Gardening With A Spoon And A Drill

[maxcelcat]

I have an extremely small "garden" here in the cluttered one bedroom flat I share with evildoom_bunny and schnitzelrug. A large portion of my garden, in fact all bar one plant, is made up of succulents. Cacti and the like.

Yonks ago I picked up half a dozen random little mini cactus's, in pots about the size of a thimble. There are well cute, and thrived surprisingly well in the flat. Of late, they were starting to look a little cramped, some two years after I got them. And schnitzelrug had taken a liking to one of them and kept on pulling it from its pot, so I thought it time to repot the little guys. Which is kinda a pity, because then they'll just go on to be bog-ordinary normal sized cacti.

A while ago (regular readers might have heard mention of this) my family sold our ancient beach house. I picked up a whole bunch of random crockery, mainly because I couldn't bear to see it thrown out. Including a lot of random cups from the Seventies. My flat is so tiny, nothing is allowed to be in here unless it's useful for something. So I decided to make 'em into flower pots.

Now, a flower pot needs one important thing - a drainage hole. Which is kinda the opposite of what a cup needs... So I had to figure out a way of making holes in these things...

And it can be done! All you need is a ceramic drill bit, the sort of thing you'd use to drill tiles, and a drill, and a lot of patience. Especially if you're a masochist and have only got a borrowed hand drill. I managed to drill holes in the bottom of three cups and a vase thing, two others were such stubborn bastards that I had to give up on them. But I found new homes for all of the mini cacti:



Wow - that picture is some weeks old now, both these plants are a lot bigger now! The cups were so tiny I had to put the potting mix in with a spoon... I should write a book called "small flat gardening" :-)

Comments

[tortoises.livejournal.com]

My cactus died. :( I forgot to water it again.

Green Fingers. NOT.

[maxcelcat]

How on EARTH did you kill a cactus??? You'd have to not water it for, like, five months!

Re: Green Fingers. NOT.

[tortoises.livejournal.com]

It was only a baby cactus. I forgot to water it for about two weeks.

Re: Green Fingers. NOT.

[maxcelcat]

You should keep them somewhere you see them all the time. Mine are on my table, for example...

Re: Green Fingers. NOT.

[tortoises.livejournal.com]

Mine was on my windowsill so it would get light. XD;

[ladystardust-xs.livejournal.com]

That is cool. I love a bit of craftiness. FYI craftster.com has good tips on what you can do to recycle old things into new and useful things, incluidng garden and outdoor things.

Crafty!

[maxcelcat]

Hmmmmmmmm.... My efforts at craft are few and far between. Unless you count building PCs... :-)

[vedmajulia.livejournal.com]

Maybe you can adopt my flowers as well, they would probably be much better off in your care!

Dead Plant

[maxcelcat]

I think that is an unsafe assumption :-)

Re: Dead Plant

[vedmajulia.livejournal.com]

I don't know, yours look healthier than mine...
http://vedmajulia.livejournal.com/12650.html

Re: Dead Plant

[maxcelcat]

Yeah, saw them! It's hardly rained here since 1898, so plants on balconies aren't doing too well!

When were Jack and Polina in your flat???

Re: Dead Plant

[vedmajulia.livejournal.com]

December - when they were in Melb and didn't want to stay with grandparents... I don't blame them :-)

[(Anonymous)]

Good to hear that you survived using TOOLs. Based on your previous post it probably was a very good idea to use hand drill :-D
Zoya

I dunno

[maxcelcat]

I could quite easily have had the drill spin out of control and give me some new piercings :-)