Your Questions About Gardening

GardenersCardiff answers:

Chimmichurri Marinade
Makes about 1 cup; enough to marinate
1 to 1-1/2 pounds of beefsteak or lamb chops
cut about 1 inch thick

This is a classic seasoning mix in Argentina, where beef is king. Sherry wine vinegar has a rich depth that needs very little oil to offset the acid. Flat-leaf parsley, when really fresh from the garden or the market, has a wonderful, peppery flavor. Lavishly garnish the finished steaks with more parsley.

1/2 cup sherry wine vinegar
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/3 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley, plus 2 tablespoons for garnish
2 teaspoons dried oregano
6 large garlic cloves, minced
3/4 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes

In a small bowl, combine all ingredients. Place meat in a single layer in a glass or ceramic dish. Add marinade, turning food to coat. Cover and refrigerate, turning occasionally, 1 to 3 hours for lamb chops and 2 to 4 hours for beefsteak.

I have never made this particular recipe, but chimichurri is great on steaks! I thought this might be better since it’s a marinade. Definitely not sweet!

GardenersCardiff answers:

Do you mean to convert a garage to a residence? If so, you would first have to consult your municipality to discover whether it is even legal and if they will issue a building permit.

The next area of concern would be water and sewer. If you live somewhere that freezes in winter, the water line must be dug down below the frost level and protected where it comes up to connect. Sewer lines must be dug in so that they slope down to the municipal sewer or the septic tank. Contact a local excavation contractor for a quote.

If the garage has a concrete floor, you will have to jack hammer a hole for the toilet, and provide for a trench to install the sewer line for a water basin, kitchen sink and clothes washer drain. Contact a local concrete contractor for a quote on the jackhammer job and repouring new concrete when the plumbing work is done.

Contact a plumbing contractor for a quote on installing the drains and potable water lines. You may also want a quote from him to install the hot water heater while he’s there.

You say the garage has a power supply but is it a 220 volt supply sufficient to run a water heater and kitchen range? Not likely. Contact an electrical contractor for a quote to run 100 amp service to a new panel in the garage and to provide 220 volt hookups for kitchen range, hot water heater and clothes dryer.

Of course any of these tasks can be performed by a reasonably versatile home handyman who has or can rent the appropriate tools.

The next question is how you intend to heat and cool the residence. If you live in a fairly moderate climate, you can get by with several 1500 watt electric baseboard heaters.

Now think of insulation. Garages are not normally well insulated. Fortunately you can buy loose insulation in bags and fill the attic to a depth of 16″ to 18″. That will help. The garage walls however are likely made of 2x4s which don’t provide enough room for insulation in a very warm or very cold climate. In a moderate climate, you can get by with fiberglass batts in the walls and 4 mil vapour barrier on the inside, carefully sealed around the edges. The overhead door will have to be removed and the space closed in with 2x4s and exterior sheathing and some sort of vinyl siding as a minimum.

Once the water, sewer and power have been roughed in, plan your interior walls If the garage is a large double, you’ll have room for a bedroom with closet, bathroom c/w tub, a sitting room and a kitchen and eating area. If it’s a single garage, you’ll have to get by with enclosing the bathroom and simply putting kitchen cabinets along one end, leaving an eating area open and furnishing the balance as a bed/sitting room. Kitchen cabinets can be very expensive new but can often be purchased at reasonable cost from a building materials recycle warehouse.

Concrete floors are notoriously cold so you may consider carpet with a good underlayment but new wood-laminate floors can be warm too with a good underlayment and can be had new for as little as $1.50/sq.ft incl. Underlay. It is an easy project to lay yourself.

Costs overall will depend upon where you live. Are contractors crying for work or are they turning work away as they are in my area? Assuming you are in a moderate climate and where contractors are looking for work, my best guess for your costs to convert a 22 x 24 garage into a livable residence would be about $25,000.00. This assumes you lay the flooring, refinish used cabinetry and paint yourself. Cost of municipal permits including inspections would be extra. Other considerations such as provisions to avoid flooding could substantially increase your cost. (I assume the garage already has gutters but likely does not have weeping tile around the slab or a sump.)

Again, depending where you live, it is possible in many parts of the country today to buy a smaller 2 bedroom home in need of a little TLC for around $25,000, lot and all with a little looking. Unless you really need the residence on your property for some reason such as an aging relative who needs some watching, you might consider discussing your needs with a Realtor??

GardenersCardiff answers:

YOUR ARE IN LUCK. As a MASTER GARDENER for the univ of Calif coop extension for over 15 years, I am know as Dr Death. I’ve have sent more buck tooth fuzz balls to gopher heaven the any man in San Diego County. My first time kill rate is 98.5% on my first trap’n attempt.
1st, poison bait… 25 % kill rate. They only work in the colder season when there isn’t much for the fuzz balls to eat. Face it, given the choice of a big, fat juicy root or some dried out poison grain, what would you eat? Also, for the poison to work, they have to eat it at least 5 days in a row for it to do it’s job. If Mr Gopher eats it only a few time, all you get is a sick, and smarter gopher.
Trap’n is the only way to make sure you nail the bas****. But the real secrete has nothing to go with traps. The secrete is to cave in and or backfill as much of his tunnel as possible. Just because you nailed uncle jim doesn’t end your problem. Because as soon as uncle jim gets nailed, cousin leroy next door move right into jim’s old condo. You can have plant problems for years and never know you have gophers. If they have nice little empty tunnels waiting for ‘um, they don’t have to dig new ones. No digging, no mounds & you think you have no gophers. Also by caving in their tunnel, you can see when you do have activity and can nip it right away. Also the fewer tunnels, the harder it is for them to make babies. Except for mating, they like to live alone in their own tunnels. If the females and males are kept farther apart… You get the idea.
Best traps are the “Black Hole” traps you can find at most Home Depots, etc. This fellow in San Diego came up with the idea back in the mid 1980’s. Got tired of pulling theguts out of the spear traps. He built it out of some 4inch PVC pipe. Simple idea that worked. He brought several over to the county farm advisor’s office & several of us Master Gardeners took home to try them out. They worked great. His son made a million dollars off the design. Always buy ‘um in pairs, one for each direction of the tunnel. No bait needed, but some old timerswear rubbing a bit of garlic on the trap is a sure way to get um. I’ve nailed thousands without the garlic, so i really don’t think it matters?
Get yourself a long piece of steel rebar & bend up one end like a walking cane. Rap some cloth around the handle part so you don’t get any blisters on your palm. You now have a great gopher “prod”. You use that to poke around the ground feeling for tunnels. Believe me you’ll know when you find one. Best place to start is inbetween two mounds, They seldom push soil out their main tunnel, but push it out on either side of the main tunnel. Set the traps via the easy instructions on the box & go have a beer. Between 1 to 12 hours later you’ll have reason to have another. No more bloody spears to deal with. The trap is designed so yo never touch the fuzz ball. You just release the trap over the trash can & the late uncle jim just falls into the trash. Then the hard part begins. Use your probe and follow that tunnel. Back fill with soil or cave in as much as you can find. The more the better.
Each spring i used to give a full day, hands on class to homeowners on gopher control for the univ of calif. The class was limited to 50 people but swelled to over 100. So I started giving for each year. Many former students drop by to brag about their sucess. One 74 year old lady went home after my class and caught 14 gophers in that summer. If she can do it so can you. It’s not as hard as it seems. It’s actually more brain work the brawn. Gopher damage to crops & landscape in the state of calif each year top 3 Billion dollars. That was Billion, with a B.

I type with only one finger, so i tend to make mistakes with speed. But the spel checker is down again as usual & i’m tired of waiting for it everyday, so forgive my typos.