Garage and Garden

It's usually a bummer when you get in your car to go to the park and your garage door won't open.

  The spring had broken.  I was actually delighted.  Our garage door has been breaking down a little bit at a time for a long time.  After calling around to ask for pricing for a new spring, pricing to just come get the car out and pricing for a new door.  Instead of spending $200 on a new spring on our old door that falls off the track, has a broken window pane, and broken plastic around the window and short circuits when we spray off the front porch we would finally get a new door.

 It took awhile to decide on one and to get it in but I'm so happy with the one we chose.  I'm a big believer that the outside of your house should add something to the neighborhood.  There are so many blah houses, especially in beige Arizona.  I can't believe how many comments we've gotten from all the neighbors! Who knew getting a new garage door could be so much fun?!

The guys didn't even give me pricing for anything but a basic garage door, I had to request more options.  He said that he's done some large fancy houses with $10,000 front doors (I hope he was exaggerating!) and then they didn't save any money for anything  but the basic garage door.  Driving around some nicer neighborhoods I found this to be true, fancy front door, boring garage door.  I get not wanting to draw attention to your garage, ideally we'd all live on a corner and have our garage on the side, right?  But if it's got to be front and center, might as well make the most of it I figure.

I might add in the price break down I got in case anyone is interested later.

Now I'm contemplating painting the inside of the garage (the last area we haven't painted!) and getting epoxy on the floor.  We already have nice garage cupboards thanks to the previous owners. We try to do one house project each year so the garage door was the one for this year.  Although I still have hope of baseboards or finishing our bathroom.

Here are some before and afters...

Broken window

Old 30 year old door- notice the cracked plastic

New Door!  We love it!  I need to get a shot across the street so you can see how it perfectly matches my front door and window.

After we got the new door I moved on to the next project, I asked my dad for advice on growing tomatoes.  The only plant I really care about growing, since they taste so much better and I LOVE tomatoes.  We've tried 5-6 times at least since we've been married and had NO success.  Next thing I knew dad and I were on a trip at Home Depot buying all kinds of stuff and putting fence posts in my yard for my square foot garden dad built me.  I will admit it has produced more and had WAY less weeds than anything else I've tried.  My dad was right.

Olly, "We need tomato cages so they don't run away."  Very wise.

We haven't had to buy tomatoes since April I think. And we've been able to share too!  They've definitely slowed down in the heat and I think the birds get a lot.  We thought it was a tomato worm (caterpillar?) but we could never find one.  I've been so happy to have homegrown tomatoes.  None of my kids love them yet, but they've all tried them now and they love taking care of the garden and checking for tomatoes.  Which is one of the big perks for me, teaching my kids something new and important.

Now I need some advice from my gardening friends who are good at growing things in this oven!  What and when should I plant next in my little square foot garden?