THIS TIME OF YEAR YOU CAN FIND POTS OF ALL SHAPES and sizes in any garden center. But for my money, turning something unexpected into a planter is the best way to add style and personality to your garden. Unless you’ve decided to use an item of antiquity, the costs can be minimal and the steps are easy:

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• Look in the garage, storage shed or basement. What’s lying around that you can’t bring yourself to throw away? I’ve converted all sorts of interesting items into planters. The slightly rusted little red wagon that my sons outgrew became a cool place for daffodils and other spring bulbs. The vintage but leaky galvanized metal watering can now has chocolate mint spilling from its opening. And succulents peek from the open flap of an upturned mailbox — one that I salvaged during a construction project.
• Assess your drainage needs. While standard-issue flower pots come with drainage holes, a piece of old pottery or industrial metal may not. A little ingenuity may be called for. In the case of ceramic items, a masonry bit will do the trick. Used with an electric drill, the bit’s sharp point can penetrate the base of an old piece of pottery to create holes. It will also work with concrete and cast stone. Depending upon the thickness of a metal item, you might be able to puncture the base by hammering holes using a large nail. Otherwise, look for a drill bit that can be used with metal surfaces.
• Plant to your heart’s content. Fill the converted vessel with organic potting soil and plant annuals, perennials, bulbs, herbs or succulents inside — just as if you were designing any garden container. Remember, you win bonus points for creativity! The most amusing repurposed item I’ve seen for holding plants is a pair of 1970s women’s pumps. Oh, la la!

A COUPLE TIMES A YEAR MOM COMES TO VISIT. We all have favorite things we like to do when she arrives. My husband breaks out bottles of wine he’s been saving for someone special. Our daughter gets Grandma’s advice with a sewing or craft project. Me? I take complete advantage of her — I get her to help me with a project.

A number of years ago I had a whopper: organizing my ever-growing heap of recipes.

I had a mess of recipe cards, newspaper clippings and torn-out magazine pages. My intentions to try new things were good — my system to find them was not.

Imagine my surprise when the ultimate organizer revealed she didn’t really have much of a system either. WHAT?

So over a long weekend of sorting, sharing and laughing, we designed one that worked.

Here it is:

• We started sorting, piling and tossing, accompanied by comments like “You think this sounds good?” and “Seriously, you’d make that?”
• Once sorted, we filed tried-and-true recipe cards by type, from A to Z, into a file box.
• Next, we inserted favorite recipe clippings into 3-ring binder sleeves and organized them from A to Z into binders.
• We reserved one 3-ring binder for holiday recipes. “Oh, so you have that recipe — I was looking for that!” (Amuma’s Rice Pudding.)
• Lastly, we filed untried recipes, sorted and alphabetized by type, into accordion files. When I’m ready for something new I’ll try one. If it’s good I file it in my permanent system; if not, I toss it.

I think of Mom and that weekend day in and out and I thank her over and over again. Not only for the solution to my problem, but for the precious memory of the time we spent together.

SUMMER VISITS WITH BELOVED FRIENDS AND FAMILY are a great time to add to your oral-history collection. But don’t let good weather tempt you outside to record.

Chirping birds that charm you now will annoy you as you listen to the recording. Most recorders favor every decibel of airplanes, trucks and slamming doors over the details of golden memories.

National Public Radio’s StoryCorps has helped more than 50,000 people share stories since 2003. Among the recording tips the Corps offers:

Recording equipment

• Go simple with a cell phone, a tape recorder, video camera or computer.
• Go upscale with recommended digital recorders: Marantz PMD661 or the more portable Edirol R-09 (which I’ve used for years and recommend).

Choose a quiet location

• Pick a carpeted room over areas with reflective surfaces or noisy appliances.
• Shut off or remove anything that could make noise, including clocks and radios.

Test your equipment

• Wear headphones so you can hear what the recorder hears.
• Ask sample questions, test how the answers sound, then push record and begin for real.

Use a microphone

• Hold the microphone about 7 inches from your subject’s mouth.
• Use a light touch to avoid “mic-handling” sounds.

You’ll find these tips and much more in StoryCorps’ free, downloadable Do-It-Yourself kit, including interview tips and a good question generator. Don’t forget Lifestyle Insights’ earlier look at the art of the follow-up question.

Happy visiting!

IN EVERY FAMILY, one member usually emerges as the historian. If you are the one handling this important bit of family business, make it easy and organize the family treasures.

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Do you have stacks of snapshots, boxes filled with vintage family photos, various binders and albums, CDs, DVDs, plus a virtual collection as well?

If so, unpack your closets and drawers this summer and design a family photo library that is efficient and easy to use, now and well into the future.

WARNING: This project can become overwhelming! But, like most large projects, it’s knowing where to start that’s half the battle.

Here are some questions to get you going:

• Where do you want to store your library? A desk, a closet, on bookshelves?
• How do you want to organize your archives? Albums, binders, photo boxes or digitally? Do some research; the ideal system will most likely include both old and new technology.
• How do you want to access your photos? By date/year, by family member — or both?

Once you have decided how your system will work, begin to sort and stack snapshots. If you have unidentified family photographs (we all do!) make a separate pile of those.

Purchase your chosen system to accommodate your archives and begin to compile your library. Make sure you choose a system that can be easily labeled and added to.

Finally, take a family vacation — a summer trip down memory lane. Host a picnic or weekend reunion and share your newly organized library. Top off the celebration by making a game of identifying unidentified family photos. Spread them (or copies of) on a table and gather valuable information from older family members.

Organizing the family archives? It could be the ticket to the best family vacation you ever had.

GARAGE SALES, TAG SALES, YARD SALES — whatever you call them — can be fun, profitable and give you your garage back.

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Summer is the perfect time to tackle this project. If you encourage your family to pitch in, by the end of the day you’ll not only have a few extra dollars in your pockets, you will have cleared some much-needed real estate.

Here are a few tips and tricks to organizing these weekend money-makers:

• Give yourself time to organize. A month before your sale, clear your house and garage of saleable items; box and price as you go.
• Choose a sale date that is not a holiday weekend. Families often leave town and you’ll want as many people around as possible to attend your event.
• Purchase tags or stickers in different bright colors. Assign each family member his or her own color. When an item sells, keep the tag. At the end of the day, each family member will know how much they sold.
• Make sure all electronics are in working order. Have an extension cord handy for potential buyers.
• Group like-size clothing together. Make sure they are clean.
• Advertise your sale. Craigslist is a great way to get the word out. Bright colored, large, neatly printed signs work well to grab a neighborhood passerby.
• Have enough small bills and loose change on hand when the sale starts. Wear a carpenter’s apron to keep money handy and safe.
• Set up a free-coffee table in the morning; turn it into a .25 cent lemonade stand in the afternoon and get the kids to help.
• After the sale, immediately pack up and donate unsold items.
• Park your car in the garage — it’s a great feeling!

IN THE 1990s, Design Within Reach (DWR) tore down the walls of secrecy and exclusivity and started selling high-end modern design classics to the masses, flattening the design world as they went. For the first time, you could buy an Eames Chair — at retail. More than any other single company, DWR has done more to flatten and “open source” the design world.

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But DWR went even further. To an audience hungry for information, they supplied the back story, sharing what were formerly state secrets about designers, materials and fabrication methods. And in the process, they changed, well, everything.

At the time, the only way to get high-end modern home furnishings was to take a trip to your local design center with an interior designer. Access to information was limited to the “profession” and carefully transmitted to consumers through this closed-loop system of designers, showrooms, catalogs and magazines.

While DWR was opening up the upscale market, Ikea was flattening the world by globally mass-marketing “euro-design”. With their sophisticated manufacturing, and DIY warehouse and assembly, Ikea sold high design at a low price. But Ikea flattened style too, making the global local. With stores in 39 countries, you can get that same Ikea experience whether you live in Sweden, Saudi Arabia or San Francisco.

With DWR staking out the high end, and Ikea the mass market, West Elm took on the middle ground, launching in 2002 with only catalogs and a website. And the list keeps growing. You can shop, research and buy just about anything from anywhere online. From eBay to Etsy, you can access to a wide range of products and information that once required a degree in interior design. Or at least the wherewithal to hire one.

LIKE AN URBAN FLORIST who relies on one type and color of flower grouped en masse, keep it simple when friends stop by and showcase one fabulous ingredient on a plate, platter or in a bowl. In addition to creating a gorgeously simple tableau, you’re also revering the ingredient and celebrating its unique flavor and beauty.

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Some Sophisticated Plates to consider for nibbling:

• Shave fresh curls of parmesan (bring the cheese close to room temperature to make it easy) and put them on a pretty white plate or pedestal for noshing. This is pretty, ethereal, salty and light.
• Spring’s first produce offers a bounty of gorgeously delicious options.  Those first tiny red radishes offer a striking look along with a peppery, bold punch. Pair with two tiny bowls: one with sea salt and one with soft butter, for dipping.
• Artisanal breadsticks or flatbread crackers are so delicious. Fold into parchment on a buffet or serve upright in simple glassware. Crunch.

THERE’S A WHOLE LOT OF TWEETING GOING ON outside my office these days. And, no, I’m not referring to Twitter. These are real tweets, the kind associated with a pair of nesting birds who return every spring to reclaim the space above the rafters of my office window for their soon-to-be family. I know spring has arrived when they come home to roost.

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But this spring, looking at the birds outside my window isn’t the only place I can birdwatch. Glance about and you’ll see that it’s all gone to the birds, as well as the chicks and the hens. There are accessories for the home, illustrious books, even office supplies all sporting bird motifs.

Then there are the backyard hen houses sprouting up in city lots and suburban backyards across the nation. It’s not just your neighbor who decided to become a farminista and build a chic coop. There was even a feature about the growing phenomenon in a recent New York Times Sunday magazine, “The Femivore’s Dilemma”. Not to mention inventive products like the stylish and colorful DIY chicken cribs created by Rusty Lamer and Andreas Stavropoulos to help you house your hens.

Where the birds are, the egg is never far behind, especially in springtime, when the egg is a symbol of rebirth and plays a key role in the seasonal holidays like Easter and Passover, and even in pagan rituals. Perhaps that’s what this bird frenzy is all about: the idea of renewal and rebirth.

Well, for whatever reason, I find this whole bird thing growing on me as I’ve found myself purchasing stickers, folders and small carvings of birds. Not sure why, but I think it might have something to do with my name.

DECADES AGO I LEARNED that St. Patrick’s Day is the best time to plant peas.

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Culinary peas and their cousins, ephemeral sweet peas, are happiest when sown in cool conditions, with soil around 40 degrees F. If snow still covers your garden on St. Patrick’s Day, start seeds indoors, in peat pots arranged on a windowsill tray. Transplant seedlings (degradable pot and all) after temperatures rise or snow melts.

Peas You Eat

In their book “The Bountiful Container”, Rose Marie Nichols McGee and Maggie Stuckey point out that peas begin to lose flavor the moment they are picked. That’s good enough reason to grow your own.

Planting sugar, shelling or snap peas is easy because the seed is basically a dried-up pea. They are large enough for little hands to grasp, making planting a fun kids’ project. Follow seed-packet directions (seeds are usually planted 1 inch deep, spaced at 1-inch intervals). Climbing varieties will need trellis or lattice support.

In a couple of months, you’ll eat them fresh off the vine. Recommended varieties include ‘Mr. Big’, ‘Oregon Giant Sugar Pod’ and ‘Sugar Sprint’.

Peas You Cut for Bouquets

Romance is summed up in a bouquet of fresh-cut sweet peas (Lathyrus odoratus), one of the garden’s most profusely fragrant annual flowers. I love the heirloom and antique forms, including ‘Cupani Original’, with beautiful bi-colored maroon and violet flowers. You can also find dwarf and bunching sweet peas — perfect for containers or small-space gardens.

Sweet-pea seeds need to be soaked in fresh water for 24 to 48 hours before planting to encourage germination. Like the edible peas, most sweet-pea vines climb 5 to 8 feet high, so give them support. As you cut and gather bouquets, the plant continues to produce even more blooms. Isn’t that sweet?

FOUND OBJECTS, BUILDING ELEMENTS AND “JUNK” (as some dub it) are art in the eye of this beholder. Over 20-plus years, my hubby and I have amassed an odd collection of “art” that we lovingly move from home to home, re-imagine in new ways for display, and treasure as much as any framed painting or photo from a gallery.

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Piles of old metal locker baskets and industrial grates. Limbs of a mature tree felled by the wind. Consider these types of objects as high-impact art that’s affordable (often even free), nearly indestructible (critical if you have energetic kids like me) and decidedly different.

Where to “shop”

Keep an eye out for treasures being kicked to the curb. One of my favorite pieces was scored as hubby and I randomly drove by a house getting cleared out for sale. They were tossing a vintage bus sign for a long-shuttered ice cream parlor we’d both loved as kids.

Hit your local recycling center, dump or building-salvage warehouse to see what treasures you can score there. And don’t forget flea markets and tag sales where, often, the back tables have a crusty old collection of tools and random bits that offer great lines and graphic appeal when looked at in a new light.

Materials to watch for

In our house, metals and cement are a big favorite. If you love sparkle, seek out glass and mirrors that, even when flawed, hold great allure. Wood is another cheap option, bringing a bit of nature or a touch of the industrial into your decor, depending on what you’ve unearthed.

How to display

Consider dramatic statements, with “art” given a place of honor in uncluttered spaces. Repetition of a shape brings a restful continuity to a collection of wheels displayed graphically against a blank wall. Use tiny cup hooks to hang baskets on another wall, or hang one from the ceiling under a bare bulb fixture: instant chandelier. Look down and out, look up and in. Use large pieces to pull focus to the top of a cupboard or the far corner of a room.