Posted in DIY, Gardening, Recycling | 1 Comment

Line your garden with old wine bottles

Lifehacker has the scoop on reusing old wine bottles as makeshift garden edging.

Annie and Alexis Thomas were looking for a green way to edge their gardens in an interesting and novel way. They edged their sizeable garden with 489 bottles—most collected from local restaurants and wine stores—partially buried, as the demarcation between the gardens and the foot paths that wind through them.

Now what can you do with all the corks?

Posted in DIY, Lighting | 0 Comments

DIY quick and easy LED garden lights

You need to light your yard for a party, but you’re low on cash.  That’s fine — there’s a solution for you.

The folks over at Evil Mad Scientist Labs show us how to make “quick, easy, temporary, and beautiful LED garden lights” using mason jars and cheap LED lights.

For a late night summer party, we wanted to deploy an array of maybe 20 or so little LED garden lights along the periphery of our back yard. And since it was for a one-time event, there wasn’t much sense in buying (or building) a set of nice looking permanent solar lights. So here is an alternative: make your own ultra-low cost temporary garden lights using LEDs, lithium coin cells, and mason jars.

Head over to EMSL to see exactly how they did it.

Posted in DIY | 0 Comments

$100 DIY outdoor movie theater screen

You’ve seen the pre-built backyard movie theater setups, but they’re expensive and rather rudimentary to command such a high price tag.  Why not build your own?  Wired’s Geek Dad provides the how-to and promise that, with just over $100, you’ll be enjoying your favorite flick in the comfort of your own backyard.

Lazy summer evenings, sitting back and sipping a cool beverage, while the kids ran around catching fireflies and watching a Hollywood blockbuster on a very big screen. These are the moments when vivid, lifetime memories are made. But then I saw the price tag: $3,499. The dream of outdoor movie watching began to make a hasty retreat.

Fortunately, he finds a way, and pieces the project together for exactly $122.75 (speakers or projector not included, naturally)  Read the full set of instructions over at Wired.

Posted in DIY, Fencing, Gardening, Inspiration | 0 Comments

Welded wire fencing secures your garden in style

Keeping dogs, deer, kids, and other pests (I kid, I kid) out of your garden and off your plants is always a challenge, and more often than not a simple fence will do the trick.  Flickr user sundry took it a step further by creating this unique barrier that blends nicely with the existing fence and offers a clean, modern look.

Fence and metal tubs are farm supplies from a local grange. Fencing is galvanized, it’s called welded wire. It comes in either a roll or in straight panels, and it was cut to length with bolt cutters.

See another photo — with swinging gate — here.

Posted in DIY, Gardening | 0 Comments

$100 drip irrigation system for your backyard

Constantly forgetting to water your tomato plants?  You’re not alone.  Matt Haughey (of Metafilter fame) spent $100 and a Saturday afternoon (albeit a few years back…) installing a drip irrigation system to keep his plants alive while on vacation.

It’s amazingly easy, like putting legos together. Cost about $100 and took about an hour to set up the first section.

Follow along step-by-step in his short Flickr tutorial to make your own.