Gardening

That was so much fun! Earlier this summer, I had FINALLY finished my planter project (a whole post will be dedicated to that, since I reused many materials for it) except for watering and actually planting something. Then, I let it sit, unplanted for almost two months! (Oh, the tragedy!)

Earlier tonight, I'm chatting with Dear BF, waiting for him to come home from work and reading Urban Farm School's blog and I casually type to Dear BF "I wish I had more time for gardening." and his reply was "You could be gardening right now!" He had a good point!

So, I planted some items. My lazy herb garden has been ridiculously successful this year, so we'll see what comes of this. As you probably have already surmised, I'm about as lazy as they come in terms of gardening. Even if I get baby carrots that I end up giving to the dogs, that will be a WIN!

Honestly, I've already won because I got a little bit of exercise and a couple hours of pure gardening bliss.

The items I planted in 3 of my 5 planters are:
nasturtium
marigold
random herb mix from Cedar Grove Compost (promotional item from conference)
random seed from Uncle Dennis. (guessing it's some kind of onion, but could be completely off.)
basil seed
chives (have grown this same bunch of chives indoors for almost 2 years)
carrots
onion
parsley
butter crunch lettuce
three basil plants (two I had in pots and one rooted from farmer's market basil)
broccoli

I'm probably way too late to be planting most of these items, but we shall see!

Windbelt

This is another departure from my normal reuse posts...or is it?

Here's a nifty article about a company creating wind power with almost no moving parts. Perhaps they could reuse "waste" fabric for these from another application?

I just found the article (and technology) interesting.

recipe: Cream cheese pie

This is a departure from my normal green-centric posts. This is a special Twitter request via @groceryoutlet

Cream Cheese Pie
Ingredients:
pre-made graham cracker crust -or-
1/4 C crushed graham crackers
1/2 C sugar
1 cube butter
-Cut butter into crackers and sugar and press into pan

filling:
1 pkg cream cheese (I use neufchatel for less calories-works just fine.)
1 can sweetened condensed milk (NOT evaporated milk-not the same thing!-I learned this the hard way. But, I have used the "lite" stuff and had it turn out fine.)
1/3 C lemon juice
1 T vanilla

beat room temperature cheese in bowl until fluffy, add milk, beat, add lemon juice and vanilla. Mix. Pour into pie shell and chill 5-6 hours. Serve with fruit topping if desired.

I call this recipe the lazy girl's cheesecake. It's denser than cheesecake and a bit different taste. But, if you like cheesecake but don't want to put the work in, this is YUM!!!

Mitten warmers

Here's an instructable to make mitten warmers or cold packs. What I love about this particular post is that it gives many different options, depending on your craft talent level. It starts out with the "hardest" level and then gets progressively easier. Check it out!

Tons of great tips

Can be found here. Everything from the office, to the kitchen to the laundry room. Just go check it out!

The ReUseIt Network

Wow. I had no idea...

I was about to post the paragraph below and somehow ran across this. Apparently, the founder of Freecycle has some ownership issues. It's frustrating to me that personal politics/pride/greed, etc can sometimes get in the way of the big picture and sadly, this has come up for me about four times in the last week. We only have one planet to live on-we're all in this together, like it or not.


As I was surfing the other day, I ran across the ReUseIt Network. Unfortunately, there isn't one in Vancouver, WA (not surprising, really.) What IS surprising is that Portland doesn't have one either! What the heck? Maybe Portlanders are just using freecycle for the same purpose? Has anyone had any experience with ReUseIt? Is it different than freecycle? If so, how? I'm really curious.

More from RePlayground

Here's a lamp made from a plastic jug. This project reminds me of sails-it would be a nifty addition to a sea themed room.

And a fruit bowl made from toilet paper (and other paper) tubes.

One more: a reusable tote bag made from a sports jersey.

They have a great site-go check it out!

bottle = vase

From the wonderful minds at RePlayground: bottle vase.

Reused Barbie part jewelry

Part Picasso, part shiny, part morbid. You really have to see for yourself!

Ooh, new blog!

I think I'm gonna like this one! One of my favorite posts here. I added this blog to my roll on the right.