The Old Depot Project Archives - Ashley Hackshaw / Lil Blue Boo

Spring Garden Planting

March 24, 2016 by Ashley Hackshaw

Spring garden planting time! Boo and I planted the first round yesterday. That little green pot holds the one wild onion she wouldn’t let me get rid of. She’s planting her own findings in random pots.

I’d made a plan for the garden so I would remember what I planted so that we can make notes on what we like and how it grew:

These cute little metal markers are from Michaels and I added black tape and wrote with gold Sharpie:

I never really knew about crop rotation or understood it but as we planted the sees it kind of clicked! The kale and broccoli seeds are round. The lettuces have long grass looking seeds. And the carrots have more of a dehydrated seed look. Maybe this won’t be so hard after all!

You can read more about how we made the raised beds and picket fence here!

How to Make Round Vintage Signs

September 27, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

My most recent project for the depot, other than the picket fence and raised garden, has been to paint vintage railroad signs as “flare” for the outside:

I started with these stain grade edge glued round table tops from Lowe’s as the canvas:

The first thing I did was paint each table top with a coat of primer:

Because the table tops are round it’s hard to create a grid for measurements. I used a large piece of contractor’s paper to create a round template the size of each table top to make it easy to find the center and to mark quarter and half marks:

move down

I enlarged text in Powerpoint and printed it off as a template. I used newspaper to transfer my design. If you trace and press hard enough the newspaper ink will transfer to the wood:

I used acrylic craft paint to carefully paint in my designs:

Here’s a Santa Fe sign:

On reason I chose that sign is that our house overlooks the Bryson City train depot and the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad has an old Santa Fe caboose….it was built in 1942 and rebuilt in 1970. It’s a class Ce-2 which you can read more about here.

For the large railroad crossing sign I marked the center of the wood using my paper template and then used a ruler to mark the outside border all the way around:

I printed off a large “R” to use as a letter template:

I painted the yellow background first:

And then the black parts:

I love the large scale of the RR sign:

The old depot was part of the railroad in Canton, NC so I wanted to use a sign from its roots. The Southern Railroad would have been the railroad whose locomotives used this building. I used a small paintbrush to carefully write each letter:

And the finished sign:

After all the signs were completely dry I put a few coats of polyurethane on them to protect them from the outdoor weather:

So far I’ve painted three but I’m working on a handful of other ones:

You can use this technique to make any sign that is circular:

You can follow along real time at @lilblueboo on Instagram.

All the projects are indexed here:

Click here to read more about the Old Depot Project.

The Old Depot Project is sponsored by Lowe’s Home Improvement.

If you like using the round table tops for projects try this one out too!

Building Raised Garden Beds

September 22, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

My fall garden is planted! While we were working on the picket fence for the garden around the train depot we were also working on raised garden beds:

I knew that I wanted to use cedar to keep my garden chemical free, that I wanted to stay away from pallets and any pressure-treated or chemically-treated wood:

I ordered the cedar wood from Lowe’s for 7 foot by 4 foot beds that would be 12″ tall. Each bed consists of two of these 6″ tall rectangles that we cut and assembled using deck screws. (For special widths and customized lengths check with your local Pro Services department.)

All the rectangles stacked up and ready to move towards the garden:

4″ x 4″ cedar posts were cut to 12″ and placed in the corners of boxes. The 3″ deck screws were drilled in high on one side…

…and then low on the other:

Alternated so they wouldn’t hit each other:

We moved them down to the garden one by one and leveled them using the existing dirt. Where there was a slope we used the post hole bar to dig a little trench for one side. If they start to move around put in a few rebar stakes at the inside corners but they aren’t going anywhere right now:

To fill the beds I used a mixture of 1/3 native soil from our yard, 1/3 manure (bagged), and 1/3 top soil* (bagged):

*You can also substitute Nature’s Helper or really high quality compost for the top soil if you have it available.

The native soil was just tilled up in another section of the yard (where it wouldn’t be missed) and added first as a base. We added more native soil to mix in with the manure and top solid:

Then we added a few bags of aged cow manure and top soil:

Our soil is fairly acidic so I talked to our local NC State Agriculture Agent Christy to see how much lime I should add to the soil:

The most accurate way to add lime would be to have the soil tested for it’s pH levels but the rule of thumb in the area I live in is 4 pounds of lime per 100 square feet. For each 28 square foot bed that translated to about 1.1 pounds of lime per bed. I measured it out using a small postage scale:

Sprinkled in the lime:

And tilled the dirt by hand to mix it all up:

Then it was time to plant some seed for the fall garden:

After a few days my kale plants are already sprouting!

Kale is a very hardy plant in the cool weather. A great resource for fall planting can be found here.

I’ve left a little room in the garden for more beds eventually but I’m not sure what shape those will take yet:

One last note: I wouldn’t suggest using pallets or discarded wood for raised beds. Many pallets and treated wood have chemicals in them that can end up in your food. Hardwoods such as redwood, cedar and juniper are great for garden beds and will resist rot. It involves a little more upfront cost but at least your garden will be organic!

Stayed tuned to see upcoming DIY projects involving the garden and the train depot! Oh and the pea gravel…my favorite. Stay tuned for that too.

You can follow along real time at @lilblueboo on Instagram.

All the projects are indexed here:

Click here to read more about the Old Depot Project.

The Old Depot Project is sponsored by Lowe’s Home Improvement.