I’ll be frank, buying a house and doing it up well did not leave me with much to spend on furniture. I’ve been trying to cut corners and still maintain character, it’s not easy thinking of ways to cheap-out in the consumer heaven we’re in today. Luckily for you, the thinking process is the hardest phase and you are allowed steal any ideas here!

The Natural Floor Spherical Lantern – 5 Euros - This was a no brainer, take a sunny day off to enjoy a walk on the beach in search of a nicely evenly weathered stone as a base, and find a stick to use as the stand. Go home and log onto ebay for a Spherical Lantern and a bulb holder, and you’ve got your list of ingredients. The only hurdle is drilling the hole in the rock ( hole used to place the wooden stand in the rock) – If the stone is hard like mine is you’d want to go to a stonemason who has a laser guided cutting device. If not you may want to try and drill the holes yourself. I used string to assemble the light fixture, I preferred going with something safe and not conductive to electricity,

The Vintage Adjustable Arm / Boom Arm Tripod Floor Lamp – $100 – I guess I could have done better with this, but am still proud of what I accomplished. I won this on ebay as a brown old vintage lamp, took it to my local car sprayed who sprayed it white for free since I am a top client. I finally found a pro to having crashed my car so many times. it was never my fault, cough.

The “Big Boss” Easy Chair – Completely Free and Upcycled - this is where I started my pallet obsession, my life as never been the same ever since. When I was driving home after work I saw a bunch a pallets outside a stone oven bakery waiting to be burnt. At the time I was looking for pallets for the Lion’s Eye 3 reggae fest, so I took a few home with his consent. Some surfing, a couple of hours later I made I was able to sit on my first chair. It’s very simple to make – I don’t have any experience in woodwork. I used dowels and wood glue to assemble it. You don’t need plans, I did not even need a ruler

The Storage benches – again, Completely Free and Upcycled - They’re not completely finished, I still need to buy a cushion, hinges and a bottom for the storage. “Technically” is was a lot more easy to figure out than the easy chair – and pallets that i found had consistent dimensions. so it was another no-brainer!

If you’re going to attempt dismantling a pallet, I strongly suggest wearing safety glasses to protect your eyes from nails that might fly back, and safety shoes just in case you had to step on one of the many nails that will end up on the floor. check out this youtube video for stripping a pallet

The photos you’re seeing have filter distortion from a wide angle lens adapter I’ve been testing… More on that soon, also I’ll be coming up with some cool lamps so stay tuned.

Creating the self-watering garden container, AKA Earthbox:

With a self-watering garden container you won’t have to water the plants as much. Just fill the reservoir with water and it will be wicked up through soil-filled pond filter to your plants’ roots. In theory, it should maintain the optimum moisture in the soil, save water, and make container gardening (indoors and out) really low-maintenance. I’ve also included some tips on how many plants you can grow in the same pot depending on their type! Enjoy

Things you’ll need to make your self watering container

Prepare to saw the garden pot right down to the center of the bottom section

Example : Garden Pot is cut

Fitting the Garden pot

Mark the self watering garden container

Hold the rim of the garden pot in marked position, and turn it face down

Cut the circle, place the pot in the container, and the pond filter into the circle

Cut off the extra overlap in the rim

Image: Self-Watering Garden Container, Cut off rim

Insert the rubber pipe into the a hole in the pot, to reach the water reservoir

Drill an overflow hole

Drink a beer, you’re done

Which Crop to Grow

Most veg that grows in a backyard will do well as a container plants.  Carrots, Cucumber, Green beans, Lettuce, Parsley, Pepper, Radishes, Spinach & tomatoes are amongst the most popular

Fertilization

Conatiner plants need to be fertilized more then field-grown plants because they have less soil to provide the nutrients they need. A soluble fertilizer applied once a week is recommended while watering. I suggest using a 15-30-15 oe 20-20-20

Growing Tomatos

1. Dont crowd the seedling, give them room to branch out.
2. Provide lots of light. luckly for me I live in Malta, if you live in a location that lacks light you may consider having growing lights running at 14-18 hours at a time.
3. put a fan on you seedlings, I thought that this whould not work but it did. To develop strong stems you’ll need to train them, provide a breeze for a couple of minutes a day
4. Preheat the soil, more heat means that you’ll harvest sooner
5. Once at 3 inch high. remove bottom leavs, so the plant will grow faster
6. romove the suckers that develop at the joint of the plant – they just take the energy away
7. Water them regularly when plants are developing. Also, feed the tomatos a lot more once they are blossoming

Pot Size

Container Size for vegetables