You asked, they responded. Dusty Jerzak and T.J. Renner, the furniture makers featured in the Aug. 23 Home + Garden cover story, “A Homemade House,” were inundated with e-mails


requesting tours of their Brooklyn Center home. So they decided to hold an open house from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Visitors are asked to bring a few nonperishable food items or a small donation to a local food bank. “One hundred percent of all proceeds will be donated,” Jerzak said. If interested in attending, please RSVP to dusty@jdwoodshop.com or 612-916-5020 to let him know how many will be attending and on which day. Those who RSVP will receive directions to the home.

CONTEST OF THE WEEK

Want a little bread to go with those tomatoes from your garden? The winner of the Nature Sweet Tomatoes’ Homegrown Tomato Challenge will bring home $5,000 and three runners-up will get $250 gift certificates to Cub Foods. Tomatoes will be judged on their appearance and taste, not size. Bring three of your best large tomatoes or 10 of your best small ones to the Cub Foods in Savage between 9 and 10 a.m. Saturday. For more information, go to www.naturesweettomatoes.com or call 1-800-315-8209.

DO IT NOW

Mid-September is the best time to fertilize your lawn because our northern grasses resume active growth as nights get longer and temperatures fall. So, unless we have a very hot dry spell, apply fertilizer now, then again between mid- and late October.

COMING NEXT WEEK

Jim Brandenburg has traveled the globe to photograph exotic landscapes. Now he trains his camera on a subject closer to home: the prairie. We talk with the former National Geographic photographer about his upcoming exhibit and his lifelong love of the oft-overlooked landscape.