The owner of Your Portable Garden, Jim Coldwell, has been a teacher for over 20 years, having taught at most of the elementary grade levels.   However, as a way to “relax”, Jim has been working with wood for over 15 years, the past four as a professional woodworker and owner of White Wolf Woodworks, the parent company to Your Portable Garden and White Wolf Backyard Buildings. 

Jim is not only the owner, tending to all the bookkeeping and managerial duties, but also the chief craftsperson for Your Portable Garden.   It is our mission to handcraft the highest quality cedar planter boxes, Adirondack chairs, and functional deck tables that will become the focal point of any deck, patio or terrace.  At Your Portable Garden, we will never take shortcuts with materials or techniques, striving instead to craft outdoor furniture and planter boxes designed to bring you pleasure for years to come.


Tools and techniques we use:

As any craftsperson knows, tools are where it's at!  Here's a look at the tools we use to build our boxes:

 
Power saws and saw blades are the mainstay of our operation.  Building boxes in many styles requires a wide variety of wood components.  I cut the many pieces needed on a Hitachi 12" compound miter saw fitted with a Freud Diablo or Avanti 80 tooth blade.  This business lives or dies on its saw blades, and the Diablo and Avanti brands of saw blades provide excellent service at a reasonable price.

We then perform finish cuts, rip cuts and final sizing of panels on a Grizzly Industrial 1023SL 3HP cabinet saw.  Currently I am running this saw with a Forrest Woodworker II saw blade, and although these blades are very expensive, they are worth every penny of their price!

Once all the parts, bits and pieces are cut to size, they have to be assembled and for that we use Bostich and Porter-Cable air nailers and staplers.  These tools really earn their keep as an air nailer not only works much faster than my "arm and hammer," they almost totally eliminate the occurrence of splitting wood.  For long-lasting beauty no matter what the weather, we now use T-304 stainless steel fasteners throughout.  The use of such high-quality materials does add a couple of dollars to the price of each product, but we feel the added cost is worth it to avoid the unsightly rust staining common on lesser quality wood planter boxes.

We believe our boxes to be among the strongest planter boxes you can buy, and to achieve that strength we use Franklin International's Titebond III waterproof glue.  In a recent test of several types and brands of woodworking glue (Fine Woodworking magazine; Taunton Press. August 2007 pp. 36-40.) Titebond III came out on top, earning the number one rating. Giving all that, we still don't trust our strength to just nails and glue.

To be sure these boxes can take all that Mother Nature can dish out, each corner of the top and bottom frame receives a stain-resistant Deckmate screw.   Those screws are countersunk using a Milwaukie  or Makita 18V Li-ion cordless drill.   Dust is kept under control with a combination of a Grizzly 2HP dust collector and ambient HEPA filtration.  It seems that some dust still sneaks through, however.



Order and delivery schedule:

Most of our items are purchased at craft shows and Farmer’s Markets from inventory.  Occasionally, however, customers place custom orders.  An order will take from 3 days to 2 weeks to fill, depending upon its size, complexity, and the backlog of orders ahead of it.  Most orders are filled within 5 – 8 days. 

At time of order, customers are required to submit a 50% deposit, with balance due upon receipt of order.  If the finished product is not to the customer’s standards or liking, a suitable resolution is agreed upon between Your Portable Garden and the customer.  Usually, it only requires a color change.  Sometimes, the original item ordered will be placed into inventory and a new item produced for the customer.  We strive for customer satisfaction at Your Portable Garden.