International Year of Natural Fibers

Did YOU know 2009 was the International Year of Natural Fibers, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations?

Me either.

Hat tip to Green Planet Yarns.

Saving Water

I like this water catcher sink bin from Hughie, but am certainly not paying $25 plus shipping for a plastic box. The main thing it has over the regular plastic bin I use now is the well-placed handles.

The idea is to catch the "gray water" and re-use it to water plants and so forth. I use my regular plastic bin (which is admittedly awkward to carry) to capture water while waiting for the taps to warm, or that I've rinsed my dishes in, to water the plants. I tend not to use water that might have soap residue on the edibles, but I've got geraniums and ferns that are happy for the drink either way.

Speaking of geraniums, the two that E bought me in Half Moon Bay, which I planted on either side of my front door, are on the move. The purple has busted out all over, while the red is about to start any minute now. It's nice to be greeted with flowers at the front door. They've probably quadrupled in size since being put into the ground.

Garden Progress Report

New pictures are up of the garden - I actually took these right when I got back from the conference, but it took a while to get them uploaded. Here's a quick preview:


Something is eating the bejezus out of the kale, most likely earwigs. So far I am resisting Dad's offer to put out poison. I'd love for this to be a completely organic process. Besides, kale is pretty robust, and if this keeps them away from the other veggies, it's probably a worthy sacrifice. The peas are going like crazy, we already need to tie up new string. And the lavender bush outside my back door is covered in flowers.

E-I-E-I-O

Yesterday morning, Dad picked up some baby chicks and we set up the nesting box for them. I'm not a huge fan of birds-as-pets for whatever reason, but there is something undeniably cute about these little balls of fluff. Plus, keeping chickens is relatively easy for big rewards, if you're a fan of eggs, and you can do it in suburbia so long as you don't keep roosters.

They're about 4 days old now, and they'll grow really fast. By mid-April, they should be ready to go into the coop.

It was in general a pretty farm-like day. Once the chicks were settled, Dad and I tied up the peas (harder than it sounds, mostly because of the amount of squatting and stooping required), prepped a new plant bed, and transplanted some vegetables from their pots in the greenhouse: collards, beets, swiss chard, and some volunteer carrots. (Volunteer meaning Dad doesn't know where the seeds came from - they were just kind of growing there.) E will be happy to know I also planted that sprouted garlic that he's been wondering about.

And after that, I trimmed back the grape vines - a bit late in the season for it, but they hadn't started sprouting yet, so hopefully no harm done. And when I say I trimmed them, I mean, after gently sounding Dad out about it - he's more of a "let the plants do what they want" than a "manicured garden" kind of guy - I pretty much hacked them back to the main trunks. (He'd said I should do whatever I wanted! Honest.) So it will be interesting to see what that does for fruit production - if the grapes spend too much energy maintaining canes they don't do as much in the fruit department. Last year there wasn't much and the birds got most of it. This year, we'll see.

It was a beautiful day - cool, but quite warm enough while working in the sun that I left my sweater behind. It was really nice to be outside after all the rain we've been having.

DIY Countertop Compost Crock

A couple of weeks ago, I dropped my Brita water pitcher, the one I've had since college. It was a rather spectacular fall, given that it was full of water at the time I dropped it, and it sprouted an enormous crack which wrapped 2/3 of the way around, and one small hole about the size of an allspice berry.

Well, I'd had that pitcher for a very long time, and I didn't feel too bad about having to replace it, other than annoyance at my clumsiness and the inconvenience. But I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.

Then it came to me. Recently, E and I helped my Dad set up a compost bin in the back yard. For my Mom's birthday, I gave her one of those compost canisters which sit on the counter to hold compost waste until they can be carried out. While my pitcher would never hold water again, it WAS capable of carrying orange peels, onion skins, and coffee grounds - or it was, after a judicious application of duct tape. And while there's no filter in the lid to contain odor, there IS a lid. And after all, the compost bin isn't so far away - it's more a carrying unit than a storage vessel.

I had the chance to test it out yesterday - I was making soup, and it was POURING rain outside. All the carrot ends and other miscellaneous compostable bits went into the pitcher, and stayed there until this morning, when I took advantage of the blue skies to trot across the yard and dump it out. It may not be the most attractive solution, but it cost me nothing and it works great.