i've had a terra cotta strawberry jar for years. never used it for strawberries :) i didn't do any of the drainage tricks suggested above; it's filled with ordinary potting soil mixed with some leaf compost. what has been planted in it has always been an afterthought - whatever's leftover from flats of annuals, mostly. one year, the DH grew *wheat* in it - now that was an "interesting" look (kinda scarey at night!) i've grown impatiens, dwarf zinnias, bulbs, assorted succulents, coleus (short or trailing forms) ... no matter what found a home in the jar, it did well & looked great - uh, except for the wheat :) impatiens always creates a nice, symmetrical & full look - you wonder how all that foliage & flower can grow from those small pockets. that's a beautiful jar - whatever you choose will enhance it. you'll have to post a pic of it next summer :) marsha

Mega-blooms are also called fused blossoms. I have also seen them called king flowers (though as far as I know tomatoes don't have king flowers like those on some other plants which bear both large and small fruit at the same time: for example, some strawberries, also artichokes). Someone also used the term conjoined flowers. I don't know if that is correct, botanically speaking. I have also seen them called tomato sunflowers; that seems like a gardener's imaginative term rather than a botanical one.

When you let sweaty items made of sandwiched material (bras) sit in the hamper, mildew and bacteria grow in the middle layer and might not get totally washed out. Strongly salty water kills the odor making bacteria/mold so that is probably why it works. A giant bag of salt at Sam's Club is pretty cheap, so that might be your source of salt. It's too bad chlorine bleach is a no-no for bras as that would kill off everything living in the middle layer. I use hot water and oxyclean and it has been enough for me. Maybe I will pay more attention to the supermarket shelves and see if there is some sort of disinfecting additive that can be added to the prewash (assuming that your model lets you put a prewash in front of the delicate cycle). If I had your problem, I would prewash by hand using a little bit of detergent and gently knead the wet mix into the bra's problem areas. It's your choice to knead solely in your hands or knead on top of a sponge for softer kneading of the fabric. Then toss in the wash without rinsing out. If that doesn't work, I would escalate by diluting some mouthwash and using that to kill germs and sterilize. I would experiment to find an economical ratio of water to that brand of mouthwash. Those prior two methods are easy, but if they don't, I'd try using an antibacterial soap and then rinse out most of the soap that comes out easily as I depend on the washer getting rid of the rest of the soap residue. If you have no antibacterial soap or its killing power is too weak, then try head & shoulders shampoo as the next alternative but that will take extra rinsing out since shampoo has fragrance in it. As antibacterial handsoaps go, they range from the weak 0.1% triclosan to the robust 0.3% triclosan (the cheap handsoap in the commercial cleaning products section of Sam's Club).

Interesting and, again, helpful. Thanks to you both! Brilliant to incorporate the Pet Center into the kitchen. As it is, I've got at least half of one big drawer devoted to those things, and I don't much like mixing some of that stuff with food-related items (leaky Frontline packages, I'm looking at you!) They belong in a separate drawer as you have them, or in a mud room near the dog wash, which of course can double as a utility sink. It's not too hard to rig up a proper dog wash, inside or out--depending on the size of the dog and level of recalcitrance when it comes to baths ;) The more I think about it, the more a mud room makes sense for a small house. The only real addition that has been made post-1920s is a large-ish bathroom, with heated floors, a big closet, and a walk-in shower (separate from tub,) that has a nice high window. You can see the high window on the right in my other photos. Anyway, I do think that adding a good-size bathroom onto a tiny house is a huge improvement, especially when you think about sharing the space. A well-designed mud-room/ laundry will have a similar effect, unburdening the kitchen and other spaces from storage of linens, light bulbs, gift wrap, you name it! It's possible I can achieve what I want without adding extra "living" space (a bedroom or studio,) but I wonder if that becomes risky. It'd still be a 2 BR 1Ba house, albeit with ample storage and a comfortable connection to utility space outside. I think I'd like to proceed by designing the mud room and kitchen as if there would be a two story space where the garage is. I'd always imagined that space being linked to the old space through the kitchen, and that "mud" would be housed in the lower portion of the addition (where the garage is presently.) It's so helpful to have feedback like this to keep me from doing something impulsive that might make things better only in the short run. What a great resource you all are! Thanks again.