranean styling is pretty easy to imitate. The essential element? Contrast. That is, contrasting hard, structured surfaces with soft, unstructured foliage and blooms. Think tumbling vines atop high stone walls. Think paved walkways next to climbing roses. Think clipped hedges fronting tall, slender cypress trees. You get the picture.

Tomatoes are fabulous and very easy to grow. Many critters think so too, so they will gladly come and eat your bountiful tomato harvest, especially if you grow them in the ground.

Considering the recent recall of Topsy-Turvy Tomato planters, some people may have given up on the idea of planting their tomatoes upside-down, but Jim decided to forgo the $30 cost of commercial tomato planters and made his own planters, using 5-gallon buckets.

Jim used recycled buckets from a local restaurant, but he says paint or hardware stores should also have them. He drilled a hole in the bottom of the bucket and one in the lid, then covered the holes with coffee filters so the dirt wouldn't fall out. He planted the tomatoes in the buckets, and when the plants were about one foot tall, he hung them up on a sturdy surface that could support the weight of the bucket filled with potting soil.

Be sure to check out Jim's alternative method for growing tomatoes. I love the idea of using buckets for the tomatoes instead of something flimsy that could tip over at any given moment. The buckets would be perfect for peppers and cucumbers too.

Thanks for the tip, Ian!

I don't know what it's like where you live, but every time the stores come out with something new for the garden, I start seeing the item popping up all over town. Soon enough, that unique new ornament is commonplace and a bit trite.

I can honestly say that I've never seen a "tipsy" flower pot tower, though; it looks like something I want to try in my garden. To put it together, you'll need:

• A tall, sturdy metal rod. (The instructions call for a 66" rod.)
• One 12" round clay pot.
• Four 10" clay pots.
• Potting soil.

The tower looks simple enough to assemble. Drive the rod into the ground, and thread the 12" pot onto the rod. Fill with soil. Then thread the 10"pots on, balancing each pot sturdily on the pot below. All that's left to do is to fill it with your favorite flowers.