The Marigold Potager – A Zone 3 Prairie Garden

Well, hi there! Happy Sunday!

I have so many great reads for you this week! Sit and enjoy perusing the bajillion links with your morning coffee. Pin the ideas to your Pinterest boards, take notes in your journals, or whatever you like to do with all the ideas.

We were in a terrible deep freeze for a week or two, so I was hunkered down for most of last week. Did not step foot outside until Thursday, when the chinook finally blew in.

Since then we have been in the high single digits during the day and even plus degrees at night! Much, much nicer. Thank goodness! That hunkering down was giving me big time cabin fever.

I bought myself this fantastic new weather station. It sits in our tv room so we can keep an eye on it from the kitchen and while watching tube and chilling. Can I just say that hubs and I both love this weather station so much! We are checking it all the time, comparing the different temps.

This is how we set it up. You can put yours in the garage, baby’s room, basement, shed, hoophouse… wherever you want to check the temp.

• The top temp is the outdoor temp
• The second one is the temp in my potting cottage
• The third sensor is going out to the greenhouse, is currently reading the indoor temp.
• The bottom is the temp inside the house.

This weather station comes in white, black, grey, and this faux wood look. I like this one, it kind of blends into our sitting room, is unobtrusive. The numbers are big enough that I can read them from my recliner, while the frame itself is small at 4 x 5 inches.

It reads the humidity and also has alarms you can set for the different sensors. Three sensors is amazing for me, just perfect. I accidently stumbled upon this one while searching for this indoor/outdoor one. These are both super affordable.

I recommend this one if you are looking for just a really great min/max thermometer for your greenhouse or potting shed.

Now that gardening season has started in earnest (at least, seeding and planning time has), I have a new weekly series coming out.

It will be a cheat sheet of sorts, with all the things you can that week. If there is something in general that you are hoping I will cover, something that will help you with your seed starting, your garden planning, ordering, soil prep, garden building…. put it in the comments below and I will be sure to address it.

On to this week’s fun reads. All the great links I found….

Gardening Ideas & Info Bits

19 simple garden ideas for every style, size, and budget

Garden room ideas (I would call these studios, shops, she sheds, lady lairs…) from basic to bougie, and everything in between. Also, what to consider when planning for one.

How to design a potager garden.

Two gorgeous gardens in Boise.

These 20 creative pathway ideas for your yard and garden. I so love the look of #4. Slippery when snowy or wet though. I also love the simplicity of #9. T

How to use a tumbling composter. If you have been following me for any length of time at all, you know that I love my tumbler. It is fast, makes compost in one season, keeps dogs, cats, rodents out of the compost, is easy and handy. I have one already, now I need another one for the other side of the yard.

Check out that middle one, eh? It is the cheapest, at least this week, and I really want it!

*As an Amazon affiliate, if you buy an item(s) from one of the links, I get a small commission to support my blog. It does not cost you any more to purchase through my link than if you went to the link on your own : )

How to make the most of your side yard. There are some really lovely ideas here. Sideyards can be a challenge to landscape.

I think the last one might work for our very shady north sideyard…

Front Yard landscaping. 20 ideas to make your front yard suit your home. I love #10 but it does not work in my neighbourhood. My front yard will be more like #11… after this spring’s yard renovation. I will have no grass at all, and I gotta be deer proof.

We were going to do the front yard ourselves, but then decided that we loved the work that Zak (Evergreen Yard and Landscaping Solutions on fb) did for us in the backyard (check out the slideshow), so we’re going to get him and his crew to do it for us. One or two days versus 2 or 3 weeks if we do it ourselves ; )

How to grow Bok Choy.

How to germinate vegetable seeds. This is a super good article! Followed by how to use a seedling heat mat. This is key to starting seeds. Not the light, but rather the bottom heat.

Homey Bits & Diy’s

Transform your sleep space with wallpaper. We did this last winter, for both our bedroom and the grandkid’s’ room. Both turned out so well, the wallpaper made a magical difference.

This one is the peel and stick Persian Ikat pattern we used in the kids’ room and this is the one we used for our bedroom. Our bedroom is much calmer than the kiddie room. I love that the turquoise wall paper ended up being more of a dusty grey/blue.

If you are looking to make a change, I highly recommend wallpaper. Though I gotta say, peel and stick is hard, lol. I’ll take the regular stuff any day ; )

How to upgrade your laundry room. I have laundry room envy as I don’t have an actual room, just a backdoor entry way. I still found so many good ideas here that I can use. The shiplap back wall? Yes! I also need to add a hanging rod or rack to dry clothes on year round as I hate using the dryer and paying to dry clothes ; )

Shabby Chic living rooms. Loving some of the details in these rooms.

How to clean a kettle with a lemon.

Mistakes people make when hanging pictures.

This super cute DIY for us terracotta pot lovers. Adorable.

Health (?) and Medicine

This is an unusual one for me to share, but here goes. People are micro-dosing Ozempic. Now, I only mention this as hubby just started doing this for his diabetes. He had a kidney removed a few months ago and since then has not needed as much medication for his diabetes. That is a win. Anyway, this article popped up on the very day that he picked up his Ozempic so, of course, I read it, hah! It looks like there may be several reasons a person may want to do this.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not recommending it, or even suggesting it. Am just sharing an article that I thought was interesting. Let me tell you, when I was struggling with brain fog, weight gain, and all the other not fun stuff that comes with menopause, I would most definitely have tried it. Instead, I received nothing, no help at all (from two female doctors, to boot) so I just struggled along. I still feel like my brain is only at half strength most days, never completely got over the fog. Anyone have ideas to help with that, lol?

Recipes & Foodie Bits

Mexican recipes that look so good. I am posting this now so that I can make them now, but come back to them in summer when the garden is full of fresh veggies.

Raw salted brownie bites – dates, cocoa, flax, maple syrup… sounds like a snack that I can get behind.

Make your own Farmer’s Cheese. I don’t really do dairy much as I waver between a vegetarian and a vegan, but I think this looks like something I would like to try. Is kind of like a ricotta and looks super easy to make.

60 healthy snack food ideas. I get nibbly when I sit at the computer. Mostly it is a bad habit, but still… it happens. I am always looking for snacks that will not make a mess of the keyboard, are small and low calorie, but something I can pick at slowly over a good length of time. Only a few of these fit that bill, most are sit down snacks that fill you up till dinner time, but I really like so many of these that I had to share…. and I can keep coming back here for new ideas later on ; )

I lost my original sourdough starter while on holidays, so have started a new one. Today is day 7. She is looking bubbly and promising. I am so happy.

Here is a discard cracker recipe I made and some discard blondies that I am making today.

Happy Sunday! I hope your week ahead is a really great one ~ Tanja