One Hundred Dollars a Month

It’s that time again. You ask, and I pretend to know things and answer your burning questions. It really is so much fun to open my inbox and see the wide variety of questions you guys have. Reminds me that my readers are so diverse and pretty dang awesome. So keep those questions coming and I’ll keep racking my brain for answers. As always, please pipe up if you have any input or are knowledgeable when it comes to any of the following questions:

Hi Mavis, I read your post earlier this week about window treatments and you mentioned that you were going to paint the trim. How the heck do you paint trim so you don’t see the brush strokes? Any tips?

Flotrol is the bomb diggety! No seriously. If you’ve never used it, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice. I add Flotrol every time I paint with latex or acrylic paints. It’s an additive that helps reduce the appearance of brush marks. And it works so well! It’s also pretty cheap, so I think it’s worth it.

Hi Mavis! I have a quick question for you about your Brother sewing machine. I’m wondering if it can sew through really thick materials like denim and corduroy? Have you had any trouble with your machine not going through thick materials? I’d like to buy the Brother machine with Amazon deal you posted yesterday. So I’m hoping this will work out!!

Thank you so much!

~Hannah

I have never tried to sew denim, but I have used my Brother sewing machine with no issue on other thick fabric. When I sew the adorable burp cloths you see above {How to Make Minky Burp Cloths}, it sews through minky fabric like a boss. I suspect it would sew through denim no problem, although the seams might be an issue.

Greetings Ms. Mavis! Since I too live in the Pacific Northwest, I’m curious about your greenhouse. I’ve been in the market for something similar. Would you be willing to share what kind it is? how much it cost? How easy was it to put up? how much you like it? What you don’t like about it? Now I’m off to plant my fall garlic and check in on my beehive. Thanks in advance for your time. Happy Autumn!

~Laura

I bought my greenhouse at the Glass Gardener in Tacoma. I freakin loved it. The greenhouse was a Magnum Glass Greenhouse 12×14 with a British green finish. I would highly recommend the company to anybody looking for a greenhouse {and really, I’d recommend it even if you aren’t looking for a greenhouse. Because greenhouses are awesome, and everyone should have one. Or two}. I think it might have been $1,800, but I don’t remember exactly. They also installed it, which was a huge bonus. Did I mention I loved it?

Do you have a newsletter I can sign up for?

~Rhonda

You’re in luck, I do! See that cute box above? You’ll find it in the upper right hand corner on the site. Simply input your email address {or head HERE} and BOOM, you’re all signed up. You can also sign up for updates a ton of other ways by heading HERE. Hope that helps.

Hi Mavis!

I’m hoping you might be able to put your amazing brain to work on my situation.  I have a black thumb and don’t understand gardening or landscaping pretty much at all.  I just like things that are pretty and low maintenance in their prettiness.

That said…  My husband and I tilled up our front yard this year in anticipation of planting a hybrid garden/flower bed come spring.  Our snoopervising committee must be run by the same one yours is because they were NOT happy and sent me a nastygram about “general lawn neglect”  (I wrote back to inform them that it’s difficult to neglect a lawn that doesn’t exist!).

We live in what’s called a “detached condo”, which essentially means we have a super tiny lot, so the picture I’ve attached is what we have to work with.  I need to figure out how to make it look pretty and still produce some food for us.  We would like to grow beans, pumpkins, strawberries, lettuce, and maybe a melon or two.  I’m told our northern exposure is great for these up here in Snohomish, and a large oak shades the right half of the bed for a little relief from the hot hot sun.

I’d like to plant some berry bushes and self-seeding perennial flowers, and maybe a small fruit tree to “landscape” so that it doesn’t LOOK like a tiny farm in the front yard (the Snoopervisors would lynch me), but looking over zonal recommendations has me baffled.  Can you help recommend where to put what and when to plant them?

ANY help would be appreciated because I’m clearly out of my element!

Many, many thanks,
Claire

Okay readers, Claire needs our help! Here’s where you chime in. Take a look at this picture and see what you can come up with. As far as suggestions from me, I am a HUGE fan of strawberry plants, carrots and Swiss chard as edible ornamentals. They produce like crazy and look pretty doing it. Shasta daisies are also easy to maintain, too. They pack a pretty powerful scenic punch. And now I turn it over to all my helpful readers. What say ye?

Have a question for me? Submit them HERE and I’ll try to answer them.

~Mavis