Cup O' What? Green things!

There are a few things that we are not able to effectively recycle at the recycle center here in Alaska, and  rigid Styrofoam is one of them.   Last week, Reed got a hankering to grow something green and the only plants we can plant this early are ones that we plan to keep indoors, like sage.    You read last week about the cannibalization of my sage for a sausage making endeavor, so you know I needed new sage plants. 

Reed loves the cup-o-noodles and they are a fast easy snack for him (not sure they are as healthy as I would like but he grew an inch in 20 days in January so I have to have food available at all times if I want to keep my arms!) but what to do with the Styrofoam cup they come in?  Plant starts in them!

Reed planted three garden sage seeds in each of his cups, and then we put them in the space at the bottom of one of the lemon trees where it gets the most sun that an Alaskan winter window can get in a day.  They are serious leaners now so we have to turn them just about every day but they are hale and hearty.

So let your young ones plant you some kitchen garden herbs, or if you don’t have any of those guys around, plant some for yourself and enjoy a touch of spring!

Great Storage Onions Batman!

This past growing season, I was able to get some onion sets from Snowfire Gardens, owned by my parents.  My mom Florene ordered the onion sets, called "Candy" from a local garden club, the North Root Gardners.  We had an unusualy high amount of rain this past fall, to the point that the Mat Su Valley had extreme flooding and was declared a disaster area.  Reed and I had planted the onion sets carefully in a triple row in the (fortunately) more sandy part of the garden.  They grew, albeit slowly, into a medium sized onion that we harvested in the pouring rain.  I was not feeling confident that they would be a good storage onion, as we had a few that were lost to drowning in the garden, and the air had been so humid that we were having trouble drying the herbs even!

I keep all the mesh bags that apples, onions and other veggies sometimes come in and I use them for all sorts of things - including storing onions!  So I grabbed a mesh bag and put the onions, dirt and all in the mesh bag and hung them in my garage stairwell to hopefully dry.

This is right at the top of our stairwell going down to the unheated garage.  I had actually forgotten they were there until we ran out of onions the other night and while we were being cranky about it Reed remembered the stored onions.  So we got out a couple of them and.....

 

Low and behold they were beautiful under the layer of dirt and one layer of paper skin!

 

Keeping in mind that these have stored from September through mid February, I am looking at a new favorite at the top of the onion list! 

 

Flavor, texture and color are great even after having been stored for six months, and we still have a few left to use!  You can get "Candy" onions from a variety of sources online, or maybe from your local garden club.  Resource pages say they are a 6" onion and they store for three months, but maybe because of all the rain we had they didnt get that big for me but they definitely stored longer than that!  I will certainly have more than one row this year, and Reed plans to add them to his garden as well!

 

Stay tuned for a future blog on upcycling those mesh bags!

Ultimate recycling part 1 - Paper Roll Candlemaking

We had occaision to have a snow day here recently which included rain, snow and freezing temperatures.  This caused the roads to be so slick that school was closed and work was cancelled for all but the most necessary professions!  So we had an indoor crafts day.  Paper roll candle making uses empty toilet paper rolls and burned candles and lets you recycle them into new candles!  It had always bothered me that toilet paper rolls weren't being recycled into something really useful and it also torqued me to throw away old candles, or the leftover wax that there is nothing wrong with!  So here is a fun, easy idea for putting both to good use.

 

PAPER ROLL CANDLE MAKING

You will need:  two or more empty toilet paper or paper towel rolls, a number of burned candles, candle wicking, masking tape or scotch tape, a pan to be used for wax only, chopsticks or pencils and a stiff paintbrush.

To start place your wax pan on the stove burner and  turn on to warm only—no higher.

Take your toiler paper roll and cut one end of it four times making “tabs” as shown below.

Take the wicking and cut a piece about 2 inches longer than the size of your paper roll.  Hook it into the tabs and close them around it.  Tape the end tabs securely down. 

Turn the roll right side up and roll the top part of the wicking around a chopstick or pencil.  Your wax should be almost melted in your pan.  If not turn it up slightly and stir to melt it, then turn it back down to low.  Once the wax is melted dip the taped end of the roll into it and set aside to let it harden for a few minutes.

 Using your paintbrush dip into the wax pan and paint the bottom inside of the roll sealing any holes in the corners of the tabs.

Fill the  tubes half way up with the wax and let set until nearly solid. Once mostly solid fill the rest of the way up and let sit for two hours. Save a little of the wax in the pan to use for filling the settling wells that may appear in your candles after they harden. Let set for 24 hours, then peel the toilet paper  roll away from your candle.  Trim  off the excess wick from top and bottom of the candle and burn safely.  Enjoy!

P.S. The unrolled tube that you take off the candle makes great fireplace, woodstove, and campfire starter.  The ultimate recycle x3!

Arctic Rosemary and other indoor Herbs

I have mentioned in past posts that there is a way to keep herbs alive and thriving indoors, without extra light and without overwatering.  Herbs like Rosemary, Sage, Epazote, Aloe, and others.  If you are not familiar with Epazote, it is a wonderful Mexican herb which when added to bean dishes gives a great flavor and helps to prevent flatulence!  The flavor is hard to describe, but it is easy to grow and you can get seeds at many different sources, including Earthcare Seeds (organic), and Richters herbs.  But this post is actually to discuss some of the herbs that are not easy to keep alive in the winter months and Epazote is fairly easy. We are talking about Rosemary, Sage, Aloe and as an aside, Poinsetta.  All of these plants are desert or Mediteranen and they like to have what I call slow water, or misting.  My house is not an environment that lends itself to misting plants - too much wood and too much temperature difference that misting causes some condensation on my windows - and that leads to other hazards as well.  So I use "slow water" which translates to ice cubes.

 

Yes thats right - I water some of my plants with ice cubes.  Especially Rosemary, Aloe and Poinsetta.  The Sage sometimes doesnt care if it has slow water but the aforementioned three I have never been abe to keep alive if I am watering them with anything other than ice cubes.  This particular Rosemary plant is at least 4 years old (I lost track of the plant date during the last transplant).  We harvest some off of my three Rosemary plants at lease once a week which keeps them quite compact.

I know you would think that the cold ice would harm or freeze burn or frostbite the plant but it just slowly melts and gives the plant water that is available to a shallow root system, and that stays in the soil longer allowing it to be accessed.  When plants are watered with tap water or hose, the water can either run through the soil, leaving little for the plant to access or it builds up in the soil saturating it so the plant drowns.  I do adjust the amount of ice depending on the size of the pot and what plant it holds.  For the above pot I use three cubes.  For the Aloe below I use only one or two since it is a desert plant.  The Aloe is about 6 years old (from Richters Herbs) and I have included a before and after style picture.  Of course the big one you see is the after - after repotting and about two years of slow water! 

I know its hard to tell but the bottom photo is actually in a pot about 4 inches smaller than the top pot (yellow one).  The Aloe has thrived in this location which is in front of a North facing window, but we always have a light of some type on there.  I'm sure that is why it leans to the right - that is where the light is on!

It may take some practice to get to know what your plants like, but this slow water system will work anywhere if it will work here.  I usually give the Rosemary and Sage plants ice every day, but for Aloe and Poinsetta I only do once a week.  I do add worm juice to the Rosemary and Sage and Poinsetta once a year, but the Aloe is happy, happy, happy and I leave it alone with its' ice!  I know you are probably wondering where the pictures of the Sage and Poinsetta are but they are not in great shape right now - the Sage due to a canniballistic harvesting by my husband to make sausage, and the Poinsetta because it just bloomed for Christmas and it only wants to hibernate for a while!  Another time for those two!  For now - try your hand at indoor herbs and just put them on ice!  Its nice!