I don't have a picture of it. Sorry. But we had friends who lived in a subdivision with nosy neighbors. They laid a brick paved patio with a solid wood gate, put a stone fireplace in it, and then surrounded it with a privacy fence. It was cheaper than privacy fencing the whole property. It was nice sized. They had the fireplace for ambience, a gas frill for barbecuing, nice patio furniture, a few potted plants, and some of those citronella tiki torches to wars of mosquitos.

We have cell phones, so I don't worry about it. They also have siblings and my mom, the parents of life partner's/spouses at least for two of them, so we aren't the only people they can call it something goes wrong. From a very long distance, apart from sending money and giving advice, there is little I could do rapidly anyway. Both of those things are also things I can do from the phone or my laptop which is usually with me.

Well, I ended up pulling them because Mark has gone bananas for the homegrown radishes, and wants to use the bed for that. I got 12 small, beautiful crowns off them plus a bunch of small buds, all of which were pretty nice. So I am glad for the crop. I want to figure out what to do next year, fertilizer wise, to get larger crowns. These were all 3-4" across. The first two I harvested were 4-5". So Mark won, and that bed has some new rows of radish seeds, and carrots too.

The issue isn't daylight hours, but the sheer amount of fully cloudy skies and rain. We don't get that many sunny days. It is a kind of middle of the Great Lakes region phenomenon than related to latitude. Same latitude in say North Dakota will have far more sunny days/days without full cloud cover. We lose 11-12 degrees on average from Sept 1- Sept 20, a 10% drop in percentage of available sunshine, often end up with waterlogged plants from numerous drenching storms, in addition to losing 1.5 hrs of sunlight per day from beginning to end. It tends to happen rapidly. As a general rule, we can count on pleasant weather for Labor Day weekend, and then suddenly just start going down hill rapidly. It is better on the west side of the state than where I am. Our local climate has some oddities due to several unique factors. Our county will have cool weather crops that will still do okay so long as the plants matured back in August while the sunlight was great and the percentage of available sunlight was decent. So I could, if I cover at night, have a second round of broccoli, peas, and salad greens. (I have never done this, but I know it is possible, and am going to try it for the first time.) But often the tomato plants go from healthy and producing to falling over and dropping leaves in less than two weeks. We tend to bring tomatoes inside to ripen. So technically, we are zone 4B with some places even assuming insulation from Lake Huron makes us Zone 5. But, master gardeners locally often say we should plan like we are 4A. The wild card is spring. Oh. Good. Grief. The usual, the predicted is last hard freeze date of April 30, and last frost May 15. Bwahahahahahaha. 😂😂😂😂 This year it was 85-87 (29.4-30) the entire second week of April. Then more temperate but flooding for days and days and days of torrential downpours which are not normal, then hot, 75-80 everyday for the first week of May, followed by a frost. Then we had a HARD freeze around May 20. Climate change might make me nuts! Mark is loving the garden veggies and says he wants a small greenhouse so he can just climate control it, and wants to make it solar powered so he can even cool it if necessary. "Honey, how hot are you expecting this part of Michigan to get? Plants are not human Michiganders who think they are going to melt and die if it is 90°/32.2C.They do not need A/C and unless you are trying to grow tomatoes in the dead of winter, I don't think it needs heating either!"

Does it count that I used some twine and sticks to make a lattice/support for one of my cucumber plants?

Wow!

I just need to say, when I read the threat title, my first thought was, "Carrie's husband is in the doghouse big time!" 😂😂😂

It isn't far fetched. If we think Putin is dangerous on any given day, in a tailspin and with nothing to lose personally, he could be exponentially worse.

I have three months yet as well IF I cover plants starting in Mid-September. For full sun, need really warm soil plants, they are very much done after Labor Day. Mark is so happy with the garden, and loving eating fresh picked things, that he has been making some hoop houses, and I have 12, 5 gallon buckets so I can cover a lot of plants this fall which is making me feel like I should be considering a 2nd harvest/planting of peas, broccoli, green beans, carrots, and radishes. It is really hard for me to consider pulling those broccoli plants right now, but I truly do not think they are going to produce anything worth harvesting between now and fall. So this part of me keeps nagging to get them out, and then devote the bed to something that will develop. But they are so healthy and pretty looking! I have got to go make a trellis out of sticks for that cucumber. Henrietta has decided to take over the universe! She is like a veggie tale Rumor Weed.

We finally got some rain. We really need more, but we do have a chance of some this afternoon. Fingers crossed. I am harvesting a ton of basil. The basil is just insanely happy. They make me feel like a successful gardener! I am going to freeze little snack size battles of my harvest today. Dehydrating it has been taking WAY too long. I am going to have plenty of basil to share with my family, and this makes me happy. I have some more broccoli to cut, and then I think it is done. It has become so hot out all of a sudden that it is not trying to form any side shoots for small buds. I have numerous green cherry tomatoes, and three beefsteak tomatoes growing nicely. Once they are the proper size, Mark will make green fried tomatoes. We have just one beef steak plant. But out of the eight Amish Paste plants? Two, just two baby tomatoes on one plant. That's it. Blossoms forming all the time, no tomatoes developing. I have seen bumblebees on the plants so I don't think pollinators are the issue. On Wednesday, they were fertilized with an organic plant food specifically for tomatoes. They are literally just being twits about it. Nothing more. I thinned the baby scallions. It was sad. My heart did not like pulling little plants. I hate thinning. I hope they do well. It is just one row as an experiment in the same mini raised bed as the peas. I will have about 20 of them if they all grow nicely. But my great unhappiness is that the blossoms on my pea plants are wilting. The pea plants themselves definitely look a little stressed. They don't like the 80-85 (26.6-29.4C) degree weather we have been experiencing. This coming week it is supposed to be only in the mid-70's (21.1C) and does an into the 60's (15.5C) at night so maybe they will perk up?? Probably not. I don't know. And I am sure my stupid Amish pastes will use the drop in temperature to curl up into fetal positions, suck their thumbs, and threaten to die because that is the kind of jerk plants they are. Sneezy, I read that diatomaceous earth works on horn worms because it dehydrates them to death, but the stuff doesn't hurt the plants. Maybe you could try that. I am contemplating pulling the broccoli plants now that the heat has come. It makes me sad. But I also think I could seed more carrots and radishes in that bed which seems like a good idea, maybe even another row of scallions. What would all of you do?

Basically, but often the foundation of the garden beds are dug deep into the ground and earth tubes used to make sure the soil remains quite warm even in the worst of weather and windchills. The design sometimes even includes a small root cellar. They are really cool green spaces.

Meet in the middle and budget $225 per sq ft and then don't be tempted to get fancy? Just spitballing.

Okay, gotcha. So not what we call a 3 season room which is "porch for watching wildlife and yelling at grandkids while safe from mosquito assault legions". 😂

This is true. The other thing is that there are ways to make a four season room that is actually a greenhouse and ducting moves the heat from that room into the rest of the house which is a great heating offset. But that only works if the room faces south as a general rule and is not shaded. I have always wanted one so I could grow cherry tomatoes, salad greens, peas, and carrots all winter.

3 season Michigan room. Probably screen on the lower end and glass on the upper end, but very simple design, and maybe only 10x10.

Google says $10,000-40,000 with $25,000 being average. So maybe start at the high end of the improvements just to make sure you have room for surprises.

I totally get this. In my ideal world, I have my own bathroom, and Mark had his man cave bathroom, and my bathroom is off limits! But ya. Not happening.

Today (Saturday) Two scrambled eggs each with red pepper, potatoes, spinach lots and lots of coffee Tuna melts and salads Homemade gnudi in parmesan sauce with peas and mushrooms, and roast asparagus We spent part of the evening at MIL's house. She served strawberries, pound cake, and whipped cream. I ate a couple of strawberries without the other stuff. The gnudi was great. I have never made that before. Those fresh peas with it were wonderful. I will definitely make it again. I have never made gnocchi, so that is on my bucket list now.

I so relate to raking carpet! My grandmother had a royal blue shag in her living room, and often before Thanksgiving or Christmas it was my job to rake that thing. Then it got all trampled down a few hours later. I swore I would never have shag carpet, and have lived that promise. 😂

I agree with this. We have to keep a dedicated work space away from the main part of the house for Mark since he works remote full time. Even when we had smaller houses, I had to have a dedicated music room because I had a full music studio, and so the kids play area had to be away from the studio, and it had to be a large enough space to accommodate my baby grand, other instruments, library shelves of music, etc. Definitely, there are good reasons for extra rooms.

We upsized for a home near Huntsville that has the ability to house our immediate family, kids and their life partners, plus grandkids not just for entertaining, but to also be a multi-generational living option. That said, we are considering selling it in a couple years (it is prime real estate so it shouldn't be an issue), and investing back here in northern, lower peninsula Michigan because it will be a much better place to live as the planet heats and climate events get worse. Buying or building another multi-generational house in the areas we are looking would not be financially feesible so we aren't sure what we will end up with.

I agree. Very poorly designed and especially when one considers the future costs of climate change. Our kids are not interested in homeownership. They have done the math. How long do they need to live in one place to build enough equity to break even much less make any money on the investment? How much of their life will be taken with maintenance, repairs, lawn? What happens financially to their employers relocate them, and they are paying rent in one place while trying to sell the old home? In the end, for them, home ownership is a bust. They can't count on being with any one employer in a single location long enough to be worth the sink of funds. The two bachelors share a very well laid out, well thought out three bedroom, two bath apartment with a balcony in a convient, walkable location so that they can share a car, and on the weekends, rarely drive that car unless they are coming home to visit. The rent is reasonable for what they get. The utilities are less to heat and cool vs. the average utility bill for homes in the area. They are sinking the savings into emergency savings, short term investments, and long term. Though neither of them have been at their first career jobs longer than 10 months, they have six months salary paid, are contributing to their 401K's for the employer matching, and have small investment accounts all while budgeting for their student loan payments to commence shortly. I think homes need to change a lot for the needs of GenZ and upcoming GenAlpha as well as for the climate disasters that will be ever increasing. The bulk of homes I see now are going to be so very problematic soon.

I feel like we have an early 20th century Ground Hog Day movie thing going on, caught in a time loop. In the last 3 years, Pandemic, War in Russia, Coup in Russia, a big rise in Fascism, and a Titanic disaster. I have a pretty bat crazy bingo card for this decade, but I still didn't anticipate this. Putin on the run is definitely something we have all been waiting to see.

I am so sorry, Dawn. Hugs ❤

I am so sorry. This is only going to get worse as climate change worsens and weather events get more extreme and more often. I worry about how all this plays out. I am pro, tell mom and dad to stay put, and move. I shudder to think what premiums will be with less competition! Hugs ❤