The reason you compost and what you compost really needs to decide what type of bin you need. Urban folks who want to compost their own waste without attracting undue attention from their neighbors might do well with a tumbler. They seem to offer speedy decomposition and the impression of being more sanitary. I say impression because grass clippings and old lettuce can't really be much different in the way they decompose. I have wire ring type bins. This is because I went crazy collecting other people leaves last fall and needed the high volume afforded by the wire bins. The greatest advantage is that they never, ever, ever get (and stay) full. After the initial fill, they will shrink drastically in a very short time. You can keep refilling them almost forever, each time it takes less to top off, sure, but they never stop shrinking. When it does get to the point where you can't add enough at one time to satisfy, you can unwrap the wire, (not quite as easy as it sounds, but not too bad for me) and build a new pile right next to it. I use a small pitch fork to turn the top half of the old pile into the new bin, use a garden rake to strip/peel off the outside layer of dry, recognizable stuff from the sides of the old pile. This leaves me with a round/cylinder shape of dense compost about 1/3 as big as the original bin. It is tightly packed and will hold its shape as long as needed until I am ready for it. If you use newish fencing that is not all bent zig-zaggy, the bins don't look too bad when filled. My dad came over earlier this year and asked why did I, and how did I, get such large bales of hay. That's what they looked like. Like one of those big, round, rolled up bales of hay you see in the hay fields, but turned on its side. My last bins were made form CRW that I strung together from my not-in-use tomato cages. 6" squares. Now that I have put them back to use as tomato cages, I am using fencing with 2"x4" squares. I have to say the smaller squares makes them look neater, as less pokes out through the sides.

Sammers510: Let us help you down that Rabbit Hole by sharing our addiction Funny you should mention that. Itis best not go down that rabbit hole neurologically by gastronomically sampling these these belladonna toxin plants, even if tempted! Correct dosing is hard to figure snd varies by how the variety and how plant was grown. By the way the eye drops that dialate your eyes at the ophthalmologist for a couple of hours are made from similar toxin plants. Thevtoxin temporarily paralyzes muscles. One poor soul was watering a Brug in a greenhouse and saw a little water droplet roll down a leaf and go into their eye. The eye stayed dilated for a couple days! If too much is ingested reports say that the toxins work up from the extremities slowly knocking out muscle functions as they go. If this effect reaches one's core one does not recover from a temporarily paralyzed heart! We have 3 cats, Brugmansis drop leaves inside houses. I watched carefully and our cats were mot at all interested in tbe bittet smelling leaves. Like tomatoes they have their oen characteristic smell and msybe surface oil or chemicals. For instance our Nicotiana (flowering tobacco), which is in the same plant family, has a sticky leaf surfaces that kills our outdoir whiteflies and knats here. It is also the nicotine source used to make greenhouse insecticide and a MILDER producing cousin is used to commercially buzz, addict and gain $ worldwide. As HS kids we were told that we could make our friends turn green and throw up if we put in in their socks so it got between their toes. (Hum ... still wondering and kinda tempting to see if it this is true ; - ) I've already had 'Little Angel' for 4 yr now and grew from seed what looks similar to 'Frosty Pink Xself'. The * marked plants below I've had before when I hadn't saved them by cuttings or inside. My largest Brugs were left in tubs and brought into a lighted shed w 55 F nights and also brought into an unheated garage that is staying 40 F. If left in tubs and not growing let them dry out only adding a very small amount of water if large branches start to droop. If they are too most at all the roots and stems will rot. My garage housed plants had mot been watered. They dropped all of their leaves but look great. My lighted shed ones need a little water. But if I let them get enough to grow, spider mites become a real problem inside afgecting other plants too. So I'm letting them become very dry. On cuttings I stored the ones I needed for backup in the garage rolled up in newspaper. I made a mistake putting them in a lose open plastic grocery store bag. It holds too much moisture and so the newspaper felt moist on some bottom ones and I lost a couple to surface rot that takes the cambium layer and quickly kills a cutting. Of the methods so far tested. The cold garage method looks the best to maintain a 3-5' multi-branch structure. To make backup plants and propigate. 8" long 1" diameter cuttings work great, if prepaired and stored right. Cut and let sit a a day at room temp so they can heal the cut. Make sure surface is dry. Roll up in a sheet or two of newspaper. Stack no more than two deep. Do not put in a plastic bag. Do not wet. They store better than potatoes. Most of my cutting are great and I have started most. All of my purchased cuttings (5) have sprouted and are hrowing in the lighted shed. I've been getting some nice varieties for $10-15 per cutting on eBay. Look for reasonable shipping costs. I picked up these: 'Adeline', *'Maya" = 'Sunset', *'Peaches and Cream', 'Painted Lady', 'Naughty Nick", 'Super Spot'. Only one came on as a, 1/4" small diameter cutting. It looks like it will make it too, but I wont buy there again. I'm growing from seed 'Pink Equador' and an orange single that just came in from India. By growing from seed ai hope to select a nice cultivar and it's fun to do. Brugs and tomatos grow easily from seed for me using a Park Seed Biodome sponge system, heat mat and very bright T5 lights, I grow several Datura this way and a huge variety of interest plants from seed. I grow from seed to fill around our 80 hydrangea and over 180 kinds of German Iris, Japanese Iris, Canna. and modern colorful Echinacea and Red Hot Poker varieties. In fact, the lack of fragrance in many of our plants and strong fragrance from our Brugmansia, Echinacea, Lily areas and last year's test of Nicotiana alata and sylvestris is what convinced me to focus this year on growing from seed other fragrance plants this for day or night interest, We also hace a lot of Hummingbirds around. Growing from seed now are 4 O'Clocks, Old Fashion Vining Petunia, (Tall Garden and Night) Phlox Nicotiana, and Wallflower. The annuals have been selected ad those that also self sow. If they can handle the winter moisture the 4O'clocks should be hardy here. For the hammock zone things all go white to connect you to and bask in a moongarden zone. White Brugmsnsia 'Little Angel', Hardy Hibiscus 'Blue River II', Foxglove, Dephinum, Liatris. Liilum martagon album and speciosa album are also featured in that area. Brugmansia on my list to get include 'Bergkonigin', *'Charles Grimaldi', 'Cherub', 'Cypress Gardens" 'Flamenco' (UK type), and 'Langenbuscher Garten', and *'Snowbank' (a fabulous variegated leaf Maya tertraploid mutant). I will propigate and keep growing the ones that work best. I'll never be without 'Little Angel" and 'Maya'. By the way 'Snowbank' grows great here in our cool climate and blooms, but takes longer to get to a blooming height than 'Maya'. I think it eas released from an OR based grower. Below is a photo of Snowbank large beautiful leaves on our yard. I grow it for the leaves alone. Internet photo of it on flower. Also yes the great majority of Brugs want to branch before blooming. I've started Brugs before from Y DUAL branch and TRI branch cuttings of Maya and Little Angel and got blooming before with 1.5' plants. And I've routinely had Little Angel and also a Charles Grimaldi bloom on a 2' single stock.plant (grown with heavy addition of 10-10-10 cheap slow release 4 month pellet fertilizer). Frosty Pink is a good grower and bloomer yes, but it starts blooming a month later for me here than Little Angel or Maya so I get two less flushes and 1/2 to 1/4 the flower production from it compared to some others. It will be fun to see what other varieties do here. Our home not far from Seatac is much sunnier than our former Woodinville yard. Right now I'm in an expansion phase growing enough of 'Little Angel' so that I can compare inside overwintering with in ground overwintering methods. Brugs here are supposed to come back from rootstock and grow several feet in a year. With my compact 'Little Angel' a strong cutting started in Feb will yield a 4-5' tall & diameter plant with 32 to 64 flowers in the final flowering just before the final frost. So working from cuttings alone is rewarding and makes nice patio container plants. However, my goal is to yield large outdoor summer bushes with 128-256-522 final fall bloom size. We are thinking of attaching a greenhouse to our house a 1,044-2,088 flowering sounds neat to see at least once, but the fragrance would likely be two much ... even dangerous? I have a Little Angel and Frosty Pink outside now under cold frames gor my first in ground tests. It did not freeze in the cold frames, even with 22 F outside temps. I also keep the tops dry this way. To begin the test I cut 4.5' and 6' plants to about a 1' on each leaving a 3 or 4 stemmed base on each. I got these to start tomatoes amd vegetables early ... and heck a couple Brugs getting a rocket start in the middle of them sounds just right. The design is that the Hammock Stand foot end just inserts between the two bushes rooted here. Once i s while the summer/fall breeze deviates 90 ° and wafts you with a fragrance hit. I don't want grass. Any suggestions for a nonfragrant ground cover here? Brugmansia are not expensive but they take strategy in our zone or we are rebuying small starters each year. Try a newer variety hardy gardenia too? Also plant Witchazel, Sarcococca, Hyacinth and an old English Rose in the yard. Sammers510 you're a Portland Neighbor, so I should be able to save you a 'Little Angel' and possibly 'Pink Xself' rooted cutting. If for no other reason than to ensure that you are solidly pushed off that deep end. It also gifts me external backup should a storm take everthing here. I truely do understand the citrus hook, for its fragrance alone But all bright lights or greenhouse heating gets expensive.

We had what they call a Jack and Jill room for our girls and it did work out. It was a larger that usual bedroom, with a folding type door down the middle. Each girl had their own closet, bed, etc but if they want privacy, they just closed the ""wall"" down the middle. Maybe your 5&6 year old could have that type of arrangement. Cool concept. I once saw a picture of a large room shared by two children ... and in the middle of the room they had a bunk bed ... but the lower bunk opened to the right side of the room, while the upper bunk opened to the left side. But it takes a LARGE room to pull off such a thing. However, I could see it as "future proofing". You could build a room like this to be shared by two children now, and when they're adults the room'll be big enough to hold a queen or king bed for when your kids visit with a spouse in tow and a twin bed is no longer enough.

HI! My father-in-law owns a GC firm, and I worked as a project manager for him. I am also building a home, and we are going to be doing the pay-outs, etc. I was checking out the ideas here and am sending him the UDA Suite 2009 suggested by Big Kahuna for his review. I am thinking that will be what I will use. You should pick your package based on your needs. If you are fully handling the project, you will most definitely want easy to use contracts/change order/purchase order formats...something I cannot fabricate from excel. especially if you can have a list of subs plugged into the suite and cut and paste a lot of the forms. I am thinking that program has it all, but am downloading the 30 day free trial now to check it out. Also, I will let you know what my fahter-in-law says or if he has any suggestions. I want a good program even if it is a little pricey, because I want to enjoy the management side of the project and do not personally love starting from scratch. I also love the timeline and risk features on that program. Talk to you soon...