Spring is almost here and it’s about time! I guess those of you up north are ready to lose all that snow. No snow here; just cold rain. But it’s time to get ready for spring vegetable planting.

I used to do my gardening in the back yard in a plot of about 15′ X 15′. Problem was, it was just a lot of work and it was hard to keep the dogs out of it. So last year about this time, I decided to build a raised bed garden to grow tomatoes, basil, etc. Basically, just things I like to eat but cost a lot at the grocery store.

I had fairly good luck with it but discovered that I could have had a better yield by preparing the soil with better garden soil amendments. So that’s just what I did week before last. Of course this is an ongoing thing, done yearly.

For this purpose, I keep a compost pile going. This is a good way to go organic; use natural broken down matter rather than chemicals. What’s the point of putting all that stuff down the garbage disposal? If you don’t eat it, mulch it!

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The town I live in (small city) just went on water rationing. It’s one of those deals where you can only water the lawn, add water to the swimming pool, or wash the car on certain days. Otherwise, face a stiff fine.

Problem is, nobody knows about it because the city isn’t putting out any publicity. I wouldn’t have known except that my wife say it on the city web page when she was looking for 4th of July tea parties and other activities.

Anyway, the problem with extended dry weather is that concrete slab foundations don’t like it. I tend to say slab on grade, but the problem applies to pier and beam foundations as well.

The dry dirt shrinks and pulls away. The result is that it doesn’t support the slab correctly. This can cause cracks, home damage (doors, windows, roofs), and expensive foundation repairs.

Sometimes this means mud jacking for smaller slabs. Bigger slabs might need piers and piles. Mucho dinero, my friends. The pro-active solution? Water the foundation regularly to prevent foundation repairs. Soaker hoses are the best way to do this evenly.

And the city did make a watering exclusion for drip watering systems…

Most of the current green building measures focus on energy saving items like creating a tight envelope, using the recommended amount of wall and attic insulation, using salvaged and sustainable construction materials, and outfitting with Energy Star appliances. But is there more to it? Sure there is.

Consider Water Conservation

Lately there has been a great deal of concern over the availability of clean, potable water. It’s always an issue in third-world developing countries, but there’s the occasional fluster in the Western US over water rights. Other parts of the country have their own woes during droughts when water rationing takes effect. No car washing, no lawn watering, no vegetable garden action, etc.

Now the folks that make water delivery in the home both possible and attractive are getting into the green business.

John Fitzgerald, who is the Director of Marketing of the Chicago Faucet Company, puts it this way, “We regard sustainability as an opportunity to travel down new roads with our customers. Sustainability and social responsibility are closely interrelated and are important subjects for Chicago Faucets in thinking and acting in research and development and in production.”

Of course, we’ve had it up to here with low flow this and low flow that. It works well when shower heads have flow restricters installed, but toilets don’t make the grade unless they are properly designed or have some kind of turbo accelerator to take care of business.

In any event, look for your plumber to become a more caring, sensitive, politically correct person.

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Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to run!

For the second time in the past 10 years, a swarm of bees has taken a breather on my property. The first time, it was on a sago palm in my front yard. This time, it’s on a maple tree in the back yard.

We didn’t know what the deal was the first time so we did some research. At first we thought they were adopting us - not a pleasing concept. So we called a pest exterminator to find out what to do. Not to kill them, just how to get rid of them.

Turns out there was no need to worry. When a swarm is on the move, they go until the queen bee wants to take a break. She settles down to rest and the rest of the bees swarm around her tightly. Talk about endurance. If I could duplicate it on a human level, imagine how I could boost my running performance!

When she’s ready to go again, they all take off. The whole operation only takes about two to three days. Fascinating. Click on the pic to see the bee swarm in detail.

Bees really do us a huge favor with pollination, as you well know if you watched The Bee Movie, starring Seinfeld. And since I’ve put in a raised bed vegetable garden, I’m all about pollination.

Just watch out for those stingers when you go for the honey!

OK, now I know that only sounds like fun to 50.3% of you. The rest of you are going to pay a professional lawn service company to do the grunt work, right?

Either way, it’s kind of cheerful to see things sprouting. Judging from the news, a lot of you are still in the grips of Jack Frost, but I’ve had my raised bed vegetable garden in for about a month now and even had to run the air conditioner for a few minutes yesterday.

I even broke out my Brill push reel lawnmower and gave it a go. These are great as long as you don’t mind mowing your lawn on a regular basis. Otherwise, you need the horsepower of a motorized one.

One thing I did have to do this spring is buy a new weedeater. I went with the Ryobi mostly because I trust the brand name. But it does have one cool thing - installing the cutting line. You don’t have to disassemble the whole head assembly.

Just feed the line through the head to the halfway point and twist the bump feed knob to reel the line in onto the spool. How cool is that, I ask you?

I may think of other projects as time goes on (or the wife will for me), but for now I need to go concentrate on something more immediate; I have to remove a tree stump thanks to Hurricane Ike.

Sounds like conspiracy theory, doesn’t it. Don’t go all aluminum-foil hat on me now. No, it just struck me this morning as I was brain-storming for a new article to write.

See, Obama likes to compare himself not only to Honest Abe Lincoln, but also to FDR. So much to FDR that he’s sort of following his New Deal set of programs with his overblown stimulus package. For an academic, he has missed the point that socialism failed while the Reagan doctrine succeeded.

But since this isn’t a political blog, I won’t recount that history here. So let’s talk about Michelle Obama. I think it’s pretty cool that she’s doing that big organic victory garden on the south lawn of the White House.

And that’s where I see the connection between her and Eleanor R. The Michelle O.-Eleanor R. Victory Garden Connection. As the first lady during WWII, Eleanor established her own victory garden at the White House.

Those were hard times just as these are. And that garden concept was a rallying call for millions of other Americans to pull together and pull themselves up by their collective bootstraps.

I think Ms. Obama is symbolically doing the same thing. Pretty clever. And it’s a good possibility that she’s also establishing her First Lady agenda. Good chance that it will be good nutrition and charitable giving (part of her harvest goes to a local soup kitchen).

That second part might be a not-so-subtle bit of publicity to combat the rising ire over Barak slashing tax deductions for charitable contributions.

Be that as it may, it’s a win-win. How’s that for a conspiracy theory. Snopes-proof!

A friend of mine asked me to write an article on the subject of green roof gardens the other day. She writes on gardening as I write on home improvement and sometimes we collaborate. It’s a good thing. It sounded interesting so I started digging into research.

I already knew something about the structural needs; when I worked at the Marriott hotel in the Houston Medical Center, we had a good sized indoor swimming pool on the fourth floor. It was supported by massive aluminum I-beams.

And imagine, it was right over the ballroom (third floor). Yikes! One night the graveyard shift engineer was making his rounds and saw that the jacuzzi was empty. He turned on the water to fill it up. What he didn’t realize was that the jets were removed for maintenance.

Long story short - he continued on his rounds. By the time he came back to check, there were about 200 gallons of water on the ballroom floor and the acoustical drop ceiling was ruined. Ouch!

Green roof gardens have similar structural requirements because of the weight load of the dirt. Traditionally, you had to have a flat roof to put one of these babies in. No longer; entrepreneurs have engineered modular systems that allow installation on sloped roofs.

Am I going to do one on my house? Nah; too much work, and I already have a garden on the ground. But if I was building a new home, you bet!

I spent some time planting in my raised bed garden yesterday. Already had some corn, peas, and some lemon basil in so I put in some tomatoes.

Now I’ve planted tomatoes in the past but I’ve only really had success with cherry tomatoes. This time I did some research. Soil is the first thing to consider. From listening to Randy Lemmon (garden guru) on the radio I’ve learned to go heavy with the rose soil.

Next, not all vegetable species are created equal. Certain varieties do better in any given location. For my location along the sunny gulf coast, I bought Carnival and Better Bush, both determinate.

Say what? Yes, that’s something else I learned: the terms determinate and indeterminate. Don’t you just love counter-intuitive words? In a nutshell, determinate tomato plants only reach a given height, four feet is a good bet, and produce fruit within a short period of time.

Indeterminate ones, on the other hand, grow larger, need staking, and bear fruit for a longer period of time.

Will I save much money by growing my own vegetables? Probably not this year, give what I’ve shelled out for building the raised bed. Cinder blocks, soil, and mulch. This year, I do it for homegrown organic flavor. Next year, I save money!

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The answer to this question can boil down to a simple yes or no, but what might motivate you to go one way or the other? I do everything myself, partly because I enjoy it but here’s a few more reasons:

• I have the time to do it. As a self-employed freelance writer, I can pretty much make my own schedule.
• I don’t want to contribute to the illegal alien problem. No politicians will address the issue, not the Bush administration, and certainly not Obama or any of his cronies. The whole extended Houston area is a “sanctuary city” and very few lawn care service employees speak English.
• I’m cheap; uh, I mean thrifty. That’s still a virtue, right?

But if hiring a landscaping or lawn care company is for you, I recommend Angie’s List: Ratings, reviews and sometimes revenge. See what local homeowners say about the service companies they hire. Join now.
Last summer when my lawnmower finally gave up the ghost, I bought myself a Brill Razorcut reel lawnmower. You know, the kind with no motor? It works just as well and drinks no gasoline. And it’s quiet.

Recently I put in an organic raised bed garden and I can’t wait to get some homegrown tomatoes. I’m also going to put in more basil than I did last year. I just didn’t harvest enough to make as much pesto as I wanted. I wonder why fresh basil is so expensive in the store? it’s easy to grow.

In fact, I started some from seed a few weeks ago and I need to get them in the ground today. The 10 day forecast tells me that the temperature isn’t going to colder at night than 55 degrees F.

Since the weather has warmed up, I planted the tulips I gave my wife for out 15th anniversary. They’re just starting to bloom today. Purple ones.

And now that I think of it, I think I’ll wander outside and see if any more asparagus has come up…

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I usually write about home improvement, but at times I get off on a tangent. Which happened this week. Growing up in Panama, I ate empanadas all the time. That is some good eating.

Now I live in South Texas, or is it Mexico? It’s hard to tell, with all the “guest workers” roaming around. Anyway, it’s a good thing I speak Spanish. I wish I could say that Obama is going to do something about the border but he probably won’t do any better than President Bush in that regard.

But I digress. The point is that when I get a hankering for empanadas, the only ones I can buy are the Mexican variety, which are stuffed with fruits. So I make my own from my Panamanian-style empanada recipe.

They’re not hard to make at all. The only thing I change from the original is that I make my own crust using a whole wheat pie crust recipe that I invented. I just like whole wheat as opposed to wimpy overprocessed wheat products.

Speaking of  food, I recently recieved two batches of frozen meat, both buffalo and deer. Delicious. Honestly, I tried the vegetarian thing years ago and it didn’t work for me. I know it’s the way for some people, and more power to you if you fall in that camp.

Not to say that I don’t enjoy vegetables as well. I’ve got my vegetable garden all set up and I’m just waiting for the weather to warm up a bit so I can plant.

OK, back to the work. Ready for more free home improvement articles?