Garden | Mr. G's Mind

Fresh herbs are always nice to use in cooking, especially if you pick them from your own yard. I found this water jug herb planter idea in an online magazine, and well… had to build it.

The picture in the magazine didn’t show you how to mount the water jugs, just five jugs in a row with herbs growing in them.

As our yard is limited as to where to mount the jugs, it was decided to attach them to the side fence. We used 1 gallon water jugs.

First step was to cut open the top of the jugs, leaving the handles in place.

Once the tops were cut, I drilled drainage holes in the bottom of each jug.

I used an 8′ long piece of 1″ x 2″ poplar, and two metal U-shaped brackets. I attached the brackets to the fence posts, rather than the fence boards for greater stability. I then routed the 8′ poplar wooden piece through the handle of each jug, and set the assembly in the brackets.

Everything looked pretty good, until dirt was added to each jug. The poplar wooden piece remained in the brackets, but was bending forward from the weight. The wood would have likely broken once the jugs were watered.

My solution to this problem was some chain and two screw hooks. This worked very well, even after planting and watering.

A very nice recycled water jug hack!

A couple of years ago, I built a tribal Orca fence sculpture (Killer Whale Fence Sculpture), based upon a design that I saw while traveling in the Pacific Northwest.

The build went over so well, that I was asked to build a Tlingit native tribal Frog fence sculpture. I was given a couple of preferred images from the web, and went to work. Here is the chosen design.

I needed a canvas to paint the frog on, and as I like to use scrap lumber whenever I can, I decided to piece together some redwood fence boards. As usual, I used my biscuit joiner to do so, then glued and clamped the boards. The wooden canvas measured approximately 19″ H x 18″ W.

Once the glue was set, I sanded the top, creating a smooth wooden canvas on which to draw and paint.

Now, to get the image drawn. I decided the best way was to use a projector. While I do not own one, I was able to check one out from the local library. I set up the projector in the garage, adjusted the image to fit the board, and began tracing. You can see below, that I have the left side of the image traced out.

Once the tracing was complete, I used a jigsaw to cut around the basic shape of the frog.

A few days later, I began painting. A rather tedious job that was done over several days. Lastly, I put a clear coat on top, preserving the paint from the weather.