Here’s a video of how large the crowd was:

Some pictures!

The side of our house is a little slanted towards the retaining wall you can see along the left-hand side of the picture. It also slopes down to the bottom of the image, so I decided I wanted a two level garden to match the slope a little more closely.

First stop – Home Depot. I bought some hemlock wood because it was cheaper than cedar, very sturdy and is mildly termite resistant (as opposed to other, cheaper wood). The best part of this was the Home Depot even made all of the cuts I needed for free. I bought 3 16′ pieces of hemlock, and had them cut it into 2 8′ pieces and 8 4′ pieces. The hemlock was 1″ thick and 12″ high. I bought a couple of 2x4s as well, for the posts that will anchor the garden.

Thankfully, 8′ is the maximum height that you can comfortably fit into the Prius over the front arm rest.

Then, remove all of the staples in the wood. You don’t want any rusty sharp pieces! Then, use a hand sander to remove the sharp edges to the wood. Sanding also adds a nice finished look to the garden. I stayed away from using any sealer or urethane, as I was unsure if that would leak into the ground even after drying. No one at Home Depot seemed to know, either, so rather than take the chance of dangerous chemicals leaking into my vegetable garden, I decided to go natural. What really scared me away were the warnings of mental disease if the urethane or stain was breathed in. No thanks!

Then, I started digging for the posts. Unfortunately, I didn’t expect the gutter drainage pipe straight through my path! You can see the bright blue pipe and the gray epoxy over the hole I created with my pickaxe!

I constructed the first level (without posts in the corners) on the concrete, where it’s much easier to make it level and even. I then attached the posts to the frame once the box was positioned correctly.

We laid down a weeb barrier after filling in the hole around the posts. Hopefully this will prevent the perenially weed-infested yard from invading the new vegetable garden! Here’s Mike adding 3 cubic feet of peat moss to the manure, humus and dirt mixture we’re using to fill the garden.

Just because it’s everywhere doesn’t mean it’s easy to move – dirt is very heavy. Since this area is only accessible by stairs, there were plenty of up-and-down runs bringing up the 40lb. bags of dirt.

It’s all worth it, though, when you see the final result!

The whole thing took about 1 week to do, with an hour or two here and there. It’s a very rewarding project, and it really made the side of our house look so nice. I can’t wait for the first harvest in the Fall!

Some of the things we’re growing:

• Sweet corn
• Green squash
• Tomatoes
• eggplant
• cauliflower
• marigolds (to control pests)
• hardy mums (to add some more color)

There’s quite a lot of crabcrass, which I’ve been slowly get rid of in the rest of property. That will be the next task! But, the clover didn’t burn (my only fear) and is coming in strong! I think next time I will give it even more seed, maybe 1/2 lb. for this 600 square foot area.

What a difference 1500 PSI can make! It even got rid of the spots on the steps, which upon closer inspection look like spore spots. I’m most impressed by the fact that I can now see the grain in the stone!

Here’s an example on how to set a variable variable. In this case, there are 5 variables, called role0, role1, role2, role3, and role4. all set to the string “Hey Hey we’re the Monekeys”:

set role_count 4
for {set i 0} {$i <= $role_count} {incr i} {
set role$i "Hey Hey we're the Monkeys"
}

How do you read those variables back out? This does not work:
# These don't work to read out a variable name
ns_write $role$i
ns_write ${role$i}

Correct way, using the set command without a value returns the value of that variable:
set role_count 4
for {set i 0} {$i <= $role_count} {incr i} {
ns_write [set role$i]\n
}

This stuff grows quickly. I just hope that I can keep it from burning under the hot July sun.

I use an IBM T60 laptop for work, and for the longest time I couldn’t get Compiz to work with sleep or hibernate. Finally, with the help of a program called Envy, I’ve hit the sweet spot.

My configuration:
IBM T60, ATI Radeon Mobility X1300
Ubuntu Hardy 8.04, fully updated as of 2008-07-07
Envy, installed via apt-get

Instructions:

• Install envy via “sudo apt-get install envyng-gtk”
• Leave the default options, to get the latest binary driver from ATI
• Restart
• Test the sleep by closing the lid, waiting and opening again. Success!
• Go to System -> Preferences -> Appearance
• Open the Visual Effects tab, and enable all the eye candy you want!