Tu-Crazy

If this were 1636, I would be a fabulously wealthy woman:  My garden is awash in the wild colors of the early blooming tulips.  Bright hues of red, yellow, pink and purple are clamoring for attention.   Splashes of magenta can be seen in between the green growth of the perennial beds.  The shyer soft peach and white modestly glow above their tall stems.  The colors, after the long North Idaho winter, are intoxicating and they bring vibrancy and cheerfulness to the vernal equinox.  I am crazy for tulips!

Originally, the tulip was a wildflower found in Central Asia, and grew to prominence in Turkey in the 15th century.  Although strictly regulated by the Ottoman Empire, bulbs were easy to transport,and  migrated to Western Europe and the Netherlands via commercial traders.  Elegant and unusual, the tulip developed many crazy fans, willing to pay great sums for its’ unique beauty.

Tulip Mania

Tulip Mania refers to the Dutch phenomenon occurring over a short period of time, beginning around 1634 and ending in 1637.  Although business records from the time are somewhat scarce, it appears that the Dutch Parliament enacted legislation, written and supported by the independent Flower Guild,  allowing tulip contracts (not actual tulips, mind you) to be sold for a fraction of the real cost.  And the race was on for merchants and citizens alike…think sub-prime mortgage craze and you have a simplistic, but fairly accurate understanding of what followed.  Contracts were purchased and resold many times over, with prices wildly inflating until the outrageous prices caused an unceremonious collapse of the tulip market in the spring of 1637.  In fairness, it is important to note that the collapse could also have been caused by a concurrent outbreak of the bubonic plague, and not just market shenanigans. The plague could have been a serious party foul for the financial festivities.

Historical tulip mania and threats of the plague aside, being aware of legislative actions, at the federal and state level as well as ordinances in our local communities, is important to the sustainable lifestyle.   Contacting legislators and local leadership about issues of importance is as vital to green living as composting and recycling.

But, it is not 1636… It is a beautiful spring morning, 2012 and the sun is shining gloriously.  The tulips are waving gently in the soft morning breeze and the hummingbirds are beginning their breakfast flights.  I am going to take my cup of coffee out to the garden and revel in my riches.  I am a blessed and wealthy woman.

Have you discovered an ordinance or code in your local community that could impact your green lifestyle?  Have you considered what you might do or who you might contact in that situation?

Written by Kathy, Proprietor of Dustbin Handmade Cards

http://www.dustbincards.etsy.com

I went home to Canada for a visit 4 years ago and had a revelation. I was so impressed with Toronto’s recycling directives. There were recycle stations on the street corners, grocery stores had “green” bags and supplied recycle bins for canned goods, and they even recycled their food waste with a compost pick-up service! I was very impressed and disappointed. Where I was living at the time was behind in the recycle revolution. My local grocery store didn’t have green bags. We did have recycling pick-up, but there were few on my street that actually used the service.

I went shopping after I got back from my trip armed with my new green grocery bags. I showed them to the store manager and suggested supplying them for customers. A couple of months later they started selling the recycled bags. Then the next store I went to started selling them and so on. It was like a domino effect! I would like to think I had a part in helping spread the “green” bug in my neck of the woods. It might have been a coincidence, but it made me feel good, like I made a difference.

Now, 4 years later, I am glad to say everyone has recycled bags to offer. Now we just have to get plastic bags off the menu! Happily, they come in all shapes and sizes, simple and stylish! Here are some great bag ideas from our friends on Etsy! Just click on the bag to go to their shop!

I am happy to say I am on my way back from Toronto once again with a hand full of new reusable bags! For more articles on Green Living, check out this article by ECOKAREN, “Handmade for Earthday”.

Kim Johnson

Ekofabrik, http://www.kimjohnsonstudios.com

This week’s Tuesday Treasury winner is Fia from FiaNaturals for her treasury “Glowing Eco Mothers Day”.

This post and selection of the winner this week are courtesy of last week’s winner – Julie from Joliejye.  Here is why Julie chose the winning collection:

While I loved all the treasuries this week, Fia’s is my favorite.  I’m sure my mom would be fond of everything in this lovely collection!

From Fia’s shop, here is a pair of African seed earrings:

Runners Up

“Bee Yourself” by Jennifer from Snackaby

“Renovation” by Kate from ThinkCappyThoughts

There are days when all of us have run one too many errands, checked an excess of items off our to-do list and pushed ourselves with an overload of household chores. To help inspire you to pause and center yourself, I wanted to share the above quote, which reminds us to stop and indulge in our interactions with nature.

Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey (USA), has embarked on an inspiring green initiative – the installation of  more than 40,000 high efficiency solar panels on canopy structures over two major surface parking areas on the Livingston Campus. This represents one of the largest solar canopy energy systems in the nation.  In conjunction with the existing 1.4 megawatt solar energy facility on this campus, the project will generate an additional 8 megawatts, which will be enough power to satisfy 63% of the electrical demand on Livingston Campus. Construction commenced in May 2011 with completion of the project planned for Summer 2012.

According to Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick, “This exciting and innovative project demonstrates Rutgers’ ongoing commitment to energy conservation and environmentally sound practices. Rutgers takes environmental stewardship seriously, and the university is proud to be a leader in developing renewable energy resources in New Jersey.”

Image from http://www.solairegeneration.com/

Solar canopies convert sunlight into electricity. Built over parking lots, they also provide people and cars with shelter from the sun, rain and snow. Light fixtures and security cameras mounted under the canopies can improve nighttime safety.

Image from http://newyork.construction.com

Although Rutgers has its own efficient bus  system and cycle paths for students to get from campus to campus, New Jersey, unfortunately, does not have efficient intrastate mass transit options. Most faculty and staff have little choice on how to get to work: we drive our cars. So I find it gratifying and inspiring that a couple of huge parking areas on the suburban campus will now serve a dual purpose and the clean energy that the solar canopies provide can help to offset perhaps a small part of the emissions generated by so many cars on campus.

Information and top image from: http://news.rutgers.edu

Posted by LindaEve

Yoga is quite possibly the best preparation an expectant mom can do while pregnant. There are many benefits that come with practicing yoga including the connection one can achieve between mind and body. This connection enables the participant to notice how she holds herself while standing, lying, sitting, and laboring. In turn, one is then able to discover where stress and tension are “being held,” because we all hold stress and tension within the different areas of our bodies and systems.

Twenty years ago, as I sat in a bathtub feeling the first real contractions of my first labor, I stared intently at my belly and tried to deal with the impending event as best I could. Twenty hours later, my beautiful daughter was born. After all these years I still wonder how I managed to get through it without an epidural. I should tell you, my threshold for pain is not very high, but I’m also afraid of needles which actually worked to my advantage in a way. As I think back on what I did during those twenty hours; what I remember most was my breathing. As it turns out, it was my “ujjayi” breathing that got me through my labor, which I’ve since learned about through practicing and teaching yoga.

Over the years, I have talked with many moms about participating in yoga classes because I’ve seen firsthand how it allows women to cope with the intense pain of childbirth. I’ve witnessed (and practiced)breathing techniques learned in yoga that assist laboring moms with blocking out everything around them. In addition to the pain and discomfort moms experience during labor there are other distractions that can take focus away from the task at hand including beeping sounds from machinery and equipment, nearby conversations, poking and prodding, and yes, sometimes even the television. I have many students that come to my classes because their doctors recommended they take yoga in preparation of childbirth.

Yoga encourages us to be “in our bodies.” Meaning, that if we listen to our body, it will tell us when it’s time to slow down or adjust our lifestyle. I know that since I started practicing and teaching yoga, I naturally check in with my body when I get stressed. For example, when I’m driving in bad traffic, or lost on the highways, my shoulders start to scrunch up near my ears, and my breathing gets shallow. Sometimes I even clench my jaw and hold my breath(usually when I’m running late). After a while, I begin to notice how tense I feel and take action with a few deep, cleansing breaths. In no time my shoulders come, and I feel more relaxed. So it is in labor. As a laboring mom hits “transition,” this is when her cervix opens 8-10 centimeters, it becomes harder and harder to stay focused(due to the pain she’s experiencing from contractions). It is vital at this point for the laboring mom to “go back to her breath.” That is to say, she must focus on her breathing instead of focusing on her pain. The more ingrained breathing and relaxation techniques are, the easier it will be to get into a “meditative state” during labor.

So as you can imagine, yoga is beneficial whether you are pregnant or just living your life as best you can. I encourage you to slow down in your life and enjoy it. Have you taken a nice deep breath today?

Namaste, Juanita
www.juani1.etsy.com
www.painterdoula.com

Have you checked out Tophatter?  Tophatter is a fairly new live auction site that you can attend right from the comfort of  your home.  All you need is a laptop, internet connection, and of course a Tophatter account.  As a buyer, If you decide to decide to bid and win an item, PayPal is the method of payment.  There are a variety of wares being offer at any given time and things move lightening fast.

Back in April, I spent a weekend {It’s addicting – so beware}, just stalking the various auction rooms.  I called it doing research.  What I found interesting was the “live” environment; people were politely chatting with each other (you can read the chatter in conversation bubbles that pop-up), they  were bidding on goods and it seemed everyone was having a good time. In the image below, which I grabbed on May 4th, you can see me back, I’m the one with the circle around my feet.  At this particular time, this auction room for the Early Bird Bazaar had over 112 attendees waiting to bid.  I mean they were literally waiting for the auction to start so they could start their day off shopping.

It should be noted that all Tophatter auctions are scheduled in Pacific Standard Time, so if you live in another time zone be sure to figure out the exact time for your zone.

Tophatter Live Auction

So this past week, I bit the bullet and decided to try Tophatter out as an auctioneer / seller.  After I created my seller profile and made sure all my information was correct, I listed an item. As a new seller I was only able to schedule one listed item.  The folks at Tophatter want to make sure they protect their buyers and their growing brand and reputation, so until you have successfully sold 3 slots you will not be able to schedule more than one time at a time.

Herbanluxe Tophatter listings

After you have sold 3 lots successfully, Tophatter will grant you priority scheduling based on your stats as a seller. There are several factors involved in a sellers stats, such as:

• Your percentage of successfully sales
• The number of average bids on your lots
• Your final sale price
• Buyer feedback

A short time after I uploaded my first listing and scheduled it, I received an email from a Tophatter staffer telling me they loved my work and wanted to feature more of it in their Bath & Beauty auctions and offered to usher any new listings to the next closest auction dates.  This was very cool.

My first scheduled auction was a success. I was scheduled under the Bed & Bath category and there were about 50 attendees. It all happened so fast, it made my head spin.  I mean within seconds my item was up for live auction, bids started flying, and in the blink of an eye my item sold.  I didn’t have to invoice the buyer, Tophatter does this for you.  You do get to leave feedback for the buyer and you also get to mark the item as paid and shipped.  It’s pretty straight forward.

Turns out buyers can set alerts for items they are interested in bidding on.  So they can see your scheduled items days before the auction is actually scheduled for.  They can also Pin, Tweet and Like your scheduled items.  Talk about free marketing. I have to say that hands-down this social media feature is one of my favorite Tophatter features.  I tend to keep a close eye on my Google Analytics and was pleasantly surprised to see traffic to my shop from Tophatter.

So, we all know that something this good is not offered for free.  There are some fees associated with running your Tophatter auctions, the following is taken right from the Tophatter site regarding fees:

You pay Tophatter a 10% fee (based on the winning bid amount), with a minimum fee of $1. If your item doesn’t sell, you don’t have to pay. There are no fees to list an item. This fee is paid to Tophatter via PayPal after the buyer pays you. You don’t have to pay Tophatter right away. You can let the fees accrue for a week or two, and pay us at your convenience.

In the future we may change or increase these fees. In the event of a fee change, we will honor the fee structure at the time you scheduled your lot.

For this post, I decided I wanted to ask the folks at Tophatter a few questions, so I sent off an email and John G., a Tophatter staffer took some time to answer my questions.  I kept my questions short as to not take up too much of his time and these are his replies:

1. How many registered users does Tophatter currently have to date?
John G.: We have thousands upon thousands of registered users! My apologies on being vague, but I can’t disclose our total registered user numbers at this time.

2. Of all the auction categories, which has the largest average number of attendees? Is it the early bird auctions, jewelry, bed and bath or does it seem to depend on a specific time of day?
John G.: Our most popular auctions are jewelry, supplies & our bazaar auctions. We usually have 150-250 users in these auctions.

3. What are the one or two main benefits of selling at a live auction?
John G.: The main benefits are awareness & instant sales. When you sell in an auction on Tophatter you get to promote your merchandise to a huge room of potential buyers. Also, the auction format is fun, fast & competitive which means that buyers are more likely to purchase your merchandise while it’s up on the auction block.

So there you have it. If you are looking for other ways to promote your shop, I recommend trying Tophatter on for size.  If you’ve used Tophatter in the past or are currently using them, I’d love to hear your feedback and comments.

While reading old Classic Winnie the Pooh stories to my children, Rabbit was always discussing rhubarb in his garden and in his pies. My little gardeners didn’t know what it was, so I put it on the grocery list, and over the last few years rhubarb has woven itself into our kitchen for special occasions and summertime treats.  It doesn’t seem very popular in my neck of the woods (the East Coast of Florida, USA), so it is sometimes hard to find organic rhubarb, even in season.

Through most of the world rhubarb is considered a vegetable, however in 1947 a New York court decided it would be considered a fruit in the United States.  Tariffs on vegetables were higher than tariffs on fruits at the time. However, rhubarb is a vegetable as it is closely related to garden sorrel (a common perennial herb). My little gardeners sometimes mistake rhubarb for Swiss chard at the farmers markets, as they do have a similar appearance. However the leaves of rhubarb are toxic.  Field-grown rhubarb is typically harvested April to June, but seems to be available in grocery stores throughout the year due to hothouses (heated greenhouses).

For culinary uses, the fresh raw stalks of the plant are used.  My oldest likes to call it pink celery, as it does have a crisp similar to that of celery. Rhubarb stalks can vary in color from the commonly associated crimson red, to speckled light pink, and simply light green.  The color differences result from anthocyanins (water-soluble pigments), and vary according to both the rhubarb variety and the production technique.  The red rhubarb is most popular with consumers, but the light green stalks have the most robust flavor.

One of our favorite ways to use rhubarb is as a compote, which can be taken one step further for a delightful treat, Rhubarb Fool!  I’m not sure where these recipes originated from, as I’ve been making them from memory. They are pretty simple.  You can adjust measurements: 1 lb of rhubarb makes approx. 3 cups.

Rhubarb Compote

1 lb rhubarb, leaves removed, stalks cut into 1/2 inch pieces

¼ cup brown sugar, loosely packed

2 tbsp water

In a large saucepan combine rhubarb, brown sugar, and water, stirring to coat. Cover and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until rhubarb is tender, about 5-7 minutes. Drain juices if you like. We like to leave the juices if we’re not going to make Rhubarb fool with it and refrigerate it for a few hours before serving.  This compote can be made ahead for up to 2 days.

My little gardeners love the smell of rhubarb when I am chopping it.  And we all love serving the compote over ice cream, but you can take it a step further…

Rhubarb Fool

3 cups organic whipping cream

1 cup Rhubarb Compote

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, whip cream until soft peaks form. Gently fold in rhubarb compote.

Yum! Anyone hungry yet?  Besides drizzled over vanilla ice cream, you can also use rhubarb compote: layered in custard, with granola and yogurt, baked over oatmeal, and poured over pound cake!  We have even added some leftover rhubarb compote to our smoothies!

Rhubarb is a great summertime treat, and it’s good for you too!  Rhubarb is a source of potassium and vitamin C and is very high in dietary fiber, vitamin K, calcium, magnesium and manganese.

Enjoy!

Bee

The Wooden Bee

www.thewoodenbee.com

Photo via Sparre.Enger

Have you noticed how often we bloggers give advice that we need to hear ourselves? Earlier this year I organized a Simple Living Challenge on my blog, which connected me to incredible new friends and in the course of three weeks we explored the ways to simplify our everyday and to make our lives deeper and infused with meaning.

Even before the challenge had started I had realized the importance of out-loud dreaming because in my strive to simplify my life and help my readers do the same I unwittingly found myself using a very simple netbook instead of my powerful laptop. Ironic as it is, simple technology is not good. It doesn’t do the job. In fact, it makes things worse. After thousands of pageviews, hundreds of comments, tens of guest posts during the challenge, the reward I got was ruined vision, spasms of the eye muscles and a new glasses prescription.

Simple. I am now allowed to spend thrice as less time in front of the computer than before my Simple Living Challenge, and more than 2 months later I haven’t yet recovered fully. Don’t ask me what I had to give up because of that. It is much, and dear to me. But I am not telling you this to provoke your pity. I wanted to talk about the dangers of prolonged hours of sitting or staring near.

The dangers of sedentary life

Did you know that sitting for more than 6 hours a day increases your risk of dying within 15 years with 40%? According to research we now spend even more time sitting (about 9 hours) than sleeping (about 7 hours) but clearly our bodies were not made for such intense and long periods of inactivity.

As soon as you sit, the electrical activity in your muscles shuts off, calory burning drops to only 1 per minute and the enzymes that help break down fat drop with a staggering 90%.

Now add staring at close distance to sitting. The increased hours of close distance pressure on our eye muscles lead to a condition called Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS) which affects 90% of people who spend more than 3 hours at the computer. Among the CVS symptoms are headache, dry eyes, blurry vision, and long-term nearsightedness. Further aggravating these symptoms are improper lighting conditions (glare or bright overhead lighting) or air moving past the eyes (overhead vents, direct air from a fan).

Here is self-explanatory infographic to support my words:

Via: Medical Billing And Coding

How to keep ourselves healthy

Along the course of a few months I met 3 eye specialists and learned that in order to avoid eye problems I should look outside almost every 10 minutes thus providing relief for my eye muscles. What ophthalmologists consider a resting position for the eye is to look at a distance longer than 5 meters. Daylight is essential for eye health as well and regular breaks, let’s say every 30 minutes should be taken as well.

You can combine these breaks with simple exercising to keep your body awake and the enzymes working, which is also beneficial to your creativity.

What I consciously couldn’t stop myself from doing, my Simple Living Challenge did for me. It finally got me to simplify my life and rid it from too much online stress and hopefully got it healthier as I now move much more. But please, don’t wait for something similar to happen to you. You don’t need to hear it from the doctor. Instead you can take it from someone like me, who just got that experience and is willing to help you out. Stand up, walk more and look in the distance!

How do you fight the plague of sitting?

Sonya Kanelstrand

This week’s Tuesday Treasury winner is Julie from Joliejye for her treasury “Resting all the Day”.

This post and selection of the winner this week are courtesy of last week’s winner – Monica from Paper and Plarn.  Here is why Monica chose the winning collection:

I chose Julie’s treasury because it has a spa feeling, it has something for everyone. It makes me think to myself: “yeah, lets take care of ourselves and each other”. What a nice thought.

From Julie’s shop, here is a spring flowers & Swarovski necklace:

Runner’s Up

Because of the warm feeling of spring…”Earth Momma Gifts” by Ernie and Ellie Efforts

and because it resembles and promotes health as a lifestyle…”Sage and Eggplant” by Snackaby

We have been recycling long before it was fashionable or mandatory but when we are not sure if an item can be recycled, there is a trustworthy ‘go to’ place called Earth911 where we can always get the answer.

Earth911 is also on selected Sprint’s Android app called “Green ID Pack” with Eco Etsy and we’ve been admiring each other even more since then.

So, I am very excited to announce we have teamed up with Earth911 to work together!

We will be sharing eco news, eco-goodies, and eco tips so we can reach out to a larger group of greenies.

We have a joint Pinboard called, Earth911 + EcoEtsy on Pinterest where we are pinning exciting eco-friendly goodies over the web.

Think Outside The Bin is Earth911′s style blog where eco-frienldy items are featured daily. Our team members items have been spotted frequently on the blog and will continue to be featured.

We’ve been tweeting and retweeting green tips and green goodies and have shared posts and articles on Facebook too.

I will be posting what exciting earth friendly news Earth911 has shared so you are aware of the latest earth gossip.

So if you haven’t already – gasp! – check out Earth911 and their blog. You will learn something new, I’m sure.

Other Eco Etsy News:

1. Our Handmade for Earth Day Auction raised $580 to be donated to National Park Foundation. Thank you all for participating!
2. We are going to have our annual meeting this Wednesday morning and Thursday night. Yay! Did I hear prizes???
3. We had our Twitter Party last week and it was a blast! Be on the lookout for more! And I even gave out prizes from the auction package I won. What will I give away next??? Stay tuned.
4. Have you been on Practically Green lately? Did you set your goals? We are going to think of new ways to make it fun so get on the platform and add new actions and goals. They have teamed up with Green Is Universal and created an app called #OneSmallAct. The app is currently a desktop version but the phone version will be coming out soon.  A few of the team members and I attended the #OneSmallAct  Twitter Party  - I’ve been partying a lot lately, it seems - and it was really fun. Not only that, I was inspired by #OneSmallAct concept and I’ve been tweeting daily with the hashtag #OneSmallAct and continuing my eco-tip and suggestions since then. I’ve tweeted daily green tips before but now I have a hashtag to use! I hope you’ll find my tweets and RT. Better yet, start one yourself!

I hope you get out on this beautiful Sunday and plant something green!

xoxo,

Karen (a.k.a. ecokaren)

First let me express that I am a sucker for a good looking book. I am often drawn in by the cover. When I first saw this little jem it was as a kickstarter project that Microcosm publishing had posted on their facebook wall. Right away the picture of the peppers in a mason jar with the banner around it was something I knew I had to check out.

As soon as I received a copy of the book I knew right away that it would become an indispensable reference guide in my gardening/cooking/preserving arsenal. For a small, slightly larger than pocket size book, it is choke full of helpful information. There are charts for almost anything you would want to know to have a successful garden. From the cost of seeds versus starts verses buying at the grocery, to what plants to plant next to each other. There are beautiful illustrations that give you a clear idea of what the author is talking about. There are instructions on how to make things yourself which is extremely eco friendly and economically sound. This book is a great addition to any D.I.Y. library.

There are eight chapters that break down as follows:

Chapter one: Know. For those of you who like to weigh the pros and cons, Robyn makes it easy with some great reasons to grow your own food.

Chapter two: Start. Growing your food from seed is so satisfying and this book makes that easy, with clear easy to find information.

Chapter three: Grow. Details on all your favorite garden veg to help you get the harvest on the table.

Chapter four: Plant. Ideas for getting your little babies in the ground no matter where or how you live.

Chapter five: Plan. Knowing where to put what, with what and when to put it there can have a big impact on the success of your plants.

Chapter six: Make. Who says that you need to spend a fortune on gardening accessories. Do it yourself and save money and natural resources.

Chapter seven: Eat. One of my favorite sections. Recipes to use up your goodies listed by vegetable.

Chapter eight: Store. One of the most important sections. Keep your hard work from going to waste by storing it up for the winter.

What do you have growing in your garden? Did you start them yourself? Do you plan on putting things up for the winter? Let us know.

To celebrate the start of the book tour (by train, how eco minded) the author Robyn Jasko has kindly offered to give away a copy of her book to one of our readers. Also to make it even sweeter she is throwing in some seed packets of herbs for the lucky winner. To have a chance at winning all you need to do is leave a comment below. A winner will be picked at random next saturday and I will contact them to let them know they have won. Thanks and good luck.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and writing, lately about green business practices.  I’ve been combing, lurking, scoping and scouting all over Team Eco Etsy, in a hunt for pretty examples of our team’s amazing green business practices to share with you.  I have found a veritable mountain of inspiration, which I hope to share with you a few pieces at a time, over the next few posts.

Alright.  Let’s get to it.  If you are not following Joon at www.joonbeam.blogspot.com, get over there right now and add her blog to your feed.  This is the sweetest gem on the ‘nets with less than 100 followers.  I am stalking, following, digging, positively CRUSHING over Joon and her very talented daughter Scout, and you should too!  Go on, check it out.  I’ll be waiting for you here when you get back…  You can also check out her shops at www.joonE.etsy.com, www.joonwalk.etsy.com, www.flyinghousewife.etsy.com and www.joonbeam.etsy.com.

This is a very short and simple post highlighting the very green, very personal, and very creative business cards that Joon has made, with the help of her daughter Scout’s linocut chibi stamp, applied to eco conscious papers, such as vintage music textbooks.  I think this is a wonderful way to show your customers you are walking the walk, minimizing the footprint of having business cards commercially printed on virgin paper.  Handmade business cards like these can make a clear statement to your customers that your shop is truly all about handmade, and focused on keeping it green.  If you are lucky enough to have a talented artist like Scout on your team, or if you are lucky enough to have the right kind of artistic talent yourself, a stamp like this will allow your personality to really shine through, in a way that a formatted business card simply can’t.  Aren’t they great??  And, in case you are wondering, yes, Scout does take commissions! Scout has her own etsy shop, and can be contacted there, at www.seventeenagain.etsy.com.   I’m getting in touch with her right as soon as I’m done writing this post.  :-D

And that brings us to the official end of this post.  The real truth is, there are a hundred other things about Joon and Scout I could have chosen to feature, from Joon’s green packaging materials and artistic touches, to Scout’s phenomenal artistic skill.  The bottom line is, you’ve got to start following Joon and her blog.  I promise, you won’t be disappointed!  If you were to make or commission a chibi-style stamp to represent your shop and personality, what would yours look like?  Add a comment below and feel free to share Joon and Scout with all of your friends!

More love, for Joon and Scout…

I love growing my own food!  Not only does it taste better, but I know that it is safe to eat because I know I didn’t put any chemicals in the soil.  Water is a most precious natural resource, necessary to sustain life and necessary to a good yield in the garden.  There seems to be a limitless amount of fresh water – all we need to do is turn on our water faucet.  Yet, the ability to enjoy fresh water on demand in some areas has led to the lowering of the water table.  Out here in Western Kansas where agriculture is our livelihood and drought often a reality, responsible water use is of utmost importance.  I think you will find that a few simple and strategic changes in the way you use water to irrigate your garden will reap many benefits for water conservation.

Top Ten Ways to Improve Water Use in the Garden

1.  Water deeply but no more deeply than the root zone of the plant.  More than that is unnecessary.

2.  Water slowly – turn down the flow.  Too heavy of a flow of water will result in run-off and wasted water.

3.  Water infrequently but thoroughly.  Adjust the droplets to a larger size to minimize evaporation.   Frequent shallow watering causes plants to concentrate their root system close to the surface resulting in plants that are more sensitive to water fluctuations.

4.  Loosen the soil.  Compacted soil results in water wasted by run-off.

5.  Mulch, mulch, mulch!   Adequate mulching conserves water  by helping keep the soil loose and reducing evaporation.   Coarse mulches need to be applied in a thicker layer (3-4 inches) for maximum effectiveness while finer mulches can be applied 1-2 inches deep.

6.  Make sure to keep your garden well weeded to reduce competition for precious moisture.  Also consider removing surplus plants for the same reason.  This will give you plants to share!

7.  In the vegetable garden, use wide rows and plant crops closer together.  This strategy will allow your plants to have plenty of needed sun for growth and fruitfulness but still provide extra shade by the base to help reduce evaporation.

8.  Avoid watering during windy weather!  Wind is a huge moisture stealer.

9.  Water early in the morning when humidity is the highest to reduce evaporation.

10.  Consider using soaker hoses and timers rather than sprinklers.  This way you can strategically concentrate the exact right amount of precious water at the base of the plants in order to use less water but still achieve good deep irrigation.  Also, consider collecting rainwater using rain barrels (a fancy name for a covered trash can) under your downspouts.  Just make sure they are covered to keep curious kids and animals from falling in and drowning.

As you can see, small investments in time and planning when watering the garden can reap large benefits in water conservation.

Happy Gardening!  Mary Ellen

Photo via Flicker.