Eeww...you are drinking THAT?!

That's what my family said when I made this:

I have a ton of kale from my backyard garden.  My family hates kale.  So what am I to do with all this kale? Turn it into something that doesn't taste like kale of course!  This really was delicious, even if it doesn't look so appetizing.  Try it and you'll see!  (I feel like I'm reading Green Eggs and Ham here...)

Recipe:

1 cup fresh kale
2 oranges
Handful of ice cubes

Blend in your blender.

Can it get any simpler than that?

Enjoy!

Green Garden Gallery

While I love the fresh and healthy aspect of eating food from my own garden, I also appreciate the fact that there is no waste, no packaging, no travel/gasoline/petroleum or CO2 emissions involved in my food.  My blueberries don't come in a cardboard or plastic box, my green beans don't come from across the country, and my peas don't come in a plastic bag.  I save seeds from year to year, add some compost from our food scraps, water it with our rain barrel's water, and let the sun shine down on the wonderful tiny patch I call heaven.

These are the ultimate green goodies!

Here are some recent photos that my 6 year old took of me and my garden.  It's absolutely wonderful to go out back with the kids and pick our dinner for the evening.  I don't know if my girls will ever go back to store-bought produce after eating these crisp, crunchy ones!

We've had this blueberry plant for about 3 years now and this is the first year it has produced any fruit. 

Good things come to those who wait!  

Update: Slight problem - something has been eating my blueberries lately! When we go to pick them first thing in the morning, all the ripe ones are gone...could it be the birds? Or the squirrels? Or the resident groundhog?

Nothing better than eating green beans an hour after you pick them!

Just hanging around...

Me and my peas!

Here is our littlest one excitedly helping me de-shell some peas.  We'll see how long that lasts. 

Still more to go...

Snow peas getting ready for stir frying

Hope you are enjoying your own harvest so far this summer!  If not, then I hope you are at least enjoying your weekly visits to the local farmer's market to get some fresh produce.  Mine has been a great resource for things I am not growing yet (zucchini) or that have come and gone already (strawberries, spinach, lettuce).

Some of you have asked me to write a post about pesticides and what I do about garden pests/diseases.  I don't use any pesticides!  I let nature runs it's course and only interfere with water and sometimes water and vinegar when needed.  I'll write a more complete post about this soon with some more ideas of how to tackle your pesky garden pests.

Happy green gardening!

Signs of Spring

Signs of spring in my backyard even on a cloudy day!

Blueberries!

Fig tree

Mixed garden (peas, tomatoes, chives, cucumbers, zucchini)

Another mixed garden with rain barrel in background (not a wine barrel!)  :)

Peas and sugar snap peas with some lettuce and other things mixed in!

The key now is to keep the wild rabbits and groundhogs away.  Any tips?

Cupcake Holder Dilemma

So I was at Aldi recently and had a hardcore life decision to make.

Yes, it was good vs. evil.

Angel vs. devil.

One side of my brain vs. the other side.

This was calling my name:

This is a cupcake holder.

Made of plastic.

It was $4.99 on clearance.

And calling my name...

As a Mom to two young kids where cupcakes are almost a monthly requirement for some sort of school event or fundraiser, I really could use this cupcake holder.  But it was plastic...made from non-recycled plastic and sure it had a recyclable triangle on the bottom which means at the end of it's useful life it could be recycled technically, but I really had a hard time with this because I promised I would stop buying plastic.

That is much harder to do than I first thought.

So I ended up putting it back on the shelf and walking away from it.  I reminded myself that I have cupcake pans and pretty dishes and containers I can use to transport and display them.  I reminded myself that I also have muffin/cupcake tins that came with a plastic cover that I can use to transport them.  Sure they aren't as pretty but hey, you just take the cupcakes out of the oven, decorate them and put the cover on and voila, you are good to go.

So even though I thought to myself "yeah, but this means I can make even MORE cupcakes for the fundraisers", I reminded myself that sometimes less IS more.

Earth-Friendly and Child-Friendly Cleaners

You see those cleaners at the store marked as "earth friendly" or "green", right?  Do you believe them--are they really "green"?  Do they really work and get the cleaning job done or are they just a wimpy, watered down version of regular cleaners?  Is it worth the increased price for those environmentally friendly cleaners?

Don't ask me!  I wouldn't know...I don't use them.

As I'm getting ready for Thanksgiving by doing some house cleaning, I thought I'd share some of my favorite cleaning items.  And guess what? I didn't buy them at the store (well, I bought the ingredients at the store, but I "made" them myself).  And guess what else?  I spent pennies to make them instead of paying tons of money for those name brand cleaners.  And there's even more!  They work just as well, even better in some cases, than those name brand toxic cleaners!

Since dusting is on my agenda this week, here is the recipe I use for dusting:

Homemade Furniture Dusting Spray

I did alter it a little, so my dusting spray recipe actually looks more like this:

2 tsp. olive oil
1/4 cup vinegar
1 3/4 cups water
1 tbs. lemon juice (this is in place of the lemon essential oil listed in the original recipe from the "Make Your Own" blog)

Here is the used, old spray bottle container I had on hand that I washed out and put my new concoction in (with my little helper):

So is it environmentally friendly? Yes!

Is it child friendly? Yes! (Heck, they can even drink it if they really wanted to--but more importantly it means they can help you clean and you don't have to worry about what they are being exposed to!)

Is it more expensive than storebought cleaners or "green" labeled ones?  No!  Just pennies per bottle!

Does it work?  Yes! In my opinion, it actually cleans better than Endust or Pledge or those other sprays.  It seems to leave my wood tables even shiner and more beautiful than the name brand ones.

My only issue...and I really mean my ONLY issue being such a minor one...is that the olive oil and water/vinegar want to separate of course, so as you are dusting you have to gently shake the bottle around a little.  Not a big deal though.  You can also do a shake dance every time you shake the bottle.  Makes it more fun.  Really.  Dusting is not fun, but you add some shakin' goin' on and all of a sudden it's almost fun.  Note: I said *almost*.

Money out the windows

We have 23 windows.  That seems like a lot doesn't it?  You never really realize how many windows you have until you start counting them.  Which I did today because we need to replace some of them.  Our home is only 12 years old so you'd think we wouldn't need to replace windows already but if any of you bought a standard builder home like we did, you know they skimp on things sometimes.  Windows are one of those things.

So what do windows have to do with green living?  A lot actually.  It's all about energy efficiency.  I don't want to pay to heat up the neighborhood in the winter nor do I want to feel the guilt of wasting all that electricity (which in my region probably comes from coal or nuclear).  In the summer, you don't really notice the heat coming in through the windows, but boy oh boy do you feel those drafts in the winter.  Just stick your hand by any of our windows and you'll feel the cold air by the cracks.  Not to mention you can tell they are the thinnest, cheapest, standard windows a builder can put in and get away with it.

So it's time to get new windows!  We had 4 major windows done a few years ago by Thompson Creek (local Maryland company) and were very happy with them, so we are getting the windows upstairs done by them too.  We had REALLY drafty windows in our family room and since the new Thompson Creek windows were installed we have noticed quite a big difference.  They are pretty expensive though so even though we wanted to do all our windows, we couldn't afford to do so.  So we did those 4 "biggies" first since  we knew money was literally going out the windows due to the big cracks and other issues with them.  But now it's time for 5 more windows upstairs.

Can I just say I'm so excited about this?

I'm not one to be excited about buying new things, esp. when I try to buy anything I can secondhand or recycle old things into new things, etc. but you just can't do that with windows.  And as far as being "green" sure I can go and try to find some bamboo made windows or something like that, but I'm going to stick with a local company who actually makes them here locally, not somewhere in China, so GHG on transportation is minimal since they are being transported locally.  But I also found out from Tony Testa, our sales guy today, that Thompson Creek actually takes your old window and recycles every bit of it!  The glass, the vinyl, any metal pieces, etc.  That makes this green gal very happy.  That and the fact that they are having a 30% sale this month.  I may be trying to live as green as possible, but I'm also trying to live as frugally as possible.

So I'm curious, what do you do to try and minimize your home energy costs?  Any ideas or tips to share?

Figs, Figs and More Figs!

Since my last post was about excess plastic, it seems fitting that a post on the excess figs in my freezer follow.  After all, my 20+ pounds of figs have been stored since August/September in my reusable plastic containers and bags.  However, a few of the plastic bags got tears in them from two little ones smashing them with their fingers and poking them with their play kitchen utensils, so into the trash the torn bags went.  I felt very non-green at that moment and was wishing I had enough glass containers...and enough room in my freezer for 20+ pounds of figs in glass containers.

Did I mention I had 20+ pounds of figs leftover from my two fig trees in my backyard?  I say 20+ pounds because I lost count around there and only labeled some of the containers before freezing them a few months ago.  I gave many more pounds away to friends and family who love figs and eat them right off my trees and to coworkers in my office.  It was quite a year for figs here!

So what the heck do you do with 20+ pound of figs from two beautiful fig trees in your yard? Why, you make fig jam of course!

So I started with thawing them out of the freezer (this is only 8 pounds of the 20+ pounds of figs):

Thawing figs

 Add some sweetener (I use sugar since it helps the jam set better than other sweeteners):

Some added sweetness!

Then I boiled it for a while (I forgot to take a photo of that step-sorry!).  I cooked the figs for about an hour before adding the pectin and sugar at the very end to help thicken it up.

Then I filled up the clean canning jars, put lids and rings on tightly and submerged in the boiling water for 10 minutes to get them to seal.

Then you let them set for 24 hours before putting them away in a pantry for a year (or decorating them to give to kids' teachers, family, etc. for Thanksgiving or Christmas!)

 

All done! Eleven beautiful sealed jars of fresh fig jam from my backyard to carry us through the winter and into next year!

Know what the funny things is though?  I get to do this canning thing all over again tomorrow!  I still have 8 pounds of figs in my fridge that I couldn't use today because 1) my gigantic pot wasn't big enough to handle all 20+ pounds of figs at one time and 2) I ran out of pectin.  So much for being prepared!

Cloth Napkins

"You mean you are using cloth napkins like Avo (grandmother in Portuguese) did in the old days?" Yes, that is the reaction I got from my Mom when she visited our home and asked where the napkins were and I pointed her to these:

Hubby also poked fun when one day over a year ago I decided to "hide" the paper napkins and replace them with cloth napkins we already had lying around the house.  He was ok with it until the first time we had spaghetti for dinner.  One look at our kids with spaghetti sauce all over their face, hair, hands, and shirts and he said "no way are we using cloth napkins".  Obviously I won that argument because it's been over a year later and we are still using those same cloth napkins (with all spaghetti stains washed out).

I will admit, the particular cloth napkins I have are a thin cotton fabric and don't soak up spills very well.  But I refuse to buy new ones because after all, I'm trying to be green here, right?!  So why would I go buy new ones when I have perfectly decent ones already at home?  However, with a young toddler under 2 years old that drinks from regular grown up cups but still spills every once in a while, these thin napkins can be a problem.  That is, unless you have a drawer full of these:

I bought these washcloths in a huge pack for about $3 when Baby Girl A was born.  As you can see, they are in pretty bad shape after 5 years of daily use...wiping two kids faces and hands after every meal, wiping spilled milk off the table, etc.  I'm sure I would have spent much more than $3 in napkins or paper towels over the last 5 years if I didn't have these wonders in my kitchen drawer.  So not only am I avoiding disposable paper products but I'm also avoiding paying for those products that just end up in the trash (or possibly compost) bin.

What I can't figure out is why aren't more people doing this?  Tell me, why are you still using paper napkins or paper towels?  Is it just too hard to change the habit?  I know, habits are REALLY hard to change...I'm still working on some myself!  Is it the increased laundry that is overwhelming?  What is the toughest challenge in implementing cloth napkins in your home?  Perhaps we can help each other find a solution to our obstacles in living green day by day.