Tomatoes

Each year, sometime between February and March, I go out into the yard and prepare the soil to plant tomatoes.  I carefully break apart the friable clay, amending with manure, vermiculite, and whatever else I can find at the local Home Depot that seems like it will give me a better yield.

Several weeks before, I start my seeds under lights in the garage. With careful controls on temperature, hours of light, darkness, and humidity, the small mail order seeds are generally ready to go into the yard within 4 to 6 weeks of being germinated.

Once the small ceilings are planted, I spend a considerable amount of time creating tomato cages out of bamboo stakes. Careful pruning of suckers off of the mother plant ensures healthy growth and large tomatoes.  For weeks on end, I carefully water, feed, trim, tie, and inspect each plant.  Pests are controlled with natural methods.  Weeds are pulled by hand.  Any growth that appears not to be healthy is quickly removed.

In 2 to 3 months, depending on the variety, I end up with bushels of tomatoes.  Other than slice in a few up for sandwiches and salads, I really don't eat them. The notion of canning them has never really occurred to me, especially because I care of tomatoes costs about $.68 at the local Walmart.

So, for the most part, I bag them up and take them to work, or people seem to enjoy taking a few home for their families.

A coworker asked me this last season – why do you bother to plant tomatoes when you really don't seem to eat very many of them and you just give them away?

It's as good a question as any, I suppose.  If you don't know the answer to that question, my guess is you've never grown tomatoes. 

Or really done much of anything at all.

DIY Trailer-Chic Air Conditioner - First Attempt

After a failed adventure with an evaporative cooler, shaking my head at the high price/low efficiency of a portable air conditioning unit ($350 for 8000 BTU), and shaking my fist at roof mounted RV A/C ($500+) I made a trip to my local Home Depot to use redneck ingenuity... And hopefully, lots of bailing wire and duct tape... To designs own way to keep cool camping.  I like going to Home Depot without plans or a shopping list; my adult ADHD is best supported by making this stuff up as I go along, and hoping I have whatever I forget in my garage that is ready for an episode of Hoarders.

So here's what I settled on to design my redneck tent trailer air conditioning:

- 5000 BTU window air conditioner

- 4" x 8 ft. dryer vent hose kit

- plastic base roof flashing

- 4" louvered square dryer vent

- 17" white single drawer wire basket

- Coke Zero (they didn't have Mountain Dew)

Total price: $170

... Plus dome other stuff in my garage which you'll see in a minute.

How to:

1. Trim roof flashing to fit over the cool blower vent on the front of the AC.  It helps if you don't measure... Just hold it up and eyeball it.  The hard part is getting the flat flashing to conform to the not-straight vent on the AC.

Your trimmed flashing should look like this:

... And will roughly fit like this:

2.  Install the insulation strips that came with the AC to the contact side of the flashing.  I don't know if this does anything or not, but why throw it away?

Since the flashing wants to stay flat, I cut some strips from left over pipe insulation from a project to make my trout landing net float and some spray adhesive a kid left in my classroom in 2008 to build up a little edge and create a tighter seal:

Rock cod sinkers were used to help the glue set while I sipped a Modelo Chelada.

3.  Cut out flashing hole to receive rigid dryer vent plastic thingy. Leave a little bit in there to create an airtight seal.

4. Attach flashing to the front of the wall air conditioner using duct tape.  I wanted to use Mario Andretti duct tape to galvanize the traileresque flavor of this project, but had to settle for Mario Bros.

5. Force the 4" louvered square vent receiver into the 4" plastic end thingy on the dryer vent hose.  Duct tape liberally.

6. Place the metal basket upside down on the ground near your tent trailer.  Place the AC unit on top of the basket, attach all hoses, and insert square vent into a convenient zippered or Velcro opening on your tent trailer.  Insulate the opening with a Nascar themed tshirt, a giveaway rally towel, cardboard, or anything else to keep the skeeters outside and the cold air in.

Don't place the AC unit directly on the ground, so it doesn't suck up dirt and dust and spilled Bugler tobacco.

7. Open your Coke Zero, because you're done. Plan your responses to smart alecky campers who scoff at your redneck powers when they see your DIY ingenuity.  They're just jealous, after all.

In retrospect, I could have saved a little money and added to the overall theme of this project by using a stolen milk crate in place of the wire basket, but it is large enough to hold the AC unit in transport, so that saves limited space.  Another flashing and length of dryer vent could be used to access the inside return on the front of the AC unit.  As it stands right now, this system is only half efficient:  cold air blows in, but no warm air is pulled out.

Anyway, thought you'd enjoy.  Happy camping this summer everyone, and stay cool.