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homegrown

DIY: Dowel Rod Tomato Cages

July 9, 2017 by Vanessa Leave a Comment

Affiliate disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I may earn commissions from qualifying purchases from Amazon.com. 

Nothing is more rewarding for this city girl than growing my own food. I did it! I actually harvested homegrown tomatoes from container pots and I barely spent any money to do it. Look at those beauties below.

Jet Star tomatoes

I made inexpensive dowel rod tomato cages instead of buying the plastic coated or metal variety.

Here’s the awesome, cost saving breakdown:

Because I bought the Jet Set tomato plant for $1, vegetable soil $6, and three dowel rods per pot $.80 each, I’d say that’s pretty inexpensive since I’m still harvesting tomatoes and it’s only mid July. Since I split the bag of vegetable soil between two large pots, I spent about $6 per container pot.

After you add new soil and a tomato plant, you will need the following items purchased from a local hardware store to make DIY: Dowel Rod Tomato Cages. 

dowel-rod-tomato-cages

1 DIY Dowel Rod Tomato Cage:

  • 3 dowel rods cut to the length you need
  • 1 rubber band
  • jute twine

First, I used a handsaw to cut each dowel rod down to the length taller than each plant to allow for growth. Second, I inserted each dowel rod around the circumference of the container pots interior as if I was building a teepee. Third, I used a rubber band to bring together the tops of the dowel rods. I recommend using a extra strong rubber band like the ones that come with your store bought broccoli, if you’ve got one in the kitchen junk drawer.

Lastly, to give the tomato leaves something to grow around and to enhance the strength of the dowel rods, I wrapped twine tightly around the outside of each cage in two places.

dowel-rod-tomato-cageThat’s it! I’ve been pleasantly surprised that I haven’t needed to reposition the dowel rods or twine even after moving the pots several times. I think you’ll agree that this do-it-yourself method for building a tomato cage is not only inexpensive but incredibly easy to do.

tomato cage

Now, if you’ll excuse me. A platter of caprese salad made from homegrown tomatoes and basil with mozzarella and drizzled with balsalmic and olive oil is calling my name.

caprese salad

Someone recently told me that their favorite summer fruit is…the tomato. I don’t blame them! Yep, it’s actually a fruit. It’s such a versatile ingredient whether used fresh like in a salad or stewed in a pasta sauce like my Dutch Oven Bolognese Sauce. 

If you’re in love with tomatoes this season, peel the skin and juice them to create a Michelada with Lime (think Bloody Mary made with Mexican beer) or used stewed and diced tomatoes inside Lone Star Turkey Chili with Sour Cream and Chives for tonight’s family dinner.

Happy tomato harvesting to you! I hope your container garden yields dozens of tomatoes this season. Let me know what DIY outdoor project you’re working on in the comments section below.

Filed Under: DIY Tagged With: chili, container garden, container pots, DIY, gardening, homegrown, homemade, michelada, mozzarella, tomato, tomato cage, tomatoes, twine, urban farming, vegetable

Garden House Showcase: A Special Place for Mom

April 18, 2017 by Vanessa Leave a Comment

My mom is quite talented at a lot of things. When guests come over she rolls out the red carpet with the some of the most delicious meals. Even if you’ve dropped by the house mid-day, she’ll serve you a delicious cheese and fruit platter and pour you a glass of Chardonnay. Yea, she’s that kind of hostess.

But don’t be surprised if you knock on the door and she doesn’t answer. She’s most likely outside in her custom built garden house doing what she does best…gardening. Make no mistake. This is no She Shed. She refuses to let people label it as such. This is a real-deal garden house where she spends time cultivating her craft – making her gardens flourish. Whether she is sitting in the screened in porch chair reading about rose bushes or potting plants in the stainless steel sink, her green thumb is at work.

Located behind my parent’s home, mom’s garden house often entices strangers driving by to stop and ask to see it.

It seems only fair that my step-dad, who has his own woodworking shop, would build a garden house for her, right? The 8’x12′ house (not including the 5’x12′ screened in porch) includes the same amenities that any home would have including running water and electricity. During the winter it houses plants she wants to keep alive from the outdoor elements and during the summer the sun beams in on oversized house plants.

I recognize quite a bit of my mom’s style in her garden house’s design from the upcycled screen door to the ceiling light fixture that she held on to for years until this house was built.

Mom’s garden house is an extension of her own home. The interior’s neutral colors, off-set by the bright white counter tops and trimmed windows, includes various green hues from decorative additions and dark black metal pieces. Having collected many of the sitabouts over time, she decorates in a style more sophisticated than rustic farmhouse but less stuffy than classic traditional. She has an eclectic sense of design style that is uniquely her own.

Once inside the screened in porch, glass French doors remain welcome you into a spacious window lit space.
Muted green wicker chairs flank both sides of the screened in porch to the east and the west.

When not busy nurturing plants, she uses the garden house as a quiet refuge to read or just watch her many bird feeders in the yard over a glass of wine. When friends visit on occasion, like her Bunco gal pals, it serves as a getaway space to venture to between games for a quick tour. You can hear the women audibly dote over each detail of the garden house. They want one too. Who wouldn’t?

A serious gardner needs a space to pour over the details found in gardening books. Always the humble student, my mom enjoys learning why some plants and flowers flourish and how she can attract or eliminate insects.

Mom’s appreciation of nature goes back as far as I can remember.

“It (gardening) feeds my soul in a way nothing else does. I’m connected to plants in new says every year,” she said recently.

My childhood was spent watching her in the yard with her hands in the dirt on weekends. After coming home from school we would drag around the hose to water thick, layered flower beds of all colors and varieties. Sunflowers towered over our heads and wildflowers nestled at our feet. She would tell me about butterflies that she adored and the grasshoppers that broke her heart.

Today, she still sees beauty in the colors of delicate flowers and enjoys the harvest of a vegetable or herb garden. Her accepted challenge each year is to learn about the needs of plant placement in her landscape while always attempting to attract birds, bees, and insects.

Antique pottery and her favorite pieces adorn a shelf above the door inside the garden house.
The east side of the garden house exposes an area behind it where she also pots plants and flowers.
The wooden table on the right was her only potting station at our old house.

Gardening is not easy. She admits that the challenge is to find the balance between what she wants to plant and what nature will allow. Admittedly, she says there are more failures to learn every season and enough small successes to keep her happy.

I love spring and wish it lasted longer, she says.

It’s true. She smiles the most in the spring (with college basketball season in a close second place). When the weather begins to warm up and the days spring forward, she is more outdoors than she is indoors. I often call her to wish her a “Happy Spring” only for it to go to voicemail because she’s outside playing in the yard.

While I love the outdoors, I’m not a natural gardener. I struggle to keep plants alive. I either over or under water them. Completely forget about them. I never installed the proper drip system. Can a person’s “green thumb” be learned? Maybe I just wrote it off as “mom’s hobby.” I should have really paid more attention when helping her in the yard as a teen. Just last week I called her seeking advice about our sad rose bushes. Before I knew it, I was at her house on my hands and knees pruning her rose bushes while she used wood glue on the stem ends to prevent bores for invading them again. Glue? Who knew!

A rusty garden tool serves as a door knocker on the exterior of the garden house.

I’m “foodie” thanks to my mom’s love of cooking. In fact, many of her garden harvests end up in her recipes. Ripe tomatoes are the star ingredient in her homemade gazpacho, a cool treat during a blazing hot summer day. Fresh herbs like rosemary and thyme find their way into many of her savory recipes. This year she has decided to trade her tomato plants for perennials because it’s just less to have to worry about and each year perennials come back stronger when given the space to spread out.

I’ve have so much to learn from her wisdom about nature, about plants and birds. As I mentioned before, I’m at best a wannabe gardener. In fact, I’ve killed so many house plants over the years that if there is every going to be any hope for me, I’m going to have to spend more time with mom in the garden house. If you’re more like me, you’ll appreciate a post she helped me write last summer 10 Hard to Kill Houseplants You Can Leave While on Vacation.

But not every day can be spent gardening. Sometimes the body needs a day of rest between the hours spent digging in unforgiving soil and pulling weeds away from flowers. On these days, she takes time to let her body relax but we all know she is still thinking about her next outdoor project.

A water drip system was installed for her window boxes, which extends to the container pots near the garden house entrance.

What can we learn from mom’s garden house? Every woman, every person, needs a space to call their own. Where they can go to escape the chaos of the day and appreciate some quiet time or just enjoy their hobby.

Looking west from inside.

What is it that brings you peace? What do you enjoy learning about most? Tell me in the comments section how you pursue your hobby or where you like to spend quiet time.

Filed Under: Lifestyle Tagged With: antiques, backyard, bird feeders, bird watching, birds, books, botanical garden, break, bugs, Bunco, ceiling fan, chalkboard, chickens, cigar box, decor, design, desk, dirt, DIY, do it yourself, door knocker, earth, farmhouse, flower frog, flowers, framed art, French doors, garden, gardening hat, gardens, gazpacho, grasshoppers, green thumb, greenhouse, harvest, herbs, hobby, homegrown, horticulture, hose, house, houseplants, insects, interior, ivy, landscape, landscape lighting, lawn, mom, mother, nature, outdoors, patio, place, plant stand, plantings, plants, porch, pottery, potting, potting station, quiet, read, reading, reading nook, refuge, rest, roses, rustic, sconce, screen, seasonal, seed packets, seeds, shade, She shed, showcase, shutters, sink, sitabouts, soil, space, special, spring, sunshine, tile, trees, upcycled, urban garden, vacation, vegetables, vintage, weeds, wicker chair, window, window box, wine, work, yard

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Hello! I'm Vanessa. Welcome to One Delightful Life, a blog created to add more delight to your life with delicious recipes, travel destinations, and lifestyle improvement ideas. Thanks for exploring my blog!

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