Exibit A:
This guy was planted under my big tree in the front yard, and gets much more shade than sun.

Exibit B:
This guy was planted on the side of my house, and this time of year gets full sun from about 9 until about 3-4. For the rest of the day it gets diffused light through the crepe myrtle. It made it up to around 7-8 feet before it stopped growing!

Exibt C- This one has gone crazy. This plant gets full sun from about noon until sunset. It is currently above my roof line, and the flower head has not even appeared yet. It may have several more feet to go before it blooms.

If you want to see how aggressively it is growing, here is a pic of it just 2 weeks ago clicky

So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I hope that I have made my case a convincnig one, and demonstrated that a sunflower gets it’s name because of how they react to the sun!

Everyday I have come home for the last month, I have seen this same bug sitting on this leaf looking at me. Kinda strange… kinda cool

Meet my old mailbox post. It was leaning over about 20 degrees, falling apart, and the mailbox was all beat to hell.

This is the new cedar post with the new mailbox. This badboy is set almost 2 feet in concrete stained and waterproofed.

I added a few elephant ears to my front bed. The plants from last year are HUGE, and getting bigger all the time.

I raised up both of my garden beds by one tie, and added a crapload of dirt to fill them up.

The bed in front of the deck was added this winter, as was the path between the deck and the house next door:

I call this the ass and fire wood holder. It opens from the back to store wood, and you can put your ass on the lip that over hangs the deck and use it as a bench.

I have been surprised at how many people have asked me for updates on the garden. So, here it is.

Overall things are going well. The smaller (newer) garden is prodcing more agressivly than the older garden. I think the few extra hours of full sun that the smaller garden receives is what is making the difference. My celantro is starting to burn up, and I had to transplant one of the tomato plants into a pot because it started to take over the garden.

I built this little bench as a test to see if it would work and be strong enough. It works really well, and I think I will keep it out there, and also add a 2nd bench at a 90 degree angle to it to add more seating to that end of the deck.

All in all things are going really well with the backyard and with the gardens. Both gardens are doing pretty well and are starting to produce fruit and peppers.

When I bought my house last year, I told myself that I would give myself one year to see if I could figure out a way to control the aphid/spider mite infestation that all 3 of my Crepe Myrtles had. For those not familiar with the issue, the aphids infest the bottom sides of the leaves. Once there they eat the sap and then proceed to crap the sap out on whatever might be below. This aphid crap is affectionately known as “honeydew” by some, but I like to call a spade a spade and refer to it as aphid crap. You feel it as tiny mist like drops falling from the tree above. If the infestation is bad, the mist can be heavy and annoying. It is also sticky and will get all over any furniture or deck that it is above. Heavy infestation can also cause mold and other problems for the plant. Since I have one large crepe myrtle that is in the middle of my deck that provides shade in the summer, I have been determined to see if I could control the problem so that I would not have to cut the tree down. That sounds harsh, but the shade the tree provides is useless if nobody wants to sit in the mist of aphid crap. It basically makes the deck unusable.

All this black crap that I had to power wash off of my deck was caused by the aphid honeydew.

This year I tried to take a scientific approach. Since I had 2 in the front yard, and one Crepe Myrtle in the front yard that were infested, I though I would try 2 different products to see which one worked best.

Update: I see this post still gets a lot of traffic, so I thought I’d share this update. The year after I wrote the post below, I used a Bayer 12 month systemic insecticide. You mix it in a bucket of water and pour it at the base of the plants. It wiped out the problem completely and hasn’t ever required a reapplication. The bushes have been Aphid free for the past 2-3 years now!

First up- Ortho Total Kill- Lawn and Garden Insect Killer. The list of bugs that it kills includes mites and aphids, and it also claims that it has long lasting effects, and keeps killing after application. I used this on the Crepe Myrtles in the front yard. Over a period of a few days, it did kill a lot of the aphids, but it didn’t do a real good job. After checking out ground zero a few days later, it looked like about %70 of the bugs were dead on the back of the leafs, but the rest were alive and well.

Next up- Ortho Systemic Insect Killer- This stuff rocks. Within 24 hours there was not a living aphid to be found. It totally killed all of the mites and aphids, and kept them gone for about one month before I started to notice a few bugs starting to come back. This one is the winner for sure. I think if I spray with this product about once a month, I can control the aphids, and live on a deck that is free of aphid crap.

Most of the time it’s best, and most cost effective do make the intelligent choice. That is, if you know what the likely outcome of something is, you can (should?) make your choices and decisions with those ideas in mind. Following this wisdom, I probably should have pulled up most of the plants in my garden and transported them to the new flower/garden bed. After all, the main garden gets good light from about 10 am until 3 or so, and about 1/4th of it is always in the shade. The new bed/garden gets good light pretty much all day long.

I could have saved a few bucks by moving all my herbs/plants from the old garden to the new one, but instead I spent 30 bucks or so and got mooooorreeee stuff. My logic: This is the first year in my new house and I can see just how well, or how poorly the plants do. I’ll set this year up as a “learning experience” so that I know what to plant there next year. So even if my first garden fails, I don’t mind. I have all the stuff I need in the new garden, and next year I’ll know how to set it up right.

Here is the new finished bed.

You can see the shade problem with the old bed.

Here is the post about the first garden clicky

More on projects I’ve worked on around the house here

So after about a week of having that last blog post up, with “gallery wall” in the title, I realized that I didn’t put a damn thing about the gallery wall in that post. So this will be a post will have all that was left out of the last post, as well as a few new project previews.

The gallery wall is almost complete! That is, it is at least done enough that I can let you guys see it. I am still getting some prints made, and still adding pictures to the wall, but you should at least be able to get a general idea of the concept.

Here was what was in my dining area when I moved in:

and this was the concept I came up with. This pic was all done with photoshop (quickly, just for a draft) was done before any work was started on the wall.

To get started on the wall I removed the popcorn ceiling texture (dirty, dirty job!) and re-textured it. Next I painted the gallery wall, and then the walls on either side of the gallery wall to help get rid of all of the acoustic white walls in the house. I removed the 1984 hanging glass chandelier, and put up two tracks of track lighting on a dimmer switch. I put up a little crown molding, and hung the digital photo frame (center). From there I just hung 11×14, 8×10 and 5×7 pics in frames that I painted black. Grand total for the project was around 250 bucks (including pics thus far). Another 120 or so for the digital photo frame and larger memory card. I built a little frame for the digital photo frame out of cedar so that I could hang it the way I needed to, and also paint it black.

I also got started on the 2nd garden/flower bed. After looking at the light in the back yard, I think this spot will do much better for all the plants that need a lot of light. It will also clean up an otherwise awkward spot in my back yard. I’ll add dirt/plants over the next few weeks. After that I’ll add some stepping stones from the deck to the gate.

So far I have about 6 types of peepers, a few herbs (rosemary, thyme, etc.) and a few tomatoes. I’m looking foward to see how well it works out.

The cost of the set up was about 140 bucks. The lumber cost almost nothing (I think it was 20 bucks total). Twelve bags of top soil cost me about 70 or so, and the plants themselves cost another 50. Now that I’ve paid good attention to where there is good light in my yard, I think I want to put in another small bed between my deck and my fence. I’m not sure if that will make it this season or not, but it is on “the list”.

The back yard is slowly getting to look like the plan. Considering I drew this before I moved in….not too shabby!

So I tapped back into what I learned about Romex and electrician work from way back in Mr. Singer’s class my Sr. year (coolest Sr./blow off class EVER). When you say Mr. Singer, you have to say it like I do in my head, with a really thick NY/Bronx accent. Misssta Singggga’ . It’s just more fun that way. In the end I was able to get all of the outlets installed and working properly. I only had “that wasn’t supposed to happen moment”, and only had one plug not pass the test on the first attempt. That isn’t really worth writing about (well…the blue spark and pop that created that first comment above might be…) but my trips to Lowe’s were worth it for sure, and here is why.

I think the measure of how successfully a project is can be based on the number of times you have to go back to the hardware store. If you plan your project, and know what the hell you are doing really well, then you should be able to pull it off in just one trip. I’m still waiting for that day. If you are average, I’d say two trips. Three trips, for me means I didn’t think things through or had some unexpected “issues” (read blue flames and loud popping noises). Four trips…not a good sign. Not only did things not go as plan, you probably went way over budget.

So on my fourth trip to Lowe’s Sat. I go to check out, and the nice little old lady that was checking me out greeted me with a nice smile. When you do a credit card transaction there, they ask for the last 4 digits of the card number as a security measure. So I swiped my card through the card reader, and was ready for her to ask me the numbers. Just then, something unexpected happened. From the nice little old lady behind the counter comes these words: “The last four digits of your card number are 1008, right?”
The wind fell from my sails.
My heart sunk.
I had apparently been there so often, and apparently spent enough $$$ there that she remembered what my numbers were!!! On a Saturday, an extremely busy day for Lowes! I’m sure they had 2000 customers that day already, and she had memorized my numbers!!!! Ha!!

A few other quick details:
yes I went over budget, but only by about 50 bucks and I’m real happy with the result.
the blue flame was just caused by one neutral wire that came off of the screw that held it down on the socket, and when I tested the outlet it made a little spark. It wasn’t exactly napalm, but I have to sensationalize a little bit to keep your attention, right?!?!
I tested every outlet with an outlet tester (checks every connection inside the outlet) and they all passed. No need to worry about me burning down my house.

PS. I was wearing shorts yesterday, and drove home in the snow tonight. No matter how long I spend in Texas, this weather will never cease to amaze me.

Not so bad from the front, but from the side/behind… man what a mess. Even with everything zip tied it’s still a rat’s nest.

The good news is that my TV backs up to my stairs, and like most homes with stairs I have closet space underneath the stairs directly behind the TV. Since my house is older and isn’t pre-wired for an infrared system, my plan was to move the boxes into the closet, run the wires through the wall, and use an IR repeater to get the remote controls to work. More on how those work in a second.

The process was pretty simple. I drilled two 1 inch holes through the plactic junction box behind the plate where my cable/fios line came out. I went through the box, an through the wall into the closet. I then also drilled holes in the face plate so I could fit more wires through.

I ran everything through the wall, and set up my cable, DVD, and receiver in the closet. I bought these x10 IR repeaters to let me use the remote controls through the wall. Basically I have one of these little pyramids on top of my TV. It gets the signal (infrared) from the remote when I push a button. It broadcasts that signal via radio signal to the other pyramid in the closet. That pyramid then transmits the same signal in infrared instantly. You don’t have to program the pyramids, or enter any codes. It is just repeating whatever your remote you already have programed is sending out.

Below is the finished project. As you can see I have a lot less clutter around the TV and speakers. Since there are so few wires behind the TV now, I was able to move it another 8 or 10 inches closer to the wall, and that really helped open up the room a little bit more. So far, the pyramids are working well, and seem to be well worth the 50 bucks.

You can see how small the pyramid is next to the center speaker on top of the TV.

From above looking down:

Well worth the money so far!