Crans,
LOL about MacGyver! I guess it's sort of true - although I never did watch that show (maybe caught one episode). I had to get up very early for work at that time so I didn't watch much tv.
BTW, I urge anyone who might be tempted to replicate my "handicapped scaffolding" to use great caution with (or avoid altogether) the sliding dog ramp portion. It's only supposed to be for pet use. I'm comfortable with it as I only weigh about 95 lbs (and a lot of dogs weigh more than that!!), but I'd be very hesitant to use it if I weighed more than, say, a St Bernard <g>. And even for myself, if I had it stretched out to the full 8' length, I would put some sort of support at the halfway point.
Oh, I was rereading my post describing the scaffolding and noticed a typo, I'd missed before. I was describing the step portion and wrote to "climp" up rather than to "climb" up - "climp" seems more appropriate actually
ddsack,
Thanks for the nice comments. There is only one cat who is a visitor only (and I hope it stays that way LOL). During construction of the shade house, she was very intrigued by the elevated bed and seemed to be planning on using it as a (to use my brother's term) "kitty crapper." Hopefully I've thwarted her plans.....
I can't really lower my tomatoes with the set up I have, but I can reach high enough with the aid of my step-stool if necessary, and I'm topping off the plants before they get TOO tall. (The plants are getting so heavy they're starting to snap some of the trellis string!).
tnkrer,
I'm attaching a pdf (that you'll probably have to enlarge to 200%) of the plans I made for the salad tables. The dimensions are based around my old window screens (shown in another photo attached) that were about 2' x 6' (a little less). The bottom of the "salad box" has 1/2" wire mesh hardware cloth stapled to the sides. The box is then lined with weedblock to let the water drain out but the soil to stay in. The box rests on one of my old San Jose window screens (as shown in the photo). If you're doing things from scratch, you can, obviously do any dimensions you want. But the pdf and photo should give you a better idea of things. (And, of course, you don't need to use the old wooden window screens!)
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I've started to "fill my shade house with plants" and have enclosed some photos of some tomato cuttings and tiny seedlings I have going - now in the shade house. I decided that it was maybe a bit too bright still for the new cuttings and baby seedlings their first time outside, so I attached some mesh rubber shelving material to one corner to provide a bit more shade for now.
I used diatomaceous earth, which is a lot finer than the potting soil I had been using, so I used some of my leftover fiberglass window screen to line the bottom of my 10 oz planting cups so that the DE wouldn't just drain out the holes. (Holes made with a fine tipped soldering iron, BTW). I threw in a photo of that, just because I had one
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Finally, just for the heck of it - a photo of today's harvest. I have to pick a little underripe due to all the critters in the garden that like to eat ripe ones. I've been getting 5-10 lbs a day for quite a while now. Freezer's about full of them, so looks like I'm in for another big canning day soon!