Bungalow '23: An Arts & Crafts home improvement journal

Fall Project Roundup

Saturday, September 29th, 2007

Fall is a great time to work on house projects. The weather is more comfortable than in the peak of the summer and the imminent arrival of winter can help keep your motivation high. Whether you are planning to hibernate from home improvement this winter or you just want to cross ...

Swallowtail Tag

Monday, September 17th, 2007

Our Tiny Oak Park Bungalow just helped me get the name of this butterfly I photographed atop some joe pye weed in my garden a couple weeks ago. Apparently it's a Black Swallowtail, which sounds a lot better than what I had formerly called it: "big blue butterfly."

Garden In Bloom

Friday, August 3rd, 2007

After a week of vacation, I'm behind on actual house progress. Fortunately all it takes for the garden to show progress are some water and sunshine. Here are a few recent flower photos from the front garden.

Compost 201: Compost Tea

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

We enrich our garden with manure and compost in the Spring, but when Ms. Bungalow was reading about compost in The Practical Gardener's Encyclopedia we found an idea for an organic mid-summer garden booster: a nice home-brewed bucket of compost tea. This "tea" should be just as refreshing for our plants ...

Compost 101

Saturday, July 14th, 2007

Who needs Miracle Grow? Compost is free, keeps waste out of landfills, and makes plants happy. Our master gardener friend gives her plants a diet of compost and manure and her vegetables and flowers look like they were grown next to a nuclear reactor. Composting can seem complicated because ...