home and garden – Holly's Gluten Free Home

A year ago, I redid my pool deck tiles (they were so slippery that it was just a hazard) and saved 2 of the wood pallets, with the idea that I would do something AMAZING with them….but…..I never did. Last week they fell over with thunderstorms twice… And they are quite heavy…so back to a dangerous situation, I decided it was time to do something with them. I looked at so many amazing vertical gardens on Pinterest, but the shape of the pallets, and the need for chicken coop further delayed progress. Then…came a near fatal hit to my idea of reclaim, reuse, beautify….my fiancé said “they are really ugly, and heavy, and that’s my opinion”. True… They are plain Jane, and heavy…. So, in their place a bought 3 planters and stuck in some lime and lemon trees and was about to call it a day when I remembered the exterior paint samples I got last year to paint the patio wall.

last years project! aftee we finished, Queiro construction added tile to the floor and a cool wood slab atop this wall.

You can buy these little samples at Home Depot and have them colored to your liking. I have used these little sample bottles so many times on projects inside and out of my home!

I decided, before throwing them away, to try one last thing. So while our delicious lunch was cooking, I got out the paints! First lunch!

I needed a fast, east, yummy lunch…something like soup and sandwich, but yummier and gluten free. I decided to mix up a modified pão de queijo and serve it with Amy’s Tomato Soup. That soup is so good that even my tomato hating so loves it!

For the cheese bread, I blended

2 cups tapioca flour

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup oil

Once well blended, I added 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, the remaining mozzarella (?1/4 cup), and 1 cup of shredded Italian blend cheese. I blended some more and then baked in muffin pans (greased) at 350 for 40 mins.

Lunch is served!

let’s eat!

While the cheese bread was cooking, a painted a base coat of blue and turquoise on the boards and moved them to the ugliest outdoor are of our house… Right by the front door. I chose this for the reasons 1. This wall cannot look worse…2. it’s close to the trash pile if I’m unhappy with the result.

the ugliest area… also used for tennis… note the poor light

My yard has a section entitled “the graveyard”. It is where all the plants that I have killed go, along with their containers…One year, I took all the dying orchids and strapped them to the trees, leaving their maintenance to nature (wise move… They’ve done great). This left a pile of hanging orchid baskets in the graveyard. I gathered these up, plus a trough basket recently purchased at Home Depot and got started.
First the base layer was painted. Next, my daughter, Anna (a wonderful au pair from Germany), and I painted some designs on the wood.

painting away

ready for the next step

The next step was to fasten the old hanging baskets and the trough basket to the pallets. We lines them with black plastic and filled them with potting soil.

the baskets could be hung by cutting the hangar off and twisting the wire behind the frame, or by nailing it to the frame

I found it easier to nail them in

The baskets were then filled with heat tolerant plants…. At this point I was wishing I was heat (and mosquito) tolerant (bienvenidos a Miami) and epiphytes that we found after yesterday’s horrible thunderstorms were placed in the natural nooks and crannies of the pallet.