Green Talk™

Mother Earth Intended Food to Be Eaten From the Vine

Green Talk — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 08:55:26 PDT

Heirloom lettuce growing under a trellis.

There is nothing like food which has literally been ripped right off the vine and stuffed into your mouth. Just envision plucking a ripe tomato from the vine and enjoying the burst of flavor as you take your first bite or taking apart a pea pod and plopping the small peas into your mouth. Indescribable.

Unfortunately, our society has evolved into a bunch of fast food junkies with our hectic lifestyles. Or if you have the time to cook, our food is flown 1000s of miles so that we can savor certain vegetables and fruits which are not normally in season in our regions. According to the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture,

“It is estimated that the average American meal travels about 1500 miles to get from farm to plate. Why is this cause for concern? There are many reasons:

This long-distance, large-scale transportation of food consumes large quantities of fossil fuels. It is estimated that we currently put almost 10 kcal of fossil fuel energy into our food system for every 1 kcal of energy we get as food.

Transporting food over long distances also generates great quantities of carbon dioxide emissions. Some forms of transport are more polluting than others. Airfreight generates 50 times more CO2 than sea shipping. But sea shipping is slow, and in our increasing demand for fresh food, food is increasingly being shipped by faster – and more polluting — means.

In order to transport food long distances, much of it is picked while still unripe and then gassed to “ripen” it after transport, or it is highly processed in factories using preservatives, irradiation, and other means to keep it stable for transport and sale. Scientists are experimenting with genetic modification to produce longer-lasting, less perishable produce.”

Increase carbon footprint, preservatives, irradiation, and large quantities of fossil fuels used in order to eat a food that is not as nearly tasty or as good for the environment as the “plucked” one described above. So, what are the alternatives?

Farmers’ Markets

Consider buying locally from a farmer’s markets. Ask to make sure that all their food actually is grown locally. See here to get started to find a local farmer’s market. Check your local paper as well. Farmer markets are spring up all over the place.

Community Supported Agriculture Cooperative

Join a community supported agriculture cooperative or for short, a CSA. What is a CSA, you ask?

According to Local Harvest, Inc., a CSA is where

“a farmer offers a certain number of “shares” to the public. Typically the share consists of a box of vegetables, but other farm products may be included. Interested consumers purchase a share (aka a “membership” or a “subscription”) and in return receive a box (bag, basket) of seasonal produce each week throughout the farming season.

This arrangement creates several rewards for both the farmer and the consumer. In brief…

Advantages for farmers:

Get to spend time marketing the food early in the year, before their 16 hour days in the field begin

Receive payment early in the season, which helps with the farm’s cash flow

Have an opportunity to get to know the people who eat the food they grow

Advantages for consumers:

Eat ultra-fresh food, with all the flavor and vitamin benefits

Get exposed to new vegetables and new ways of cooking

Usually get to visit the farm at least once a season

Find that kids typically favor food from “their” farm – even veggies they’ve never been known to eat

Develop a relationship with the farmer who grows their food and learn more about how food is grown.”

You can easily split an order with friends to reduce the cost or amount of food.

Container Growing

Grow your own in containers. Many of my friends grow tomatoes, lettuce, and herbs via containers. See here for more information on how to get started.

Community Garden

Consider joining a community garden. (See here to find one near you.) If I did not have my own garden I would jump at the chance to garden in a community. Why? The camaraderie. I recently visited a community garden during this summer and spoke to a fellow gardener about the merits of gardening in a community. He told me that the other gardeners help each us with identifying bugs and problems, many new friendships have been formed, and the best of all, they trade plants. The cost to “own” a plot was minimal.

If your town does not have a community garden, consider starting one.

Grow Your Own

Once you get the gardening bug, there is no cure. My own garden has gotten bigger and bigger. I added a second garden this summer to grow corn. Here are some pics of what is growing in my garden.

Pictured above is Russian Kale which has re-seeded itself. It is tasty right off the plant. No bitter taste at all.

This sneaky bean pod was hidden under the leaves of my bush beans. (It is no longer there, since some hungry person snatched it off its vine and put it her mouth.)

Pea pods that I am hoping will continue to grow despite the hot weather. I have hidden them in a shadier part of the garden behind very tall turnip plants. A girl has gotta hope, no?

Curly thyme growing between my raised beds. Bees were buzzing around the thyme as I was in the garden since it is in bloom. The smell is heavenly. For more information about planting thyme as ground cover for your garden, see here.

Knee high by July! Yep. I am growing corn. Popcorn, Gentleman’s Corn, and Blue Hopi Corn. I just hope the crows go on vacation when it starts to ripen.

No, I did not plant the tomato plant right by the composter. It is actually growing from seeds that did not compost from last years’ tomato seeds and skins that I threw in the composter. (Remember, my adventures with making sauce with a manual tomato press?) There were actually four of them surrounding the composter. Two were moved to other beds and the remaining two are guarding the composter.

I am praying that this little watermelon plant starts growing. We have had so much rain and cloudy days that none of my heat loving plants have started to grow. My peppers look terrible and my cucumbers are wondering if it is fall.

Is this not the most beautiful plant? This is amaranth, the grain. I hear that you can eat the leaves now but I am waiting to harvest it if it ever grows.

What would veggies be without flowers? I am growing nasturtiums, marigolds, cosmos, zinnias, and Sweet Alyssum (pictured above.) I grew this plant from seed inside the house so I could see what it looked like. I am notorious for pulling flowers thinking they are weeds.

I hope that the pictures inspired you to think about growing your own. Check back throughout the summer, to see what is growing in my garden. (Hopefully, I will have taken a picture before I eat it. The veggies on the vine are so tempting.)

This post is part of the Green Mom Carnival as to Food Matters being hosted by Alline at Passion for Green Business. Head on over to Alline’s blog to read what other green moms and mother’s of the Earth have to say. I will assure you with this group, the other articles will be fascinating.

Happy eating!

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Luray Caverns: Mother Earth at her Finest

Green Talk — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:31:28 PDT

On the way back from North Carolina to New Jersey, my husband really wanted to visit Luray Caverns in Virginia. Our trip from North Carolina to New Jersey was easily a 12 hour drive without stops. No one in the car really wanted to visit the caverns and just wanted to get home. There would had to have been a tornado right by the caverns to dissuade my husband from seeing them. So, my kids grumbled into the museum expecting to be bored to tears . (Not a pretty sight. Honestly, I thought I would be bored too.)

We were all given hand held small tape recorders for our self-guided tour. Once, you are in the caverns, it is hard not be amazed at Mother Earth’s handiwork. It is one of the most beautiful, solemn places I have ever visited.

During the guided tour, one of the speakers mentioned how clean the air is and most people with sinus conditions do not have any problems in the caverns. In fact, a house was built above the caverns, and air was pumped into the house as air conditioning. My son turned to us, who normally breathes through his mouth, and exclaimed that he could breath. Mind you, this is a child when he breathes you think you are near an 80 year old man. He is always stuffed up.

I took lots of picture while I was there that I would like to share with you. Unfortunately, I may not be able to tell you what you are looking at since I did not take notes while I took the pictures. Just admire the beauty. Words like “stalactite” and “stalagmite” formations were words that were often repeated but to be honest, I don’t remember which ones were which. Readers, if you know, chime in.

If I recall, the bottom part of the picture is a pool of water reflecting the top of the cavern.

The formations play music. It is hard to see, but look at the small mallet near the top of the formation. There are mallets like this on many of the formations tied to an organ. As the mallet hits the formation, a sound is emitted. Due to the careful placement of mallets, a beautiful song is played. To see a professional picture of the organ in the great hall, see here.

Throughout the caverns, there are structures similar to this. It may be the bottom half of the double column which is 47 feet tall. To see a better picture here.

These formations resemble drapes with their smooth lines.

This is known as the “fried eggs” formation.

There is a wishing well in the Caverns which is full of money. Every year, the staff donates the money to charity. The above sign shows visitors where the money has been donated.

The green haze is from the pennies in the water.

I would highly recommend visiting the Caverns if you are near Virginia. For more information about the Caverns, see here.

The Shenandoah Valley, where the Caverns are located, is absolutely breath-taking. Makes you want to stop to realize just how beautiful this world really is.Similar Posts:

Reuse Your Old Panty Hose Rather than Chucking in the Trash

Green Talk — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:51:56 PDT

I swear I only wear a pair of panty hose one time since I evidently run my hose. Instead of throwing them out, I decided to take a new approach. Putting on the old green thinking cap, I ponder how can I reuse them? Everything has to have many lives just like cats?

Let’s look at what panty hose are made of . An elastic material. Anything that is elastic has to lend itself to a multitude of re-uses. Now in my case, I wear panty hose with a little support in them so they are thicker and have a lot more spring in them than the usual panty hose. My panty hose have just doubled their capacity to be reused!

So, if we were in a biology class and dissecting the panty hose to find out what parts can be reused, I would determine the following: The feet which could hold something. Elastic legs could tie something. Finally, the elastic waist band is just a large rubber band in my opinion.

Fortuitously, a light bulb came on in my head as I snapped the legs back and forth. Why not fill the legs with human hair just like I did with a small bag in one of my reuse articles to prevent deer from destroying my plants? (For more reuse ideas, check out my category, “Reuse Tips.”) I previously had tied the small bag with human hair around a lilac bush which was chewed up by the deer in the winter. Next spring, lo and behold the deer stayed away from the bush. Now, would they get use to the smell of the hair and eat it next year? Who knows? Readers?

Sick of the deer eating plants that I was told they do not like AND having an abundance of boy hair from my kids, I started to stuff the feet and made two hair botties. I am currently using one in the front yard around the wild geraniums, which the deer love to eat their flowers and another one near a lilac bush.

But there are so many other ideas on how to reuse your panty hose for those of you who are not garden obsessed like me. Here are some other ideas I came up with:

Cut the legs into small bands to hold back your hair such as pony tails holders or scrunchies.
Use the small bands to hold flowers in a vase.
Use the hose bands to hold together anything that you would use a rubber band. (Maps, wall paper rolls, etc.)
Fill the feet with herbs to make satchels or potpourri.
Tie vegetables or flowers to cages, trellis, or fences. I am going to make a slings to tie my winter squash to a trellis I bought from Gardeners Supply so the squash grows up the trellis.
Use the hose as a strainer.
Use the feet booties to hold small games such as marbles or Jacks. Does anyone play that game anymore?
Use the toe booties as jewelry bags.

What ideas do others have? Check out the following posts:

20 ways to re-use your panty hose. My favorite is putting part of the hose over a vacuum cleaner when you are trying to find something small you lost. The lost item will stick to your hose rather than be sucked up into the vacuum cleaner. There are some great ideas in this article.
Top 10 Ways to Reuse Panty Hose. I like the idea of using the panty hose as a skimmer for your pool.

So, how have your re-used your panty hose?

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Ford Escape Hybrid, A Big Ride with Green Ties

Green Talk — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:17:45 PDT

A year ago my lease was up and I struggled with leasing or buying a new car. I was limited to a large car since there are six in my family. I drove almost every SUV, Crossover, and regular car that I could find that fit within my parameters. I hated all of them. I felt like Goldilocks. The seats were too uncomfortable, the Prius has a spoiler in my vision, and others drove like trucks. I ended up buying my minivan after its lease expired. (Read my saga here).

One of my readers suggested that I look at the Ford Escape Hybrid . I obviously missed that car in my search. Well, my chance came when a local car dealer sponsored a fundraiser to help a high school. For every parent who test drove a car, the company would donate a certain amount of money to the school. I had already gained a new respect for Ford after I interviewed Deborah Mielewski, the Polymer Technical Leader of Research and Advanced Engineering at Ford Motor Company about Ford’s green initiatives. (Read the interview here or listen to the podcast. You will be equally impressed.) Off I went to test drive the Ford Escape!

So, what were my thoughts after driving the Ford Escape? I loved it. The seat rated an A plus in my eyes for comfort. I am used to my captain chair seat in my mini van. The Ford Escape’s driver seat was equally as comfortable.

I am not the best of drivers and it is important for me to be able to pull easily into a parking space. The tight turning radius onf the Ford allowed me to accomplish this feat. It also drove smoothly.

I even sat in the back seat to see if there was ample leg room for my growing man/child boys. Plenty of room. The middle seat in the back was comfortable as well. Many of the cars that I had tested the middle seat was unbelievely uncomfortable. A real hump.

According to the Company,

Earth-friendly cloth seat fabric is made from postindustrial materials – polyester fibers that would have ended up in landfills otherwise. And the cushions use a bio-based polyurethane foam derived from the oils of soybeans. More than simply “green,” the durable, comfortable and stylish nature of the material also makes it a perfect fit for Escape Hybrid.”

Note, the cushions are not made of 100% soybean oil as I discovered during my interview with Ms. Mielewski; however, the addition of the soy reduces the amount of petroleum based foam used. For more Ford Escape Hybrid green benefits, see here.

Ford also got high marks in my opinion on how their seats folded down for more trunk space.

Best of all this family car gets good gas milage given its size. According to the sticker on the car, you can expect on average 34 miles per gallon in the City and 31 miles per gallon on the highway.

Adding it all up: drives well, green features, good gas milage, and comfortable seats. Sounds like a green win to me.

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Do You Need a Vacation before the Vacation?

Green Talk — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:36:13 PDT

Look what is hiding under my mulch.

Most people schedule vacations to destress from their hectic lives. Some down time they say. Heck, I need an extra week of vacation just from the stress of getting ready for vacation.

I don’t know about you, but I always try and tie up loose ends before I go away. It is so stressful thinking about what I would have to come home to after vacation. So, I make my enormous list which is probably too hard for Superwoman to accomplish and ultimately end up cutting my losses a day or two before V Day to what I really need to get done…

The worse part is I am in gardening mode. (For my loyal readers, you know the second garden full of corn?) For those of you who are gardeners you will understand this. For those who are not, it is endless weeding, fertilizing, mulching, checking for bugs, composting, and so on and so on. Talk about sweat equity.

I add “worrying” to the list as well since I have had numerous seasons of cabbage moths destroying my broccoli and kale. I swear gardening is a second job.

The thought of leaving my garden is like leaving your young child home with a babysitter for the first time. It does not get easier year after year.

So, what was my list of what I wanted to accomplish?

Finish creating the mulching beds around the second garden. For a look at the second garden, see here. The garden is about 30 feet by 15 with a five foot mulching bed around it. Lots of wheel barrow trips to the wood chip pile, runs to the recycling center for more newspaper and begging for more grass. Everyone seems to have mulching mowers these days. (Finished the day before the trip.)
Box all the clothes that no longer fit my youngest son and distribute them to a family with younger kids. I realized that I must have had years of clothes that were piled on top of the boxes. If you don’t have a family to distribute clothes too, consider Freecycle or SwapMama. (Accomplished the day before the trip.)
Putting pictures in albums. I am ashamed to say that my second son’s bar mitzvah was four years ago and my third’s son was a year ago. Their extra album pictures have been sitting in boxes that long. Unfortunately, they are still in the boxes since I could not get to this task.
Paid all the bills and reconciled my checking account. Whew. Got this one done. I have a fear that something could happen to me and don’t want my sister to have to deal with my bills. It is a silly fear. I know. It is kind of like being brought to the hospital and you have holes in your underwear. (Was I the only one told not to have holes in your underwear?)

Weed the gardens. I now have 21 beds. (I need my head examined.) I must have spent 4 days just on the strawberry plants. My kids refuse to pick them. (See above. Just one of the bowls of rotten strawberries.) They find this job too time consuming and agreed not to eat them if I required them to pick them. They beg me for any other task. I think they would clean the toliets to get out of picking the strawberries. I really have no idea what is the big deal. Any ideas? Yes, they are primadonnas of the worse kind.

Because they refused to pick them, most of them spoiled. I was so upset as I cleaned the patch to find a zillion rotten strawberries. It’s pretty disgusting to clean out the patch with a ton of rotten strawberries. I am talking black, molding, googy strawberries.

Rabbits plotting against me.

I decided this year not to belong to the “kind to critters” club. I learned my lesson last year not to throw the rotten ones to them. Last year, the critters who came calling (the crows) decided that I must have a luscious garden after sampling the rotten strawberries and attacked my tomatoes, corn, and peppers. I fought with them all last gardening season. So, this year, the rotten ones went into the compost. No more Ms. Nice person. Crows are ungrateful. And Rabbits are not that cute.

After it seemed like days with my hands stuck into goo, I moved onto the other beds. What I found, just made me sick. See the picture above. A bed full of hay or straw weeds. No one should have to weed this.

My husband brought home straw or hay a couple of weeks ago. I don’t remember. I thought it looked different than what I normally have. He told me that the nursery said it would not have weed seeds in it. I knew in my gut that this could not be right but I needed the mulch. Last time I checked, I am not an authority on weed or hay. Who is to say there is only one straw which does not have weed seed? Go with the flow, Anna.

When I visited the garden store’s sister store, and asked for more mulch, the store manager replied they do not sell straw without weed seeds. I explained I had bought it from their sister store. He replied that they only had straw which would in fact have weeds. It is used for erosion control. I flipped out. Thoughts of weeding 21 beds full of straw weeds would surely put me over the edge. Think small grass growing in all of your beds. Lots of it. A nightmare worse than the Grinch who stole Christmas.

Sure enough when I called the sister store, the manager confirmed that I had in fact bought the wrong mulch. I explained how my husband asked for the right material and that he should speak to his staff since none of them would be offering to weed my beds. I am a good customers of theirs to boot.

The manager just did not seemed to be phased about my complaint, and kept repeating the staff knows better. He did not offer to take back the balance of the straw or refund my straw purchases. I guess my business was not that important.

I was frantic and called home and told my husband to “rip” that blasted straw off my beds. Did I really think that the weed seeds had not distributed their little selves all over my beds? Sure enough as there are stars in the sky, it rained alot and lo and behold I had straw weeds. Not some but enough to make a grown woman cry. (Even a grown man…)

Here was the eleventh hour, and the weeds were so obvious that you knew that I had a blanket of them under the new seedless straw or hay. (I went back to my orginal source who I could rely on, and they gave me the right product.) One more week, and I would have to send a search team in to find my veggie plants.

I worked endlessly through the days with a small hoe and took out as much grass as I could. I only cleaned up 13 beds. The corn beds were the worse. Exasperated was an understatement of how I felt. I still had 8 more beds to go. My only hope is that the watermelon and melons will crush the living life out of the grass as soon as they start to sprawl. (Think urban sprawl when melons start to grow.) Has this happened to you?

Give the potatoes more compost and soil. As potatoes grow, you have to surround them with more soil and compost. Almost finished this.
Clean up my compost bin. Compost was spilling out of my bin. It has taken two years for me to finally make compost. I am a very lazy composter. I forget to turn it and it needs water since it is covered. The fact that I actually made compost is short of a miracle. Sometimes, G-d throws me a bone once and awhile.

You are thinking, who cares about the compost falling out of your compost bin. Leave it. Believe me. This is not me being obsessive. I do have those qualities.

Flies love to lay their eggs in compost. One year, I had a huge pile of compost from the recycling center sitting on my driveway. That Fall, I had hundreds of flies in my house looking for a warm place to hibernate. We still can’t figure how they got into the house. Anyone else have a fly problem?

Every year, I move that compost pile very, very quickly. I have gotten parnoid. I used all the compost I made around the corn since it likes to be hilled.

Gave some of the heavy feeding plants fertilizer. (Done.)
Covered the blueberries with netting. This year the blueberries seemed to be rippening sooner. The birds are circling…
Write posts for the vacation…Never got to it. Doing it now…Thank goodness for internet connections in hotels…
Clean out the garage. Couldn’t finish.
Clean out car which had a ton of hay or straw in it. Third son who did not want to pick strawberries volunteered to vaccum.
Give toys away. Gave games to my school. Still have preschool games and my youngest is 11! The pre-k did not want any donations.
Cleaned out the refridgerator and froze everything I could. I even froze lettuce and turnips leaves from my plants!
Unplugged all electrical plugs, increased the temperature in the house, and watered all the indoor plants.
Moved the outside plants inside the house. I spent alot of time planting and nuturing those plants. I will be dammed if they die on me from lack of water. So, they are spending their week in air conditioning. (I want to come back as one of my plants…)

There are probably other things I swear I was going to accomplish before vacation, but never got around to it. I am so exhausted preparing for the vacation, that one week just does not seem to be enough. After writing this post I realized how compulsive I am…Scary.

So, Readers,

Do you find that you try and accomplish too much before vacation?
What is important to you to get done before a vacation?
How do you cure the “before vacation week” panic attacks?

Let me know your thoughts. Please tell me I am not the only one who burns the candle trying to get ready for vacation.

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LightFair 2009 Lites Up NYC!

Green Talk — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:07:18 PDT

Ilumisys‘ LED replacement tubes featured at LightFair 2009

Every other year, LightFair International, the biggest and brightest (in my opinion) lighting show comes to New York City. This is my second time attending this amazing show and I was not disappointed. In fact, they should have renamed the show “LEDFair” since 90% of the exhibitors were showing off their LED lighting in some fashion. With over 20,000 visitors, 475 exhibitors and a multitude of seminars, everyone was yearning to learn how to brighten their world with the newest green technologies.

The atmosphere at LightFair was so upbeat compared to the International Builder Show in Las Vegas this past January. Perhaps lighting just puts everyone in a good mood or there was such excitement about all the new products. It was nice to be surrounded with hope and the possibilities that the world will be getting back on its feet and the LED market will absolutely be leading the way.

New Governmental Involvement

Many exhibitors spoke about the Department of Energy’s involvement in creating a standard for LED lights. In the past, the marketing of LEDs was akin to the wild, wild west mentality. No standards. The DOE and the Next Generation Lighting Industry Alliance have taken a step in the right direction and partnered to create the SSL Quality Advocates, which is a voluntary pledge program assuring that the LED lighting is marketed accurately.

“SSL Quality Advocates introduces the Lighting Facts ™ label, similar to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Nutrition Facts label. The Lighting Facts label provides a quick and simple summary of product performance data as measured by the new industry standard for testing photometric performance, IESNA LM-79-2008. The Lighting Facts label reports product performance results in five areas: lumens, efficacy, watts, correlated color temperature (CCT) and color rendering index (CRI).”

In addition, the Underwriter Laboratories has created minimum safety requirements for the component parts of a light emitting diode. See this article about the standards.

First Class Exhibitors

CAO Group’s Dynasty LED bulb

So, what were my favorite exhibits?

Philip seems to have bought a zillion companies such as Lightolier, Hadco, and Color Kinetics. They featured their new 600 Lumen LED bulb (similar to a 40 watt incandescent bulb) among other great LED offerings. See more information about the 600 Lumen LED bulb from the Company here.
Cree featured its new Par-38 reflector type LED lamp for directional lighting for such purposes as retail or museums displays. See more information from the Company here.
CAO Group featured its Dynasty® B10 Candelabra LED bulb. Comparable to a 20 watt incandescent light. (I am hoping that they are able to make a 40 watt comparable bulb that dims to replace similar incandescent ones.)
Ilumisys featured its LED tubes to replace fluorescent tubes. See more information here.

Although I only listed four exhibitors above, there were so many more exhibitors that I could have listed. In fact, over the course of this year, I will be weaving LightFair podcasts of many of the exhibitors that I interviewed through the website. I don’t want to give your LED overload.

If you love commercial lighting, don’t miss next years’ show in Las Vegas on May 12-14, 2010. You won’t be disappointed.

If you attended LightFair, what was your favorite exhibitors?

Update: Post has been corrected to reflect changes in certain light designations. Thanks to Halogenica of www.greenerlights.blogspot for catching some errors in my article. Greener Lights is a blog from a “Swedish designer with a burning interest in light and green issues.”

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How to Create a No Till Garden Bed

Green Talk — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:15:52 PDT

What causes back aches, frustration, and stiff joints? Digging a new garden bed. If you have ever attempted this with soil that has never been tilled, it is time intensive and hard work. Don’t let television fool you. How to make it easier? Visiting a local equipment rental company. My tools

Sod cutter (lifts the grass up like a carpet) Mine cost $90 for the day, but well worth the price.
If you prefer the greener way, a spade. Here is an article on how to use a shovel. Unfortunately, I tried this for about an hour and gave up. I am not strong enough to battle field grass.
A heavy duty tiller if you are creating a veggie garden or a shovel to just put in plants. See my article about creating a new veggie garden.

So what happens if you just don’t need the bed now but are thinking about it for next year? Why not try the no till method? Let nature help. What do you need?

Cardboard

I wanted to create 5 foot beds so I started with a layer of thick cardboard. However, obtaining cardboard is not as easy as you would think. Most grocery stores that I went to crush their cardboard right away. I checked with Wal-mart, Home Depot, Lowe, Best Buys, and other big box stores thinking all of these large chains must have boxes. I wanted them crushed since it is easier to use. A lot of them gave me the same response as the grocery stores. “We have to crush our boxes for fire code reasons.”

So, where do you get them? Your best bet is a mom and pop appliance store, liquor store, or other small store. In addition, go to your local recycling center and take it out of the recycling bins.

My favorite cardboard boxes were the appliance boxes since I did not have to layer them. One cut down the side and instant area coverage!

Newspaper Layer

Once you put down the cardboard, I put a layer of 5 sheets of paper. Where do you get newspaper? I steal it from my neighbors on recycling day or I go to the recycling center and take it out of the bins. Sometimes, I wait at the recycling center and people who drive up to deposit their recycling often times have it bundled up in a bag or twine so it is easier for me to put in my car. They often give me a weird look like why does she want all of this paper.

What do I use the paper for? To suppress weeds in the garden. I never used the colored circulars, and it ends up back in the recycling pile. Newspaper is really good for weed suppression for about 2 years and then you need to rack back the mulch and reapply the paper.

When I put it down, I wet the paper so that it does not fly away while I am doing something else. Paper dries within a few hours if it is sunny so don’t think you can paper one day and mulch the next.

Add Grass

After both the cardboard and paper are down, I add grass. Again, I thought, no big deal. Everyone has grass. With new mulching lawn mowers, people leave the clippings on their grass to decompose. It is really good for the grass. So, where would I find grass? I was lucky because my neighbor has an old lawn mower and bags his grass. He throws at the end of his property in a pile. Decomposing grass is the best!

Unfortunately, I ran out of grass and there is where the aggravation set in. I would go to the recycling area and look every day to see if anyone dumped off their grass. Yes, I had to scoop it up by hand into my garbage cans. You could call around to local lawn services to see if any of their customers have their grass bagged. I did make those calls but no one called me back. Perhaps, catching the local lawn services while they cut grass might be an option as well.

As I would wait at the recycling center, I would ask everyone if they had grass. Most people asked me why I need grass since they just could not figure out why I would want it. I would explain that I was creating a mulched bed. Most had no idea what I was talking about and just went on their business and others asked me what that was. I needed a videotographer to film these interactions since some were priceless.

On gentleman was kind enought to bag his grass and leave them for me at the recycling center with my name on them! Talk about community cooperation!

By the way, as grass decomposses, it puts off alot of heat so be careful about using it near your plants as mulch.

Layer of Wood Chips

Here was my dilemma. What was I going to use to put on top of the grass so it would not blow away while it decomposed? I could not find an abundance of leaves to use. In retrospect, I should have stock pile leaves in the Fall to use as the last layer.

During my layering process, I heard the sounds of trees being chipped. The light bulb went on and I ran over to see what the tree company was chipping. I asked my neighbor if they spray their trees and she said no. The tree service was more than happy to give me the chipped up wood for free and dumped it on my driveway. I put a layer of tree chips on top of the grass. I am a little skeptical of how long the tree chips will take to decompose. A public works supervisor in my town told me that the heat of the grass will help them decompose.

Anyone have thought about the wood chips as a layer?

He suggested putting a layer of leaves on top of the chips in the Fall. I think I will also put a layer of grass on top of the wood chips in late September followed by the leaves to help speed up the decompositon of the wood chips.

Since grass is not the easy to come by, I might have to start stock piling it in the corner of my lawn for September. Decomposing grass is not the most pleasant smelling. Otherwise, I will have to find a lawn service who will give me grass.

Some of you might be thinking, how do you know if the grass has been sprayed? This is a good point. Since I am only making shrub and perennial beds, this does not matter to me. It would matter if I was making veggie beds. I don’t know if pesticides break down in the compost stage. Anyone know?

So, have any of you made beds out of mulched materials? How do you create new beds?

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The Fertile Gardener

Green Talk — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:03:35 PDT

Welcome Garden #2!

Around May and June I become a little obsessive with my garden. Over the years, it has grown from 4 tomato plants to now 19 beds, 9 heirloom apple trees complete with their own birth announcement, 2 peach trees, 7 blueberry bushes, and 2 grape vines. Okay. This did not happen in one year, but over the years, I have expanded the garden like you would expand a family. Sometimes I think I am Eddie Albert from Green Acres. Remember that show with Eva Garbo? Just like Eddie Albert’s character, I am a lawyer turned gentlewoman farmer.

This year was a leap year. Although my apple trees are little, I thought I could protect them from the deer by surrounding them with four foot deer fencing. Apple buds are quite enticing and they outsmarted me by nipping at the buds through the fencing. They must have push the fencing with their noses. One particular apple tree did not bloom at all this year and I hope that it is not dead.

My apple trees are like my babies. Haven’t you heard the saying don’t get between a mama bear and her cubs. Well I feel the same way about my apple trees. I had no other alternative but to put up an 8 foot wire, ugly fence to keep the deer out. I knew they would never prosper if the deer could nip at them. So, up went the fence.

So, You Say You Want a Corn Field?

Since the fence encompasses more land than the trees, I started to get garden fever and spotted a very sunny plot several yards away from the trees for a corn field. (You can take the girl out of the Midwest, but you can’t take the Midwest out of the girl.)

Two years ago I grew 5 stalks of corn. It makes the most beautiful sound as it sway back in forth in the wind. My only mistake was not realizing that a stalk only makes one large corn. My gardening neighbor came to visit my garden one day and saw my corn. She looked at me and said, “Anna, you have only five stalks with 6 members in your family. Didn’t you realize that corn only makes one large corn?” Boy, did I feel stupid. What was I thinking. Corn is not a tomato plant.

To top it all off, I grew blue Hopi corn since I wanted “blue” corn. I could not figure out what why the corn did not taste good. In searching the internet, I found a site that explained that blue Hopi corn is for cornmeal. Another dumb gardening mistake. This is how you learn, I have been told.

Back to the corn. So here was this large plot for my taking. Sunny, near a fence so not as much wind as my other garden, AND just a little perfect piece of Eden. So, I thought. Try digging into virgin meadow soil with field grass. I will hand you the pain killers… It is near impossible. In the past, my husband had “pick axed” the grass to create the beds but this is really hard work. (I can do about 2 feet and I am done for the day.) Instead, we rented a sod cutter. I would highly recommend using one if you need to cut sod. It cost us $90 for the day and it cuts the grass like a carpet. My husband found it easy to use and cut the sod easily.

When you take a pick axe to the ground, it just tears up the grass and you end up losing a lot of soil. With a sod cutter, you lose a minimal amount of soil and you simply roll up the grass like a carpet. Be warn. It is heavy lifting the old sod into a wheel barrel. It is great sod to put somewhere else in the garden. In my case, the “grass” was mere junk. Full of weeds and field grass.

How Did a Corn Field Become a Larger Garden?

My husband got a little carried away when he was cutting the sod and created a much larger garden than I wanted. I was scratching my head wondering what I was going to grow in the other beds. Again, we tried digging into the dirt. No go. It was hard as a rock.

Back to the rental shop. This time we rented a heavy duty tiller which according to my husband, is back-aching hard work. This machine is too heavy for me to maneuver. You can not use your garden variety Mantis tiller for this job. I tried and the wheels just spun. Finally all the beds were tilled and my hard work had just begun.

My other garden has raised beds, but since this garden was primarily corn, watermelon and melon, I thought I would just create beds using rocks as buffers, and filling each bed with compost. I have an enormous amount of rock in my soil. (See picture above.)

After I was done laying out all the four by 8 beds, I wish I had created raised beds. It is so much easier. It took days to lay all 11 beds with 3 foot walkways and a four foot center aisle. I told you I was a little obsessive. I was out there every day with my measuring stick. Thank goodness my landscaper started to help me out and started bring the compost back in his machine. It would have taken me days to move that much compost in my wheel barrel.

I also put down old newspaper in the aisle and put mulch on the top to suppress the weed. This is good for about 2 years and then I have to do it again. My other garden has thyme plants between the aisle as a living mulch. I am not sure I have the energy to plant the thyme in this garden since there are more beds. Who knows.

Move the Herbs, Ma’am

Once you start digging, you start to eye other places to create beds. I hate the grass. It needs to be watered, cut, fertilized, etc. So, anytime, I can find a way to get rid of the grass, I do. As I indicated in my article about my gardening mishaps ( learn from my mistakes…) I moved all of my perennial herbs out of my raised beds. They became invasive and took over the bed. I am still taking out fennel which is everywhere and oregano, which seeded itself anywhere it touched soil. What did I need for all my herbs? Another bed! So, now I have an herb bed.

Double Trouble

Many times I create a bed in the garden and realize that I totally screw up. It’s too small. I planted the plants too close, or did not put the plants in the right location, etc. My husband hates this double work, which I am constantly doing. I had to take out all of the raspberry plants which thank goodness had not rooted, and move them to the center of the bed. (See picture above of my first planting of the raspberry canes.) Previously, they were too close to the front of the bed, Raspberry plants are invasive and will grow right out of the bed if I don’t watch them!

So, now you know why I haven’t been around the blog for awhile… See you tomorrow on how to make a no till bed…

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