Fairy Tea Garden Kit Review

Today I want to introduce you to one of the new Fairy Garden Kits produced by Horizon Group USA, the Fairy Tea Garden! My girls have made fairy gardens with their grandma before, but I knew they wouldn't be able to resist the tiny tea set in this kit! (We received this kit in exchange for our honest opinions!)

The kit includes a planter, arbor, little fence, two chairs, a table, a tea pot, two teacups, and a little fairy. It is also supposed to include fairy dust, but ours was somehow lost during opening; I am afraid it got thrown away with the packing in the box thanks to all the help I had!

As you can see the girls were thrilled with the garden kit. Flowers and soil are not included, and we chose to go with silk flowers since fresh aren't too plentiful right now. Once we had those picked out I filled the base with soil and turned them loose.

I did make suggestions along the way, so we were still able to see the fairy in the end, but they chose where most of it went. And even though we lost the fairy dust I did have some glitter (kindly provided by CraftProjectIdeas.com) to sprinkle the garden with.

And here is their finished product! 

The fairy looks quite content in the pretty garden too.

I do think we will be reworking this at some point because the little chair didn't sit well on the dry soil. Either I will buy foam and moss for the bottom, or we will plant real plants in it so the soil will be firmer with water. Either way should work fine, but I wouldn't recommend going with real soil and fake plants!

I was a little concerned with how quickly the fairy could be broken, and we tested that right out of the box (not on purpose of course). Nadia dropped her during the unpacking! Her wings came off, but they were easy to put back on. If it happens again they may get glued on.

The girls really loved this kit. I honestly think they each would have loved one of their own. I mean, what little girl wouldn't want to decorate her own little fairy tea garden! 

The Fairy Tea Garden Kit along with a Traditional Fairy Garden Kit or a Terrarium Fairy Garden Kit will hit WalMart Garden Centers for 6-8 weeks starting now with limited availability through the holiday season. Then they may be back for spring. They are expected to retail for $19.97. These would definitely make a good gift option for your fairy loving little girl as they allow her to create something beautiful and yet all her own. If you use real flowers you can introduce gardening too!

Growing Pumpkins in Pumpkins

Growing a Pumpkin in a Pumpkin; fun idea right? This is another one of those projects I found on Pinterest that had nothing but a picture. *sigh* I wasn't sure it would work, or if there would be some sort of secret I needed to know.  And I really wanted to try it with big pumpkins, but mine rotted before we could. Besides I have no idea what we would have done with them through the winter!  

Luckily we still had some little pumpkins that hadn't rotted! 

Start by cutting the top off. I am terrible at this apparently, so it is a really good thing the top didn't have to go back on!  The girls were amazed by the seeds, and I was happy it wasn't too gooey after sitting so long.

I had each girl put some dirt in a pumpkin. I used a seed starter to be on the safe side, but pumpkins are supposed to be super easy to grow, so maybe it doesn't matter.

Of course we watered the pumpkins then and waited.

About a week later something is starting to show!

Within 3 days one of the pumpkins is exploding with sprouts! The other was just a little behind with two up and more pushing.

We decided we better plant them! You could see on the bottom all the roots coming through the pumpkin. This little pumpkin even had a shoot trying to come out the side!

The whole pumpkin gets planted and the girls water them (more then) thoroughly.

Now we hope the weather stays warm enough not to kill our pumpkins! Although if they are really as easy as everyone says they should come up anyhow! 

What I really like about this little experiment is how it demonstrates the circle of life. The new growth comes from the old and is nourished by the old. Really shows how nature works to maintain plants. Even seeds that fly away from their host are nourished by decomposing leaves and such in the soil. This just happens to be in one compact little pumpkin! 

Recycled Seed Planters

 Normally to start seeds I would go buy those little Jiffy pots that expand when you add water, I have always liked how easy they are and the fact that I can just plant the whole thing. But this year I decided to try to do some recycling while starting some seeds. We started with newspaper that was torn in strips and soaked it in water overnight.

Then we lined muffin tins with it! You definitely don't want it too thick because it takes forever dry! I actually stuck ours in the oven at 170 degrees for a while to speed up the drying process.

Once they were completely dry you can add seed starter to it as well as water and seeds. I had the plastic part of the Jiffy trays that I placed ours in to catch all the water and act as a little greenhouse.  I also wanted to try using cardboard egg cartons. Super easy, just fill with dirt, add seeds and water, and wait.

In a week or so we had little seedlings in both our newspaper pots and our egg cartons. The girls and I planted them outside pot and all. The little pots do fall apart a little when they are wet, but they stayed together well enough to get them in the ground!

Unfortunately we had a bit of cold weather after planting them, so I hope they are okay. A least we learned we could indeed recycle newspaper and egg cartons while starting our seeds!

Growing a Pineapple from a Pineapple

About a year and a half ago I decided to try and grow a pineapple from a pineapple because I had heard it could be done.  I love pineapple, so this seemed like a good way to get more of it.   If you know anything about pineapples you realize how silly this thought was. It turns out that it takes 2 years before a pineapple plant will even produce a pineapple, and very few plants (at least kept in houses) produce more then one fruit ever! Talk about inefficient!   I still wanted to see if I could do it.  Yet another silly thought for me since most all plants that come into my house do not survive a year.  Yet somehow after a year and a half and a lot of good instruction from Rick's Woodshop Creations my pineapple is still alive.  I don't know if it will have fruit or not, but I am hopeful.  So a couple weeks ago I had another pineapple and decided to try again.  Really I have tried to root several plants over the past year, but have had some rot, some never do anything, and one even froze in the car overnight.  Well I did not think this one would make it either since we had a vacation planned, and it would be ignored.  Surprise, surprise, I returned from Indiana to a plant with roots!  I hadn't planned to blog about it since it wasn't expected to live, so you will have to excuse the lack of pictures prior to rooting.  If my explanation is nor clear check out the above link for good instructions on how to do this on your own.

First of all, start with a pineapple.  Cut off the top and remove all the flesh around the bottom of the leaves (otherwise it will rot)  Then remove some of the bottom leaves.  I have found some pineapples that already have some stringy looking root things or at least little buds where the roots will start from.  Unfortunately none of them made it for me.  Then let the stump dry for a couple days. At this point you need to stick it in water to form roots.  I suspended mine in a clear, blue glass with toothpicks stuck in the leafy area.  You don't want the leaves in the water or they will rot.  Change the water every other day if at all possible!  In a couple weeks you should get roots!  I left mine in the water for another week to let the roots grow some.  So, here is what it looked like the day I planted it.

Top plant it I started with an 8" clay pot, an extra a saucer to break and place in the bottom, some cactus soil, and some perlite,  First thing is to break the extra saucer and place it over the drain hole in the pot; not to completely cover it but at an angle to allow drainage.

 Then mix 2 parts cactus soil and 1 part perlite.  I just do this in a large bowl by dumping in 2 cups of soil and then 1 cup of perlite.

Add some of the mixture to your pot, followed by your pineapple, and finish with the soil mixture.

Water thoroughly and place in a sunny location.  It will need watered once a week.  You never want the soil to be super wet though, or it will rot.  After a couple months you can pull on the plant to see if it is viable.  If it resists you tugging it has formed new roots, but if it pulls out then it died.  Obviously my new one isn't that far yet, but I will update when it is.  Here is a picture of the new little one with my bigger one that was repotted in March.  I think it may actually need repotted again soon.