Domestic for the day

The Boy and I had quite the productive day. Made laundry detergent so I could finish laundry. I put clothes away and organized my desk and purse. The house is tidy, a chicken was roasted with potatoes in the oven and was accompanied by broccoli with cheese sauce when it was done. Another was boiled so the Pup can have broth for her strict diet. It was promptly turned into chicken salad with herbs strictly from our garden.
One of the fun projects I did today was dehydrating some ginger. I sliced it all up and laid it out on the trays.

And of course we won’t run the dehydrator without it being full so the Boy and I cut up some apples, dipped them in lemon juice and water so they won’t brown, then sprinkled cinnamon on. They will be some great apple chips.

The Boy also started his sprouts up while we did all this.

The apples are still drying right now but the ginger is all set. I put it all in a jar. I have a plan to make my own Lemon Ginger Tea. Can’t wait to try that out. The crazy part is that we did more than what was listed here. A very accomplished day that will be ended with Game of Thrones. :)

Seedlings update!

So the little plants are doing well. After all this time I only have one lemon balm so we will have to take very good care of it. I will probably pick up one or two plants at a nursery or farm so I have more. I really love lemon tea.

This coming weekend we will be setting up our raised beds. We scored lumber for free since it was the warped and unsellable stuff. We are going to get topsoil from a farm down the road, and finally some fertilizer from Shreiber's Farm in Oxford. I'm very happy to be getting stuff locally rather than from the big chain hardware stores. It will be a lot of work but totally worth it. I hope to be able to make it to the CT Rollergirls bout on Saturday as well. Another busy weekend from me.

Now on to plant photos. Of course you can click to enlarge.


  

Yay for spring!

My First Real Garden

Well it's about time. I get to have a garden! No potted garden that gets eaten by aphids. No teeny tiny garden that has limited sun. This time it's the real deal. At first, the boy listed the various scary expensive stuff we needed to do. It was an intimidating thought. But each hurtle has been jumped so far with savings and new knowledge.

At our place the landlords are letting us use the land at the end of the driveway. It will be quite a bit of work but I think we can pull it off. We have gravel and weed blocking plastic to remove, but we're hardcore. That is something that will be done soon. Right now though we got to start the new life.

The first expense that we were fretting was the fact that we may need a grow light. The apartment has very little light. If we didn't have the screen porch I would really dread the lack of sun in the summer. Thankfully I have a boy that labors over things that bug him and comes up with a great solutions. This nice high metal shelf that we had stashed away from the move takes advantage of our ONLY south facing window. It's in the bathroom and fits just right where it doesn't block the towel rack or get in the way, keeps them far from the cat, and gives our little seeds the grow-the-f-up notice with plenty of sun.


We also saved money by using newspaper for our starter pots. Not only are they pretty much free if you get the paper from your newspaper obsessed father, but they also bio-degrade safely in the garden so you don't have to mess with the root systems. The $10 of bricks of soil we got also expanded a ton and filled all the pots we needed. We still have extra.

 

Aren't they cute?

I'd like to thank my friend Bruce for saving us from starting way to early and possibly before the last frost. I have no sense of that since RI is all coastal and warmer. The middle of CT is a little different. I also <3 the farm and Bruce again for making it easy and inexpensive to get loam for the garden. Saves a ton of effort and money. I'm really excited to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Well now to get back to knitting. I'm hoping this loofah design works out. Night everyone!

Going natural, one step at a time

I was a tired kid after 2 hours of league practice and then one hour of Mob time. <3 But I still managed to be productive when I got home. After doing some of the dishes (there was a lot) I got ready to try out some natural stuff.

First I had to make another batch of toothpaste. I need to have pretty teeth of course. I love how it whips up so fast. The recipe is here in a previous post: Better than Martha. After that I decided I needed to try out a new recipe in hair care.

For body wash and shampoo I picked up some Dr. Bronner's Peppermint castile soap. It's so refreshing to have the scent fill the whole shower. I pretty much love it. But for conditioner I found an interesting recipe on this site here. As conditioner I now used an apple cider vinegar rinse.

I tried it out last night and it's great. My hair felt practically as good as when you use the chemically stuff from the store. Plus it's a million times cheaper. Well I now know what my conditioner will be from now on. Oh and in case you were wondering the vinegar smell goes away after your hair dries. I just need a better container for it. I was thinking of getting one of those plastic vinegar squeeze bottles to make it easier to apply. Seriously guys. I recommend this. The site says it helps with some dandruff. We'll see how that goes in the winter.

A couple more chemicals knocked out of my everyday life. :)

Better than Martha Part 3: Cleaning stuff

Here's the final part of the Better than Martha series. In the other posts I told you that I've been making my own stuff. I've been doing this for two reasons. 1) To waste less and to contribute less to the landfill. Seriously, that thing needs to be less gross. 2) So that I know the ingredients in my everyday items. I like knowing there aren't chemicals in what I use. I'm slowly replacing things in my life to be more green and me-friendly.

So on to the items that I made/am making.

First item is my Swiffer mop cover. It's on hold because I am working on a time sensitive project. As soon as that's all set, back to this one. But anywho, this will make it so I don't have to keep buying the wasteful cloths that cover it. It will be nice to just have to wash it. I'm using cotton to knit it so probably won't machine dry it. I found the pattern at the Knittnfool ->MD Swiffer Mop Cover. Below is my version in progress.

The other cleaning item I made is a homemade disinfectant. Not only is it nice to know what is in the spray bottle, but it's also a cheaper alternative. I put together a simple recipe that was based on others online. I filled the bottle with 1/2 water, 1/2 vinegar, then added the following: a squirt of castile soap and 1/4 tsp of each: tea tree and lavender essential oil. I know essential oils can be pricey but they last a long time and can be used for so many different things. The nice things is that when it dries the vinegar smell goes away and you are left with the smell of the oils.

That's it for the Better than Martha entries. As you can see it would have been way too much for one entry. How are you guys being more green? I know that Joni rocks at that with her cloth diapers and everything. She's pretty hardcore. I'll slowly get there, but minus the babies for now. =)

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike

This week has been absolutely gorgeous and for once I've been taking advantage of it. I recently bought a Trek hybrid bike. Best thing I ever did. I love my bike. I got a rack for it and a set of fenders so I could use it to commute to work.

Tuesday was the first day I rode it to work. I was able to strap my backpack to the rack so I'm not all gross for work. It wasn't bad. There are a lot of hills from Providence to East Providence but I work my way up them no problem. I put both fenders on even though they are clip on. Well the front one is a jerk and became loose while I was riding. It fell off and held up my ride to work since I had to find a place to put it. I ended up being late to work. To top it off I forgot my work keys at home. Which mean I couldn't get to the peanut butter cookies that were in my desk. *pout* Not the best of days but I survived.

Yesterday I rode my bike around Providence on my day off. I headed down to Thayer Street in the afternoon. It was nice to just walk around after easily locking up my bike, instead of circling for a car spot. I checked out the second hand store. If I had the cash I would have picked up a couple of things. They had some really cute spring dresses and tops. So tempting. I definately picked up honey sticks at the candy store. The cinnamon ones are my favorite. For lunch I got a really good falafel wrap at East Side Pockets. Highly recommend them! I got a new pair of tights and socks for Derby too. After some wandering I went to Whole Foods to get some ingredients for the veggie pot pie I'm making for the Spring Fever Party in CT. It was nice to do all this without using any gas.

I rode into work today successfully without being late. I was 18 min early and everything. Had time to change, make a cup of tea, and change the mortgage rates all before 9am. Not bad at all. I plan on keeping this habit for a while. Save money, daily exercise, and polute less. :)