ppolischuk's Profile

I bought three to try to grow as much food as possible in our small front yard. I have 10 tomato plants in the ground and three hanging in Topsy Turvy planters. All planted on the same day, the ones in the ground are growing MUCH more vigorously than the hanging ones, but we'll see how everything looks at the end of the summer.

Two things. 1) The plants definitely want to grow up. At first they curl upwards, but once they get a little more weight they come down. 2) Because they're in relatively narrow pots and exposed to a lot of wind, they dry out easily. This combined with the fact that they don't catch as much rainwater as in-ground or regular potted plants means I have to water them a lot more, even with all the rain we're having in DC.

After using a kitchenaid attachment at my brother's house, my girlfriend and I wanted our own. Instead of waiting to find a good deal on a mixer and an attachment, we decided to look at craigslist. We picked up a hand-crank model (the same as in these pictures, I think) for $10 and it works like a charm. The knob to adjust thickness settings isn't indexed, so the pasta tends to push it open wider, but since making pasta is almost always a two person job it's not trouble to have one person hold the knob in place and crank while the other feeds the pasta through.

Give them to me! Seriously, I found a leaf shredder at a thrift store for cheap cheap and will gladly take any off of your hands for some serious compost action. I'm in Shaw.

You could do some serious wheelies with that geometry.

Go around to local liquor/wine stores. Some stores (especially higher-end stores) still receive some wine in wood crates. Some stores are willing to part with them, others aren't. I found one in DC that regularly puts them outside their store whenever they're done with them, allowing anybody who wants them to take them. I make one or two trips a week out to the store on my xtracycle, snagging anywhere from zero to six at a time.

I'd be happy to share which store it is, now that I've collected enough for my bookshelf, for anybody in DC.