House Made

Beth here.

At House Made, we are very protective of our tomatoes.  If other vegetables encroach upon the Designated Tomato Area, they are ruthlessly chopped back, or, in extreme cases, yanked out altogether.  During the summer, the dog is put on squirrel and mouse patrol to keep them out of the garden (a job she has taken to with vigor and a surprising amount of understanding).  And now, due to some scrap lumber, remedial carpentry skills, and a few nice weekend afternoons, our tomatoes have some cold frames to get them off to a great start.

This is my first real building project.  Usually I am the brawn and measuring behind a project and Merideth does all the cutting and putting together.  This is because she has difficulty with anything approaching math, and I have difficulty with all saws outside of the reciprocating family.  But for this project, I did it all as I figured straight lines weren’t imperative.  While the tomatoes like to be protected from cold, they are not as concerned with aesthetics.

A key goal for me in this project was minimal storage.  We have a one-car garage for storage, and Christmas takes up half of it.  Now, we could cut down on the ornaments, but who’s going to tell Tiny Tim?  Is it you? Later in the summer, I’m not going to want these cold frames in the garden anymore and I needed to get them out without damaging plants, so all four sides separate from one another and will be able to be stacked flat against a wall.

I used all wood from other projects around the house, only needing to buy hardware to get these up.  Note my use of a gate lock to hold up the lid when I need to get to the plants.  I’m especially proud of that.

My tomato seedlings ship at the end of March.  I can’t wait.

 Beth here.

Almost three years ago (Three years, you guys!  It seems like yesterday.), I seeded our back yard with much expectation for a beautiful green lawn, and ended up with what looked like a vacant lot with a few grassy weeds covered with birds, who apparently love seed.  I learned many valuable lessons from the experiences of seeding a lawn and blogging about it:

1. People (namely male people) take lawns very, very seriously.  If you even hint that you want the tiniest bit of grass advice, you will get it in spades and vehemently.  
2.  People (namely crazy people) are very defensive of Lisa LaPorta.  And really, who can fault them?  She’s adorable and can do a lot of home remodel with a couple thousand bucks, even if I do question at length where she can find some of her products/services at insanely low prices.
3. If you seed a lawn that is on a slope, you will get a lot of beautiful grass…at the bottom of the slope.
4. If you ignore the problem for three years, the lawn does not magically fill in.
5. Seeding is not so much for me.

Enter the tax return.

Due to the many, many stairs to our backyard, we hired out this project to a neighborhood landscaper who tore up the backyard on one Saturday…

…and then made it gorgeous on the next Saturday.

(If you’re wondering, that pole in the middle is one half of the hammock-holding system.  It looks much better with hammock.)

We are now watering it like crazy to get it established (the variety itself is drought-resistant, but apparently not on day one), and the dog has been sequestered on the patio and kept occupied with a butcher bone, because she’s not allowed to spend her day playing Keep-That-Squirrel-Away-From-My-Yard-at-All-Costs and other similar games.

*I made up some Latin.

Every once in awhile, a public agency gets it right, and the collective agency at Stopwaste.org of Alameda County Waste Management Authority and Alameda County Source Reduction and Recycling Board is a great example of this.  Please forgive my public love letter to my garbage collection guys and gals.

As part of the Garage Cleanup 2008 Project: Phase I, Merideth and I took four years’ worth of toxic materials (paint, wood stripper chemicals, what have you) over to the Household Hazardous Waste Center on Saturday, and it was a fantastic facility.  We just loaded up the back of the truck (oh, how we love the truck), and went through a drive-through where hazmat-suited men emptied everything out and sent us on our way.  We didn’t even have to get out of the cab.  The best part is that we can be sure that all of those chemicals will be disposed of properly and reused when they can.

I know that when hazardous disposal isn’t easy, people take shortcuts, so I appreciate that the folks at Stopwaste.org have created such a streamlined process.  I could actually go on and on about how much I love this agency and how thoughtful their weekly collection process has made me about what I throw away, but let’s just leave it at this: I hope other U.S. cities/counties look toward Alameda County as a shining (not literally, as it’s waste disposal and all) example.

More to come this week that isn’t about garbage when I remember to download the pictures.