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life from the ground up

Real living in a processed world.

A Bunch of Ways to Use Mason Jars

By: Gabe8 Comments

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A while back I received a request to come up with a list of ways to use Mason jars. I’m sure there are hundreds of this kind of post already floating around out there, but we’ll go ahead and make it hundreds-and-one.

I (and apparently, a lot of you too) collect anything glass. Between us keeping the jars from anything we buy and hunting for Craigslist scores (200+ for $20!), we have a lot of glass in the basement. So what do we do with it? Here are several of my ways to use Mason jars, plus some that I haven’t tried yet.

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DIY Drying Rack

By: Gabe5 Comments

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Since we use cloth diapers (not me personally), and otherwise wear clothes that sometime require air-drying, there’s always a lot of stuff hanging in the laundry room. We had some space underneath a shelf, but we also had plenty of empty wall space, and I wanted to rig up something more efficient.

Enter the homemade drying rack. This easy project can be put together over a weekend, and doesn’t require anything more than a few simple cuts, a couple well-placed nails, and a coat of paint. The way I show here is not the only way to do it – if you have a little woodworking aptitude and some creativity, you can modify it as you see fit.

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Seed Starting Calendar

By: Gabe6 Comments

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If you grow more than a handful of things, garden planning quickly becomes an essential task. (It also gives you something to look forward to in January.) This means things like a journal to track what you grew previous years (and how well it grew). A highlighter to mark up your seed catalogs, and a notebook to keep track of potential new varieties and which catalog they came from. And once you get the seeds, you’ll need a seed starting calendar to plan out your planting schedule.

Every year it seems like I’m adding a few new things that I’ve never grown, or haven’t tried for many years. This year is no exception, as I’ve almost doubled my garden space, and added more than a dozen new vegetables to the plan. The problem with this is, eventually, even my ultra-sharp mind just can’t keep up with everything anymore. When I was just starting a few things inside it wasn’t too hard to keep track of things, but this year everything seems to be on its own staggered schedule, and it was getting to be too much.

To help myself out, I created this seed starting calendar in Excel. It’s very simple, with color-coding denoting when to start what, inside, transplanting, and direct sow outside. It’s still pretty basic, and doesn’t include any succession planting (I still just keep track of that in my head) or anything overly fancy, but it’s helped out so far. I based it mostly on my experience with growing things previously (for plants I’ve raised before) and seed packet info/book sources/etc. (for the newer additions). Of course, this will likely change over time as I can fine tune what works best for my area, but it’s a good starting point. It may also change based on the weather – for example, since it’s been so warm, I started chard and lettuce outside already.

This is something easy to create and very helpful if you’re growing a wide variety of plants, each with their own unique schedule – I’d definitely recommend it to anyone.

The example below is based on Zone 5, Cleveland area. Full file is available here to modify as you see fit!

Seed Starting Calendar

An epic task, or organization part 1

By: Gabecomment

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We’ve struggled with keeping things organized around here (I’m not even going to try to use the kid as an excuse – I was the same way before he was here). I’ve slowly added tools to help with this, like cabinets and shelves in the garage and basement, or shelves and hooks inside. My bane has been our food storage. For years, I’ve had grandiose plans for organizing everything in the freezers and pantry, because food can and will get lost in there. A while back, Susy from Chiot’s Run posted something similar to what I’m trying to do. Of course, for all my good intentions, ideas are as far as I’ve gotten. I’ve had several small dry-erase boards for this purpose almost since we moved in, but they’ve never been touched. Until now. One of them, anyway.

We have two chest freezers, in addition to the fridge/freezer. One of them has been used exclusively for the local meats that we buy in bulk (anybody need bacon? Not seriously – you can’t have it.), and the other, for… everything else. When we recently purchase a half-hog, I decided enough was enough. So before we added all the new meat to the freezer, I took everything else out (mostly the cow from last year), and recruited S to help me write everything down. She has nicer handwriting than I do, but not by much. Mostly, I just wanted her to feel important.

Several nearly-frostbitten fingers later, we had accounted for every piece of meat in the freezer.

It was quite euphoric, but the feeling was short-lived, as I remembered the other (larger) freezer still left, and if I can muster the motivation, all my canned stuff and the entire pantry. It sounds intimidating, but really, doesn’t take much time to do. And, I can say with certainty, it will save us headaches (no more wondering if we have everything for a recipe) and money too. I once bought a bag of frozen corn, and upon putting it in the freezer, discovered I already had three unopened bags of corn. I’m proud to say that we did use it all. Eventually.

When it comes down to it, the easy part is the first categorization. The hard part is keeping up with it, meaning every time we add something, taking the few seconds required and putting it on the list. I’ll keep you updated.

Basement shelves

By: Gabe1 Comment

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I’ve been wanting to make a set of shelves in the basement for everything I canned over the summer, and other bulk food storage. Now that the weather is sufficiently non-conducive to outside work, I was able to get around to it. The design is roughly based on these plans.

I started with a bunch of 2 x 3’s (nine, to be exact, standard 8′ length), a couple 2 x 4’s (for the rear supports), and a couple 2 x 2’s. Two of the 2 x 3’s will become the supports, five are cut in half (4′ sections for the arithmetically challenged), and the rest will need to be cut into 13″ sections (10 total). The 2 x 2’s are cut into 13″ pieces; you’ll need 5 pieces total. These will be the center supports. I also had one 4′ x 8′ sheet of 1/2″ OSB, cut into six 4′ x 16″ sections.

Start by making a frame consisting of the 2 x 3 pieces (see pic below) using two or three screws at each joint. In addition to the sides, I put a piece of 2 x 2 in the middle to help prevent eventual sagging. When the frames are finished, simply nail the OSB sections on top of each to make five shelves.

Now for the assembly. Getting the first shelf mounted to the supports is kind of a pain – I ended up laying two supports on the ground and attaching the shelf, then flipping and attaching to the other supports. I used a couple screws at each attachment point for a little redundancy, and I may put a nail into each side as well, since nails are less prone to shearing (just in case I end up with a lot of weight on the shelves). Mounting the rest of the shelves is slightly easier than the first, but more so if you have a helper. I didn’t, so I ended up putting a couple small nails in (not too deep) to hold up one side of each shelf while I screwed in the other side. Take the nails out when you have everything up. Each shelf’s bottom is about 14″ above the shelf below.

Finally, I added some diagonal supports (2 x 2 pieces cut at 45 degrees). These things should be able to hold tons now. Literally.

I’d also like to attach the tops to the floor framing so it’s not a stand-alone structure. I’d hate for the thing to become top-heavy and topple over. As it is right now, the tops are about 6″ too short, so I’ll need to rig up some kind of extension in order to get them secured. Other than that, they’re fully functional, and I can finally put all my canned goodness somewhere.

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