It's Easy Being Green

Our mailbox is looking like most other gardeners mailboxes these days, overflowing with this year’s flush of seed and plant catalogs.  As much of a nerd as I am, it is one of the things I most look forward to at the start of the new year.  It brightens the winter doldrums long after the warmth of the Christmas cheer is gone to think about the sunshine, warmth and rewards reaped in the upcoming gardening season.

Seed prices can be exorbitant at times.  Just flipping through the Burpee catalog, I can easily ring up a $100 bill in my head by tallying my wants on just a handful of pages.  Quite frankly it’s ridiculous, especially considering most seed purchased from gardening catalogs are hybrids.  While hybrids allow for an almost endless possibility when it comes to different varieties available to grow, it also limits what you’ll get from any seed you might save for next year.  Hybrids don’t reproduce a plant that’s just like the original so you never know what you’re going to get.

On top of that, I just learned something even more concerning about most of the major garden seed companies.  I just started reading Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle this past week and I’m already enthralled.  Kingsolver documents her family’s first year in their quest into the land of sustainability and local eating.  It’s humorous and informative, possibly helping you down a path that could be full of a few pitfalls.  Today, I learned from Kingsolver’s writing that giant agribusiness conglomerate Monsanto supplies many strains of garden seed to these big companies.

Needless to say I reeled in horror thinking about our seed box and how much of it might be from just one of the many companies I associate with the devil.  Remember, Monsanto is the company who produces Genetically Modified plants like corn and soybeans which are Roundup Ready.  The gene manipulation allows the plants to be sprayed with Monsanto’s chemical cocktails, killing every weed and pest around it yet leaving the corn or soybean plant untouched.

This villainous company has also made a name for themselves attacking farmers who, by no fault of their own, have Monsanto’s GM plants growing in their fields.  This company, along with several others, are making an effort to homogenize and patent whatever plant they can.  It’s a path that is leading our human race to outright calamities like  famine and the eventual death of open-pollinated varieties of plants that have been around for ages.  Recently, Monsanto also got approval to begin selling their GM alfalfa.  With no possible way to prevent the spread of this genetically modified plant, consumers who rely on organic alfalfa for food or animal feed now face a bleak future.  Monsanto’s bullying tactics and outright quest to own and dominate the world’s food supply has to be stopped.  If you haven’t already contacted your legislators about this, please do so immediately.

While Monsanto’s main business is to supply farmers with bulk seed for corn, soybeans and other commodity crops, Kingsolver’s book said they’re also dabbling in garden seed supplies.  Of course not wanting to give Monsanto anymore of my hard earned dollars and definitely not wanting to consumer GM foods from my own garden, I want to know who these seed companies are and how I can avoid them.  The Council for Responsible Genetics has developed a Safe Seed Pledge giving seed companies the opportunity to denounce GM seeds and refuse from selling them to their customers.

I’m glad to see some of our favorite garden seed companies on the Safe Seed list like Seed Savers Exchange, Baker Creek Heirlooms, Ferry Morse, Territorial Seed Company and Native Seeds SEARCH.  Thanks to this list, I’ve also now discovered my nearest seed company signed on to that pledge:  Nature’s Crossroads in Bloomington, Indiana.  Burpee and R.H. Shumway are two of my total disappointments who sell GM seed and won’t sign the pledge.

I eventually want to become a member of Seed Savers Exchange so I can get the big giant book of thousands of members who trade seeds back and forth.  This is a great way to spend less on your gardening pursuits, share what you have and do your part to ensure biodiversity will continue despite the pursuits of some greedy corporation only looking out for themselves.

I’ve started a local Tri-State Seed Savers Exchange group on Yahoo Groups.  Become a member and begin swapping your extra seeds or plants with other fellow Tri-State gardeners.  Together we can do our part to maintain local biodiversity and share the rewards of our gardens.

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Glorious is the only way I can think to describe the sudden onset of balmy temperatures and sunshine the past couple of days.  Yesterday we climbed into the land of the 60’s and it felt downright amazing.  Even before the first cup of coffee was finished here at the Half-Acre Homestead, we threw open the door and rushed outside to enjoy some fresh air.

Everly, much like the rest of us, has been getting an extreme case of cabin fever as of late.  There is only so much indoor activity to keep toddlers occupied and for our resident garden faerie, it’s just too much time cooped up inside the house.  She had a blast throwing bags of leaf mulch around the yard to help stymie the springtime mud pie that our grass turns into this time of year.  We also took the opportunity to move our rabbit hutches from their temporary home in the garage to their more permanent spot outback.  This gave Everly the opportunity to chase the lop-eared rabbit throughout the flower beds as he explored and munched under the February rays.

Today marked another stupendous day outside and so we relished it.  Darling Daughter and I poked around in the kitchen garden to take a look at everything coming to life this week.  Long lost garlic and onion bulbs have started shooting up all over the place.  Rhubarb crowns are beginning to break the soil’s surface and reach for the light.  Lemon balm, chives and sage are beginning to leaf out in their hotboxes as well as the rosemary bushes which are still triumphantly marching through the winter fully clothed.  Strawberry plants began peeking out from underneath their leaf mulch this week as well, heralding the bright red berries that will soon grace them much to Everly’s daily picking delight.

Strawberry plants are beginning to peek out of their leaf mulch this week as if trying to shake winter off for good

Homestead Hottie briefly joined us in the garden before tossing her cookies down one of the walkway aisles (her story here).  The pregnancy was getting to her today, well the whole week for that matter.  Everly and I looked on in worried support until the spewing stopped and then quickly ushered our poor Homestead Hottie back in to flop on the couch.

Later as the thermometer climbed to the 70-degree mark and there was no rain in sight, I set out to finish Talina’s Valentine’s Day present.  Built from recycled wooden pallets, I’ve been making a potting bench for my Homestead Hottie’s gardening fun.  Everly loves to be involved in any project, especially building and she has great fun helping to wrangle loose screws and sit on boards while Daddy screws them down.

Our Darling Daughter loves project time around the Half-Acre Homestead. Notice some of our cloth diapers getting some welcomed solar bleaching out on the line today too.

Just as the sun set tonight, I finished building the upper shelves.  It took little time to complete and looks great in a eco-chic sort of way.  I was thinking about painting it several different bright colors to match our outdoor cushions but Talina likes the look of the wood.  Rough cuts, nicks, old nails and discoloring will all show through a couple of nice coats of sealer.  It’s what makes the potting bench unique.  I’ll take orders if anyone else wants one.  I can guarantee no two will look alike!

The middle shelf on the hutch still has bark attached to the edges, helping to make it truly unique

Have you been out in your garden lately?  What is beginning to come back to life?  If you recycle wooden pallets for projects, let me know what you’ve turned them into.

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Valentine’s Day is just a few days away and we have been busy making some minor preparations for the lovey day.  This year there isn’t much money to shower each other with nice gifts nor is it really needed.  We handmade some Valentine’s cards with Everly to send to our family.  They were simple and just involved finding little crafty knick-knacks, trinkets and cutouts to glue to simple cardstock hearts.  Everly had fun customizing and gluing each Valentine and will show up with tons of toddler love still attached to them.

I am recycling these wooden shipping palettes by dismantling them and turning them into something new

I’m working on a project for Homestead Hottie that recycles old shipping palettes and turns them into something new and useful.  I can’t tell you what it is going to be yet since it’s still a surprise.  Stay tuned for an update on that and yes, I really have to get cracking on it since there was little time left for me to build this past week.

Instead of the hassle of trying to find a babysitter, Homestead Hottie has elected to stay at home and have me cook our traditional Valentine’s meal: a 4 course fondue dinner.

We really got into fondue living in the Valley and used to go to The Melting Pot for all of our special occasions.  The setting is romantic, the process of eating is fun and keeps you busy, and best of all it’s really good.  The closest Melting Pot to us is in Nashville and after one awful experience there I don’t think we will ever go back.  It just wasn’t the same and the management there didn’t seem to care about it.

In  a few days I’ll dust off the fondue pot, ready the sterno cans and begin slicing and dicing for our big meal.  A hot pot of cheese fondue will start us off, followed by a salad, then the main course of meats in an oil or burgundy based fondue, followed by dessert.  If you’re thinking about staying in this Valentine’s Day we highly recommend it as a way to save money and show your Valentine that you care even more.  If you are cooking a Valentine’s meal in your own kitchen this year, here is a great little dessert recipe to try out if you’re looking for something different.  Espresso Granita would make a great after dinner treat or you could use it as a palette cleanser in between courses.  It’s super easy, can be made in advance of the big meal and seems so sophisticated.  Enjoy!

Espresso Granita

Ingredients:

- 2 cups warm espresso (I prefer Lavazza’s Super Crema for its delicious caramel notes and sweet finish)

- 1/4 cup sugar

Combine 2 cups warm espresso with a 1/4 cup sugar.  Pour the mix into a shallow baking pan and place it in the freezer.  For the next hour, take the pan out every 15 minutes and use a fork to scrape the developing ice crystals.  This will give you a light, delicate granita.  Serve a scoop in a glass topped with whipped cream and dark chocolate shavings.

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Now more than ever, American companies need to step up their game and innovate. We’re now in the race of our life with growing economies all across our globe and if we don’t smarten ourselves up, I’m afraid of where we might find our great nation a few decades down the road.

One industry I’ve felt needs to get much better at the innovation game lately is the good ‘ol Detroit motor works. For too long American automotive companies have been stuck on bigger, badder, more oil-guzzling tanks that ferry soccer Moms from one end of the city to the other or for dear old Dad to simply drive daily back and forth to the office.

While greener vehicles are on the rise, I think American automakers have been slow to think ahead and join the trend. GM started out remarkably several years back when they unveiled the EV-1 but then later recalled the vehicles and mothballed the program for reasons we will probably never fully understand. Fast forward 15 years later and here we go again with most of the American automakers releasing some sort of all-electric vehicle to compete with the ever-growing foreign car market.

I’ve been a huge proponent behind the release of Nissan’s Leaf and both Homestead Hottie and I dream of parking one in our own driveway sometime in the near future. Speaking of the Leaf, did you know you’ll soon be able to use your cell phone to pre-heat or pre-cool the cabin of your car while it is plugged into the power outlet? That’s a new little fact I learned today while reading about all the negative side-effects to letting your car idle in the driveway so you can pre-heat on those cold winter days.  I also need to give some love to my American ingenuity too, namely Chevy’s brand new Volt.   I am ecstatic that GM seems to be jumping on the electric bandwagon too, trying to innovate and develop the cars of our future that will help evolve and lessen our reliance on foreign oil. Speaking of oil, remember that pesky disaster in the gulf thanks to BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill that lasted for months?

GM has taken ingenuity and environmental stewardship to a new level by finding a way to recycle those oil-soaking booms that were used to skim the spill off the ocean’s surface. So far the automaker has been able to help divert about 100 miles of the oil soaked booms from landfills by turning it into new plastic parts used under the hoods of the Volts. The recycling process will produce about 100,000 pounds of plastic resin for the Volt’s components, enough material to supply the first year production needs of the Volt’s roll out.

Image courtesy GM

The parts are used to deflect air around the Volt’s radiator and are made from 25% of that boom material and another 25% or recycled tires coming from GM’s Milford Proving Ground vehicle test facility. The remaining 50% is a mix of post-consumer recycled plastics and other polymers.

The parts, which deflect air around the vehicle’s radiator, are comprised of 25 percent boom material and 25 percent recycled tires from GM’s Milford Proving Ground vehicle test facility. The remaining is a mixture of post-consumer recycled plastics and other polymers. There is no doubt this development helped the Volt land its latest award of Green Car of the Year by Green Car Journal.

Image courtesy GM

The recycling initiative doesn’t just end at the Volt though. GM has started recycling their manufacturing materials at every stage of their lifecycle. They are using renewable materials in cars and trucks that are at least 85% recyclable. Used tires, old plastic bottles, denim and nylon carpet are all redirected from landfills and reused in select GM vehicles.

GM facilities worldwide recycle 90 percent of the waste they generate. The automaker recently announced more than half of its worldwide facilities are now landfill-free – all manufacturing waste is recycled or used to create energy.

This is American ingenuity and innovation I can be proud of and more companies need to be striving to do the same. They also need to not rest on their laurels and continue pursuing even better ways to make their manufacturing processes even more environmentally friendly and sustainable.  Have you considered buying a new electric car?  Maybe you’ve already purchased one.  Leave a comment below and let us know your experience.

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Homestead Hottie’s pregnancy cravings are ramping up to full-speed these days.  Wait you say, you didn’t announce you were expecting.  You can get filled in on the preps for 2.0 by heading over to Harvest of Daily Life for the details.  As any loving husband should do, I make sure every one or at least most of those cravings are met with attentive detail.  When Momma is happy, everybody is happy!

A couple of days ago Talina got an insane craving for P.F. Changs Chicken Lettuce Wraps.  With her nausea she’s been leaning toward light fare to fill her stomach as anything heavy leaves her feeling like “death” as she says.  Then came the Changs craving and of course, we don’t have one of our favorite restaurants within a quickly drivable radius.  That doesn’t mean I can’t attempt a clone recipe in our own well-equipped kitchen though!

This need for lettuce wraps also spurned a craving for Panda Express Orange Chicken, another one of our family favorites when we “splurge” on eating out.  Loving and cooking Asian food pretty frequently in our household, I’ve been anxiously watching work going on at the new Aihua International Market and so we made a family trip to see if they were open and to round up the necessary supplies for both clone meals and some future Thai cooking.

Aihua International Market just opened on Green River Road just north of the intersection at Lynch. It made for a perfect Sunday afternoon cultural adventure.

Much to our surprise, the parking lot was packed and the store was bristling with customers of several different nationalities all speaking several different languages.  You feel as if you’ve stepped into a completely different country right in little ‘ol Evansville, Indiana.  Walking through the automatic doors, you find yourself staring straight down the cooler case at all sorts of exotic fruits, veggies, herbs and roots neatly stocked and ready for your hot wok.  It’s a lot to look at and easy to get lost in, at least for a foodie like me.

Distracted already but I have to get back to the list: water chestnuts, crushed red chilies, arrowroot, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, Kaffir lime leaves, galangal root and fresh lemongrass.  When it comes to organization, things are a little hard to find at Aihua.  If items are labeled, deciphering the labels is difficult and takes extra time.  Chinese characters stand out above the secondary English printed on many of the packages and it’s nowhere near as simple as grab and dash.  It’s more like hunt and peck, turning over every rock and leaf until you find what you’re looking for.  The rice wine vinegar and red chilies were located without much effort.  The rest required a tour guide and the staff was eager to please.

The first woman I found stocking the shelves couldn’t speak English and apologized profusely that she couldn’t help me.  It was cute and I could tell she felt really bad so that didn’t stop her from flagging down the woman who seemed to be running the ship.  As she determinedly breezed past, dark chin length hair perfectly quaffed and not moving an inch as she headed toward the store room, she quickly whipped her hand to the shelf without even looking and grabbed the only tiny, elusive bottles of sesame oil they had to offer.  That’s anther check off the list.

Now to find those water chestnuts, I flagged down a tall Asian man wandering about the aisles.  He intently tried to understand what a water chestnut was, trying to correlate in his mind the proper translation so he could lead me to the right spot on the shelf.  After a couple minutes he enlisted the help of a pre-teen Asian girl, her white fuzzy ski cap bouncing between aisles crammed with shoppers as she scurried about.  She had the matriarch of the store, now back and standing strong at the register, translate and tell the man where to take me for water chestnuts.  Check!

Realizing the young girl was my lifeline to finding the other unusual ingredients I needed, I quickly tracked her back down and spewed out my laundry list of ingredients.  She led me from one corner to the next, quietly reading my list back out-loud as she pointed and plucked the items from the shelves.  Kaffir lime leaves were tucked away in an unlabeled bag, hidden in the cooler like a treasure only available to those who seek it out.  I felt like I belonged in an underground club as she measured two handfuls of the aromatic glossy green lime leaves into a smaller sandwich bag for me.  Then she grabbed a stalk of fresh lemongrass and finally showed me the galangal roots and let me pick which one I wanted for our soup pot.  Check, check and check.

Now I know to look for my fresh ingredients by sight next time and not by hand-written sign. From top to bottom: glangal root, lemongrass and Kaffir lime leaves

Standing in line at the checkout, a tiny, older Asian woman was purchasing a cardboard box filled with all sorts of noodles and vegetables.  When it came time to pay, out came a credit card.  “You pay with card?  Where you’re cash?” the matriarch demanded.  The customer said something unintelligible to which the owner replied “You know better!  Cash better!  Next time!” as she pulled out a credit card triplicate form and began rubbing an imprint on the counter.  The dread hit me as I only had a dollar bill in my pocket but that was before I spotted a small, hand-written sign that said cash only under $10.  Knowing Homestead Hotties love for Tiger Balm, we quickly grabbed a tube to bring our total above the $10 mark.

Our visit to the international food store gave new meaning to the term "watching carbs", something Everly adored.

Darling Daughter Everly had a blast taking in all the different languages and foreign items displayed throughout the store.  The biggest kick came from a tub of live blue carbs (really crab but that’s how it was spelled) crawling over each other and looking for a way out.  The Asian women adored little miss Everly and her bright red hair and even gifted her with a special magic wand-like lollipop at the check-stand.  Her grin was priceless and so was the fun in finding some real culture here in Evansville.  Oh yeah, the dinner of Chicken Lettuce Wraps and Orange Chicken turned out pretty damn good too, except for the fact that nausea kept my Homestead Hottie from really enjoying it too.  There’s always leftovers!

I would encourage any international foodie to stop by Aihua sometime and don’t forget to bring cash.

Nothing like a magic-wand lollipop to make a girl's day!

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Our house here at the Half-Acre Homestead is filled to the brim with houseplants and some outdoor plants that get ushered inside for a little extra protection from Old Man Winter.  From pines to cacti, orchids to lipstick plant and bananas to oranges, we have a full slew of plants to share space with.  Unfortunately, it’s also a draw for the four-legged felines that also grace our home.

This winter I was dead set on growing a box of lettuce and another box of herbs in the windows of our sunroom.  It also serves as our office but gets an abundant amount of winter light thanks to an entire wall of windows and three skylights that grace the vaulted ceiling.  Shortly after planting, some of our gracious gatos insisted on making these planters their new potty place.  It’s a common frustration felt by any feline fancier who also fancies their indoor greens.

We’ve had limited success topping planter boxes or pots with fine-meshed chicken or garden wire.  It will deter for awhile until they get jumped on so much that the plants underneath end up smashed into an oblivion.  A different trick though involves knitting needles.  Yes, those deadly looking devices some knit-wits can use to whip up a shoulder shawl or even better, a classic Christmas sweater, can deter your cats from doing the unthinkable.  Pick knitting needles of a dark color and insert a few of them into the potting soil so they protrude about two to three inches out of the soil.  The dark color will help hide the needles from human eyes but will most definitely keep that precocious critter from squashing your plant just to pop a squat.

These Pot Toppers also make a great long-term solution for warding off your frisky felines

If you’re looking for a more long-term solution (prepare for a shameless family plug now), my father-in-law has come up with an ingenious invention called a Pot Topper.  He custom makes them from cut stone; any color, any size.  Both are great ways to save your plants and your nerves.

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Before you toss all those 2010 holiday cards into your trash can, have you ever considered re-gifting them?  I’m not talking about pasting your own messages over those that were written to you and then mailing them back out next year, though that is an interesting recycling idea.  Just don’t tell anyone you’ve done it or make the mistake of mailing a card back to its original sender (insert a snicker here)!

One Tristate family is actually putting those used holiday cards to good use, turning them into custom wall-art they plan to sell in 2011.  The Bothast-Revalee Family here in Evansville is taking donations of new and used holiday cards to make the art.  Bothast says the proceeds from the planned sales will benefit two local child-advocacy organizations.  As soon as I got wind of their project, I knew it was one that needed to be shared with others.  Not only is it a great way to recycle it is also for an amazing and truly heartfelt cause.

“Our family has made a commitment to make art for these agencies,” said David Bothast, ” all the while reflecting on our own blessings.”

Both David Bothast and Brian Revalee have close ties with civic service in the Evansville community, working for much needed civic agencies.  Revalee is currently the Executive Director of the AIDS Resource Group, the only HIV/AIDS Service Organization in the Evansville area.  Bothast serves as the Director of a transitional housing programs that serves homeless parents with children.  In 2010, both also became foster parents for three siblings with the help of  Evansville’s The Villages.

” I hope this initiative raises both funds and awareness for area child-centered and family-strengthening organizations in our Tristate community,” Bothast said.  ” Mostly, I hope modeling voluntarism and advocacy to my new family will instill in them a sense of civic pride and community responsibility that will continue throughout their lives.”

Bothast says the initiative is a home-based endeavor and third-party fundraiser. “The proceeds will be directly donated to receiving agencies to use toward strengthening their programs and changing lives in our community. With this initiative, ‘charity begins at home.’”

“We see daily the need for services and the impact hard-working and under-appreciated social workers and activists make not only immediately, but generationally,” Bothast said.

Card donations will be accepted by the family all year long but now is a great time to help those cards find a new life before heading to the city dump.  If you would like to help out an undoubtedly great cause by re-gifting your holiday cards, please contact David by emailing him: Davidbothast@gmail.com

If you our somebody you know has another great way to not only be more eco-friendly but also to help out the local community, let us know about it by sending me an email.

Above photo Seasonal Still Life courtesy of Christmas Stock Images

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