Zippers and Studs

When I incorporated the "growing up" ideas from Derek Fell's new book Vertical Gardening (Rodale Press) into my very own planting space, I thought I had reached the pinnacle of efficiency for my garden.  Gardeners are also dreamers, however, and it should be noted there is always something beyond: nearly every gardener has buried in the soil of her heart, maybe not very deeply, a yearning for a greenhouse.

The most basic elements for a greenhouse from my limited experience are the covering and the structure to hold the covering.  Some plants can tolerate having a blanket right on top of them to keep in the warmth--it extends the growing season and could be called a greenhouse of sorts.  If seed starting is in the plans, one needs also shelves, space and good full-spectrum light.  The reason all of us longing for a greenhouse don't have one is: it's pretty challenging to put all these together without a major expense.  You've seen the full-color pictures in the garden catalogs, and you've seen the price tags.

Not long ago I was visiting my friend Liza and her garden.  Lady Luck was shining warmly on me that day.  Have you noticed when you're around very bright people your own imaginations gets stirred?  Well, that's what happened that day.  We were talking about her tomato support structure and greenhouses and growing good food and eating it when suddenly I saw it.

My vertical garden could be fall-fitted with shelves between the upright 4 x 4's.  I love 1/4" graph paper, and soon ideas took shape.  I calculated the sun's angle up through the spring equinox to determine the spacing of the shelves.  They were sized to hold old plant trays I had collected plus large rectangle plastic boxes saved from buying lettuces last winter.  Perfect.  And for materials, it turns out I had plenty of good-but-not-so-pretty 2 x 2's that wouldn't mind the muddy overflow from watering seedlings.

About six weeks ago my excitement around this creative "get to" pulled the project onto the Things I get to do today and the structure was built.  Winter was not even close so there was no need for the covering. But the very next day, I pulled up my bean vines to let the ripe seed pods dry.  As I stood up,  there before me was a shelf in the hot sun.  Immediate gratification!

Fall-fitted and ready for a cover

Top shelf detail:  2x2's on 2x4's (studs).

Very soon the covering will be sewn from a woven, light-allowing, tarp-like fabric designed for this purpose.  I'm fortunate to have a 12' x 50' roll in my garage that I begged off my sister awhile back.  The perpendicular "tent" design has zippers and vents and grommets and doodads and whohaws to please the fussiest of plants and gardeners.  The only cost to me is for some studs and a couple of zippers.  Between now and the future blog on this subject, you can figure out how those items work together.

Diapers for my table saw

At first I didn't know whether to call it a diaper or a skirt, but then as I pondered the purpose of the garment, I said diaper, definitely diaper.  Skirts are never used to catch waste products, diapers definitely are.  Having settled the name issue first, I went on to design this nappy contraption in my head while sawdust was flying all over the garage which means all over the weightlifting and fitness equipment, all over the extra food supplies,  all over the camping equipment, all over everything.  And that's the trouble with my newest, latest and greatest plarking projects ("plark" is focused play, as in 3/4 play and 1/4 work without any of the negative thoughts associated with work).  One of the side effects of this particular form of plarking is sawdust.

When you use a table saw, you get lots of sawdust.  I love working with wood, and I never knew that until about two years ago.   Since then, in addition to piles of sawdust, I've created a chicken tractor,  a chicken coop, chicken roosts and ramps--anything and everything to do with chickens--nest boxes, boxes for treats, a food buffet to feed the hens but not the rats.  And gates.  I've made lots of gates to keep the chickens and the yard and the garden separate.

But then last spring this amazing book called Vertical Gardening by Derek Fell (Rodale Press) fell into my hands, and I began building things for the garden.  A vertical garden involves a structure that will support the plants as they grow up, freeing the soil space for the stem and roots of the plants and therefore making really good use of the garden space one has.  So I built seven of these structures for my garden beds and spent all of a rainy Mother's Day in the garage with the table saw creating the cross members and support pieces.  In other words--making lots more sawdust!

And today I was making a huge ring of sawdust on the garage floor while the finer particles were drifting on to absolutely everything else as I fine tuned the metamorphous of my vertical garden structure into a protected area and greenhouse for winter and a seedling nursery for spring.  And that's when I had had enough!  Enough of the sawdust stuck to the bottom of my shoes and tracked onto areas of the floor not already thick with the fragrant fibers, enough of the fairy ring of sawdust creeping wider and wider onto the yet-bare floor.  This was one of the Things I get to do today!

With the design in my head and not even taking off my gloves, I found some discarded garden blanket and measured the waist  and "crotch" distance of the Rockwell/Delta 10" contractor's table saw.  Armed with this information, I quickly cut the fabric, found snap tape for holding it together in the front, found cord for the drawstring waist and the drawstring tuck-under-the-buns at the bottom.  Shortly thereafter this Rockwell/Delta table saw sat proudly outfitted in its own fresh, clean dust-diaper.