Tom's Garden, 2017

I took this photo about a month ago.  (Life has been unusual lately).

Tom planted his usual crops...red beets, Swiss Chard, and green beans.  In other years the pole beans have grown to the top of upright two by fours.  This year Tom found a fabric meshing through the Internet which he draped over a frame from the uprights to the Northern White Cedars.  The vines had a way to twine and they did.

We bought the seed from the local Seed and Grain elevator store.  I asked for Stringless pole beans and that was what we got.  The beans were the most tender and tastiest we have ever had.

A Bountiful Harvest from Tom's Garden on Legs

Monday morning I harvested the vegetables from Tom's garden.  The weatherman was forecasting a possible freeze during the night.

His garden has been bountiful. I've lost track of  the number of  times we have had vegetables from his garden this year.  He put in a soaker hose this year.  Maybe it helped that he watched the water supply closely.

In late July and in August, he harvested red beets.  They were a nice size and sweet, just the way I like them.  We had a couple meals of beet greens, too.  When I was a child, Mother fed us beet greens from her garden, using the leaves from the beets she pulled when she was thinning the row.  Sometimes she served us cooked beets with butter on top.  Other times she pickled the beets.  I liked them, no matter how she prepared them.

Lately, we have been having Swiss chard, green peppers, and green beans.

On Monday, I picked a mess of Swiss chard.  Tom planted spinach the first couple years he had his garden.  Then a neighbor told him Swiss chard was better.  It didn't go to seed and it was hardier.  Fewer insects bother it.

My Grandma and my Aunt Audrey always referred to a large picking as a "mess".  It is a country term from northwestern Ohio. It seems to me I have seen the term in books I have read about Kentucky also.

I also found a mess of green beans and seven green peppers.  This is the first year that Tom's pepper plants have done well in his improvised garden.

We didn't have a freeze or even a frost Monday night so we may get even more vegetables before the plants are finished for the year.

Change Number Two--A New Door for the Computer Room

This project was more involved than the vanity project.

We went to Menards for the supplies that we needed...a prehung door and lumber for the door frame.

Our friend, Mark, brought the materials home for us in his truck.

We were already in the process of making changes when I took this photo.  Mark had removed the old woodwork and the door and cut the doorway six inches wider.  

Looking into the computer room.

Looking out from the computer room.

I was standing in the doorway to the computer room when I took this photo.  As you can imagine, the three doorways being so close and yet not exactly opposite one another made it difficult to manuveur with a scooter or power chair.

Back to work.

The width of the readymade door jamb was too narrow so Tom cut a piece fill the space. That piece is leaning against the wall.  At the moment he and Mark are checking to be sure the jamb is in plumb (straight up and down).

Tom holds the jamb in place as Mark hammers.

Most hinges hold a door in such a way that the door extends into the opening as this door does.

The hinges which Mark put on the computer room door enable the door to move out of the doorway.  Tom calls these off-set hinges.  The additional width they give the doorway makes life a lot easier for him.

An ordinary door hinge.

An Offset door hinge.

Completed new entrance to the computer room...thirty-six inches wide and much easier to enter from either direction.  We are happy.

Change Number One, Remodeling the Bathroom Vanity

Periodically, Tom makes changes to our house to make it more friendly for his scooter and power chair.

The first change he made this summmer was to his bathroom.

This is the vanity that was in his bathroom at the beginning of the summer.  It is now in our basement just in case we want it again.

He used the same washbasin surface but made a new vanity cabinet.  Now he can clean up facing the vanity.  Before he had to work from a sideways position.

He bought the wood at Menards, the big box hardware a couple blocks away after he had designed what he wanted.  A friend brought the materials to our house in his pickup truck.

Here is Tom cutting boards at the saw set up in our garage.

Here he is blowing off the sawdust after he was finished for the day.

Here is one of the finished boards, sanded and varnished.

His friend helped him install the new vanity.

And I sewed up a pair of curtains.

Our Laugh of the Day

Tom and I stopped at Lowe's to buy Masonite so he could replace some rotting panels in our thirty-five year old garage door.  We noticed a red-vested employee coming out.  She gathered up a couple carts,  but she kept glancing down along the building and gleefully smiling.  She went back in with the carts.  Almost immediately, another employee came out, also gathered up a couple carts, glanced to the left down along the building and grinned as she returned with the carts.

Here is a close-up of what they were grinning about.  Click on the photo and you will grin, too, if you are familiar with the name on the truck.

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September 30, 2013
Update for those of you from places other than Ohio...Lowe's and Menard's are competing "big box" lumber  and building supply stores.  Lowe's, at this time, does not offer a truck rental service though there are rumors that they may soon offer one.  

Tom's Garden

If Tom can't do something one way, he does it another.  He decided he would like a vegetable garden but since he travels around via electric scooter, it is difficult for him to get "down to earth".  He decided to bring the earth up to him.

Here is the entire raised bed.

He bought cedar boards and treated lumber from Lowes.  He used treated wood for the "L" shaped legs.  They do not touch the soil that the vegetables are planted in.  The box, 10 inches (25.4 cm.) deep, is made from the cedar boards.  He drilled holes in the bottom of the box for drainage. The legs are set on paving blocks so they won't sink into the ground.  The soil  is well- rotted horse manure from Cinda's horses, brought in a red pickup truck by Tim.

He ripped the lumber with his 10 inch contractor's table saw, and cut the boards to length with his compound miter saw.  The top of the box is 36 inches (91.44 cm.) up from the ground, the height of kitchen counters.  The stabilizing crossbars are 24 inches (60.96 cm.) above the ground.

Here is the way his garden looked this morning...pole beans at the back, radishes and beets in the middle row,  spinach leaves at the bottom edge.  We should be able to harvest the spinach soon.