yes, I am in my garden or the greenhouse every day after work. being as I winter sow my perennials I am out there potting something up or seeding something. Maybe I am organizing or cleaning. It is such a great way to physically, mentally relax for me. although, my 10 yr old is starting to resent it a little. so I have to be careful with her.. and to not be too selfish with my time and make sure I am taking time for her also. I think her little hormones are starting to kick in with the snottyness and My mom is the meanest thing on earth. boys are so easy! I already went thru this with my oldest two girls. anyway, I am heading out there in a few minutes, I found seeds in a bubble mailer I forgot to sow. I am potting up plants that have spread too much and am going to try to sell them when I have my garage/craft sale. I can never get enough time out there. I am going to say that God gave me the gift of a green thumb and I am going to use that gift to glorify Him.

This is such a good idea! I've wondered if some of you could have been my neighbors in the various places I've lived. Anyhow it's nice to be "online" neighbors now. GW Name - luckygal What does your GW name stand for? - I don't really believe in "luck" but I feel very blessed to have survived so well this long. Real Name - Katie Age - 66 Companion - same husband for over 42 years Children? - 3 nice adult kids and 6 wonderful grandkids Pets? - 3 indoor cats, 2 we chose from the SPCA and 1 who chose us - he just wondered by one day and needed feeding, and one outdoor feral cat we feed who keeps the mice under control. We're between dogs. Where do you live or used to live? - have lived in rural BC near the middle of the province for almost 20 years, originally from the west coast of BC, have lived in Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Germany Zone? - 3b (according to the Canadian Zone Map) Do you work? - yes, but since I retired I don't get paid as much for it! Have been a jill-of-many-trades and master of a few. Companion Occupation? - ex-military, retired teacher Other interests besides gardening? - various crafts, sewing, knitting, crochet, reading, computer, yard saling, repurposing yard sale finds, interior decorating (DH calls me Martha when I get too obsessed), photography, traveling now that we are retired How long have you been gardening? - 60 years at least (difficult even for me to believe) - my parents were avid gardeners and I helped from an early age. Where is your garden located and what is its size? - we have a large acreage and the garden is near the house, sort of large city lot size but could be larger. Courses in Horticulture? - no, self-taught, but with many mentors What are your specialities in gardening? - propagating houseplants but I'm no longer doing that as it tends to get out of hand (who really needs 30 diefenbachia?), I like growing perennials from seed and nurturing yard sale plant finds, I like planning my garden then deviating from the plan. My DH would say it's leaning on my shovel and telling him what to do! Favorite Flower? - delphiniums, Lady's Mantle, geranium Vancouver centennial (more for it's foliage) are a few Favorite Tree/Shrub? - dogwood altho it doesn't grow in our climate What has been the best-performing plant/plants in your gardens? - shasta daisies and feverfew which are overly prolific self-seeders, irises, delphinium, Lady's Mantle, various poppies, Autumn Joy, and lots more - I'd have to think. Most Challenging Plant? - lavender, I started with 3 plants a few years ago and have one left which seems to struggle to survive every year. I think I need to create a mini-climate which is dryer and warmer but it's easier to just visit a lavender farm and buy some dried. Favorite Gardening Quote? - "I appreciate the misunderstanding I have had with Nature over my perennial border. I think it is a flower garden; she thinks it is a meadow lacking grass, and tries to correct the error." ~Sara Stein, My Weeds, 1988 Favorite Garden Magazines? - have only ever taken Gardens West and Harrowsmith subscriptions but no longer - occasionally borrow from the library, there is much more info online Favorite Garden Books or resources? - have 4 of Lois Holes' books which I use, some old gardening books I seldom read, Richters herb catalogue which is fun to dream with, online sites and forums What is your favorite tool? - my little red wagon which I use instead of a wheelbarrow in the house yard. DH got me a second one, a green one to use out in the back-40 for picking sticks. Both yard sale finds $10 each. I also really like using our old cement mixer, it's like this huge noisy toy! We've made hypertufa pots, concrete rhubarb leaf stepping stones, and I like mixing my own garden-healthy mulch in it. What are you most comfortable in when gardening? - shorts, shell or t-shirt, flip-flops mostly or heavy workboots if I have to dig, if it's cold fleece pants and tops, same footware, cotton gloves changed frequently when muddy or rubber gloves occasionally, depending on what I'm doing. What has been your best garden project? - When we had a new water line dug they struck rock the entire way so DH hauled huge rocks in the tractor bucket and created a rockery on a slope near the house. It's become overgrown so I need to replan and replant soon but I love those huge half buried rocks. He also more recently built me a large decorative-only birdhouse out of old barnboard and it's in the garden all summer and on the verandah in the winter. Any projects in the works or planned? - started a lasagna bed this summer over part of the lawn and we're adding to it, hope it produces great veggies next year. Am thinking about a garden house, probably plan it over the winter. Would love to enlarge the garden area more but I think that might be biting off more than I can do. If you had an unlimited budget, what would you do with your gardens? - I've always wanted a bobcat to play with but with an unlimited budget I'd probably hire a landscaper and gardener also and keep them busy for awhile. Buy a hammock and watch them work! Cottage style all the way with gazebo, ponds, streams, bridges a la Monet's garden. If you could invent a plant, what would it look like? - hardy for my zone, resistant to all plant problems, long-lived perennial, very blue and it would look just like my delphiniums but smell like a spicy rose. Would that seem weird or what? Describe an experience with a garden pest that had you ready to throw in the trowel? - being "bug-phobic" I try not to think about them and the birds eat most of the bugs in the garden altho we have zillions of ants, also voracious deer, and pine, spruce and fir beetles in the forest. Plant pests are dandelions, wild yarrow, chickweed, and various pasture grasses that seed. I try to be organic but occasionally use ant dust around the perimeter of the house so they don't eat it! Otherwise it's live and let live here. Parts of the lawn are turning into yarrow groundcover which I may address, or not. Hey, it's green. What advice do you have for the novice gardener? - Join your local garden club, read everything you can about gardening - discover gardening forums and online sites, read library books, start composting, plan a bit, then just get out and do it your way and have fun. Don't waste a lot of money on expensive plants until you actually have good soil to plant them in. We learn more from our mistakes than our successes so don't be afraid to try. What is your motivation for gardening? - I'm incapable of not gardening, it's in my genes.

At ShelvesThatSlide.com, they don't suggest you need a fixed shelf to mount the pullouts to--you mount the pullouts to the side of the cabinet, not to a shelf! Oh, wait, I do see this: "We do not recommend no shelf installations for locations where a significant amount of weight is involved such as pantries." I guess if your back end of the slide is going to be attached to the wimpy outer panels that framed cabinets have, this might be a problem. The thing is, regular drawers are attached to the back of the framed cabinets all the time. You'd use the same sort of drawer slides, but you'd use "face frame brackets" or a "face frame conversion kit." Those brackets are MUCH less bulky than the ones that the Sliding Shelves place used--look at the link below. The key: "Secure a 3/4" x 2" vertical mounting strip to the rear wall or cabinet back for each slide." You might ask this over at the Kitchens forum; I know folks over there have added pullouts to their cabinets after-market, so they'd have some help for you. You can also mount to the side of the cabinet, depending on how far out the face frame sticks; you use spacers to fill in the gap between the wood of the cabinet side itself, and the spot where the drawer slide would be (sinc eit can't go flush against the wall). Are the sides of the cabinets visible? Are they very thick? If they're not visible, and you're willing to drive screws through them from the inside, that would work. If they are visible, or if you aren't willing to make holes in them, then maybe you could line the side of the cabinet w/a thick sheet of plywood. Or, you could build a frame to set into the side of the cabinet, w/ vertical pieces where the holes on the slides are, and then glue that wood to the cabinet itself (stain it to match, to make it look pretty!); it'll hold everything. You might want to keep it from tipping by using an L bracket to attach it to the inside of the face frame in the front, and to the back of the cabinet in the back. http://www.runnerduck.com/pmbench.htm Scroll about halfway down This one will show you the spacer in the back, plus the angled bracket that attached the slide to the back of the cabinet. I suppose if you really wanted to, you could install fixed shelves in the cabinet, but that seems silly. Here is a link that might be useful: Instructions for an Accuride-brand face-frame conversion kit

Just to prevent any confusion (I don't care -- this is just for information): "Pullout" is often used for anything that one pulls except a drawer because a drawer already has a name. Therefore there are pullout shelves, pullout pantries, and pullout spice racks. There are pullout cutting boards and pullout tray racks. The only use I personally have seen in my four years of being TKO of "rollout" is in the phrase "Roll Out Tray Shelves (ROTS)", which Buehl taught us to say awhile back. Since it looks like opposite definitions are being used here, I just wanted to clarify. That said, I think door-attached pullouts (or whatever you want to call them) are great for areas that are too small to usefully make a cabinet. That's a maximum of 15" wide, and more like 8"-12". For a pantry, even at 15", I prefer individual pullout/rollout shelves to either a door mounted unit or drawers. You can see from the front, you can see from above, you can see from the side(s). I have an undercounter pullout with two door mounted levels that holds bread, cereal and other breakfast/snack stuff. Love that. Too narrow a space for anything else (tray storage elsewhere). You can see and get to everything, but there's no need to reach across much. Only two packages, if they're narrow, sit side by side. Good stuff! Two doors don't bother me given the ability to see into a pantry (that's what I have), and I like wider than narrower, though that isn't at issue here. You can get a single door with 15"-18". One member--Circuspeanut? I forget--has narrow pullout trays but no doors. Looks cool in her kitchen. :)