The Power of Spray Paint in the Garden

My front yard farm is starting to look like a real garden! The beans, winter squash, and cucumbers are quickly climbing the tepee trellises I built. So far, my covert front yard vegetable garden looks like flowering vines and plants.

Update 8/11/11 1:15 PM: Our Property Manager (AKA The Queen of No) told me she likes my yard and it looks very nice during her monthly drive by. She thought my rain barrel rock was a garden doodad - whew!

It would be nice to see the flowering vines and plants when we sit on the porch at night though.

Once upon a time, my solar garden lights were copper until they faded into a hide in the garage color.

On the bright side, I bought the orange flowers for $2.00 at the Restore. 

They were donated from a garden show. Woot!

How to Make Tepee Trellises

I planted scarlet runner beans, winter squash, and cucumbers in my covert front yard vegetable garden. The vines are growing! They need trellises.

Grow my pretties! Grow!

Husband and I found functional trellises but were leaning toward something with a little style because they will live in the front yard. The decorative metal trellises were more for what we were going for but did not look sturdy enough to hold heavy winter squash or cucumbers. Oh and the decorative trellises were stupid expensive for flimsy-ish spray painted black metal.

When I can’t buy I DIY!

I promised Husband I would build him a set of tepee trellises for the front yard.

How to Install a Rain Barrel

The clay soil around my house compacted over the French drains in my side yard. Water pools instead of drains before, during, and several days after a rain. It’s perfect breeding ground for root rot and slime mold that kills everything in your flowerbeds. 

 Guess how I know?

Pin this post! 

HGTV Design Star – Home Owner Challenge

Three episodes into Design Star and the personalities of the designers are starting to emerge. The unofficial theme of tonight’s episode? How to work nicely with others. Doug and Cathy take note.

The other theme? Product placement! Product placement! Product placement! It was the usual HGTV sponsor suspects – Lumber Liquidators and Cabinets To Go, with a few surprises thrown in. Painters tape! Accessory stores! Furniture storage! Oooh la la! (Not really.)

The final design count: two great rooms, one meh room, and one Oh my God, what the hell were you thinking?! room. I found it interesting that the Callegaris family ended up with the absolute best and worst rooms from the challenge in their home. Sorry kids. You rolled the dice, won, and lost with this thing. Hope you enjoy repainting your living room!

What worked:

Lactose-Free Frosty Paws Dog Treat Recipe

How are you holding up during the heat wave? Are you staying hydrated? Are you eating smart snacks to replace the electrolytes that are sweating out of every pore of your body? (Well, the super sweaty thing might just be me.) Are you trying to stay cool? Yes?

Don't you wish your Peke were hot like me?

What about your dog?

Dogs don’t sweat to cool their bodies like humans. The best they can do is pant. Some breeds tolerate heat more than others do. Pekingese and their brachiocephalic (smashed face) brethren are particularly susceptible to the heat and heat stroke.

Have you ever had heat stroke? I did and it was the most miserable and scary experience ever. I wouldn’t wish heat stroke on my worst enemy and definitely not my dog.

After a walk Blitzkrieg is a seriously hot dog and wants me to do something about it besides running the air conditioning. Sadly, Blitzkrieg is lactose intolerant so making Frosty Paws treats isn’t an option.

Unless, I come up with a lactose free Frosty Paw dog treat recipe!

Make Popsicles!

Last summer in between racing from shop to shop tasting as much locally made ice cream as our stomachs could hold we snarfed down frozen fruit and juice Popsicles with abandon. A box of four lasted two days max.

What can I say? We’re fruit piranhas. 

Sure, I recycled the box and chucked the wood sticks into the compost bin if I didn’t find a reuse for them. The small mountain of unrecyclable plastic wrappers on the other hand, grew exponentially in the kitchen trash can. Not to mention to expense when I started buying Popsicles four boxes at a time to keep up with the demand.

Do you know how much waste that makes?

Lots.