Container gardening season has commenced, and during the past few weeks I’ve been getting the patio ready for a new year of vegetable-growing adventures. I pulled out my buckets and filled them with the soil I’d stored and saved from last season, refreshing it with compost and other nutrients. After noticing that a squirrel or bird kept digging holes in my soil, I picked up some chicken wire and made covering for my buckets. As of now, I’ve got spinach, radishes, and snowpeas growing on the patio. Feeling more confident in my gardening skills now that I’ve got a growing season under my belt, I’ve also started growing tomatoes and hot peppers from seed, and will try my hand at corn later this summer using a variety developed for containers. Since it’s too cold for the tomatoes and peppers, I’ve got those growing inside under a light, which I’ll use for indoor herbs once I’ve hardened the seedlings currently basking under its glow.
All this activity means I’ve been needing a place to store seeds, as my collection has grown significantly from last year. Up until now I’ve been keeping them in one of my garden pots, but that was always intended as a temporary location. Now that I know I can handle container gardening and intend to continue it, I could use a permanent, designated place for my seeds. On a recent Saturday morning, then, I headed to the local Goodwill and picked up a small wooden crate for $2.
That could have been the end of this story, but if that had been the case, this wouldn’t have been a blog post. As longtime readers may remember, I’ve occasionally painted furniture, and thought this crate would be the perfect opportunity to do something pertaining its purpose as a seeder holder. Let’s take a look!
I started by covering the entire crate with a layer of the same gray paint I used for our magnolia side table back in 2021. It’s a pleasantly opaque paint, so it’s perfect as a base coat for furniture projects like these, one where I want a neutral ground but something more interesting than white (or at least, one that hides dirt and wear better).
For my imagery, I took inspiration from pictures of vintage seed packets I found online. I copied some of the fonts using gold paint, and then added my own imagery. The cucumber was based on a sketch I did of our own vines last year, while the radishes were based on photos I’ve seen in Burpee’s seed catalog.
Like today’s post, this was a quick but satisfying project. When you’re working on long-term projects like dissertations, exhibitions, or large knitted undertakings like blankets or shawls, it’s nice to counterbalance those endeavors with something you can finish in a couple of hours. At the very least, I shouldn’t lose track of my seeds now.
Not bad for a $2 investment.