Ways to Honor the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day #QuarantineStyle

It was the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day today. This year feels like a weird year to be celebrating anything. We can't go out for the usual tree plantings, litter cleanup events, or other group events. However, let's not let the unusual year prevent us from a moment of reflection.

With COVID-19, we are seeing some unplanned, positive side effects. With stay at home orders and business shutdowns, there are no more commuter cars on the road and reduced manufacturing. You can see dozens of before-and-after pictures like the following, from around the world (Asia, Italy, California), showing visible reduction in air pollution.

An atmospheric map of China:

And an on-the-earth view of India: 

While the shutdown efforts may feel extreme and won't be entirely replicable when things return to "normal", let's figure out what we can bring forward. And in the meantime, it seems harder to maintain some of our good habits: restaurant delivery/takeaway with disposables have replaced ceramics and cutlery, Starbucks started refusing reusable mugs even before stay-at-home orders, and online shopping replaces reusable shopping bags with shipping packaging. Let's figure out where we can contribute now.

Here are several ways to honor the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day.

What You Can Do Now: 

• Many of us have moved the majority of our shopping online. When shopping on Amazon, choose "Frustration-Free" packaging if possible. If it's an option, you should see it as a filter on the left-hand side, as you are refining your search. Or search for Frustration-Free up front. 

• If shopping on Amazon, message cs-reply@amazon.com to request minimal plastic packaging inside your orders. This will help those non-frustration-free orders to do things like replace the plastic air-filled pillows with crumpled paper. 

• Shop Amazon Smile (smile.amazon.com), now available on the mobile app too by navigating to Menu > Settings > Amazon Smile. This allows you to designate a charity of choice, and Amazon will make a small donation on eligible purchases. There are many available charities/non-profits, included many with a sustainability mission. 

• When online shopping, you can still do second-hand. Consider options like thredup.com, swap.com, or Poshmark.

• Reuse your disposables. Just because they are marketed as disposable doesn't mean you can only use them once. The plastic cutlery I've been receiving with my takeout has survived multiple rounds through the dishwasher. A single reuse of a disposable means you're reducing your waste by 50%. 

• Are you making fabric face masks to wear when grocery shopping? Make your masks out of worn textiles, for example, a retired bed sheet. 

(old sheet + seam ripper = fabric and elastic for masks)

• Plant a tree or get a houseplant. You can get plants at stores that are otherwise essential, for example grocery stores and hardware stores. Take advantage of spring and get some green in your home.

(new tree brings joy and breathes carbon dioxide)

• Start a food garden. Whether getting a starter from the garden section of a hardware store, or regrowing food from your produce scraps, growing food has the general benefits of growing plants, and also makes you more food self-sufficient.  

• Mend clothing. You may have some extra time at home now to catch up on that mending pile. And if you are a beginner, this is the perfect time to practice with worrying so much about the end result. 

• Gather donations. Just because you can't drop off your donations at a thrift store, doesn't mean you can't gather them in the meantime. For some items like clothing, online sales are a way to deal with donations if you want to move them before physical stores reopen. 

• Shop produce online. Subscription clubs like Imperfect Produce allow you to get fresh fruits and veggies while avoiding the store crowds. They will now even take back the box they deliver food in. 

• Switch to a bidet. No better time to consider alternatives than when there's a shortage of toilet paper!

• Use food scraps to get creative about cooking. Keep small amounts that don't seem like a small serving to combine into an interesting salad or buddha bowl at the end of the week. Keep the trimmings from your veggies to make homemade veggie broth. 

• Eat your leftovers! If you want to mix things up, just freeze those leftovers, and you'll soon have a stockpile. 

• Switch to reusable feminine products. With a shortage of those necessary products at stores, no time like now to invest in washable pads, period panties, or a menstrual cup. 

• Continue to use online marketplaces where safe and available. Some groups like Buy Nothing are reducing posting to essentials only. Find the groups that allow you to buy and sell, read their safety guidelines, and use "porch pick up" for free items.

• Save your delivery packaging for reuse. Larger boxes are great for moving or storage. Smaller boxes and envelopes for are good for shipping and by small businesses. I put out a weekly stash on the curb and have it claimed each week. 

(boxes with free sign on curb disappear within an hour)

• Repair something around your home. Now is a perfect time to learn a new skill and prevent the need to shop for new things.

• Once you've gathered your donations, choose a t-shirt that isn't ideal for donating, and turn it into face cloths/makeup wipes. Simply cut into squares, and you have the softest reusable tissue.

• Stream more, buy less. Replace impulse buying movies or magazine from the Target end-caps with some of the amazing free content that is being provided by cultural institutions. From museums to Nasa archives, to at-home musical concerts, there is tons of content to enjoy.

• Pick a favorite snack food and perfect an at home recipe. Love snack applesauce or granola?Identify containers to portion and replace single use snack packs. It will be easier to develop a new routine now than when you are in the hustle of your daily commute. 

• Use what you have for household essentials or in your pantry. Were you saving staples like condensed soups or cans of beans for a quick dinner? While they may have a long shelf life, it's amazing how often I come across the one that got lost in the back and expired 2 years ago. Rotate your essentials and use them up. 

• Use what you have for activities or gifts you have yet to get to. Receive a book for Christmas and have yet to crack it open? Get bath and body supplies for your birthday two years ago and haven't used them up yet? While you can't do certain activities that are closed, treat yourself to the things you can do and were planning to "get to someday". 

• Try a solid bar shampoo or conditioner. It's an ideal time to experiment with new products. Dry products avoid the plastic bottle packaging, and save shipping fuel by concentrating the size and weight of the product. 

What You Can Do When We Return to "Normal":

• Continue to work from home. Even 1 day per week is a 20% reduction in commuting.

• Switch to a rideshare or public transit for the days you go to the office. 

• Keep track of the changes above that were easy for you, and maintain them as we move forward. 

Cheers to you for whatever you're able to contribute amidst this crazy time, and Happy Earth Day. 

Survival Skills aka Growing Your Own Food

There's nothing like a global pandemic zombie apocalypse, and the resulting shortage of certain staples at the grocery store, to encourage you to become more self-sufficient and live off of what you have.

It's been a weird year for gardening. We've had a cool early spring, and where normally I'd have tomatoes transplanted already, this is the first week that I'm starting to think about putting plants outside.

So between feeling stuck inside with quarantine, and not feeling like I can plant outside, my mind has gone to "What can I grow from scraps in my kitchen window?" And this year, I'm trying out lettuce and cabbage for the first time.

Lettuce and cabbage are supposed to be super easy - you simply put the leftover core into a shallow bowl of water, and they'll grow roots and more leaves. I gave it a try with a cabbage (from St. Patty's Day corned beef!) and two heads of romaine. There are already very promising signs after about 2 weeks.

Here you can see about 3" of new leaf growth from about 6 new leaves on the romaine. 

Here you can see a few new leaves budding on the top of the cabbage... 

... as well as several healthy roots. 

Now that they have new growth (and it's finally getting a bit warmer outside), it's time to transfer them to soil. Using an enriched soil or compost, bury the roots and leave the leaves exposed. 

I chose to plant in ceramic planters, only because it's been too cold to prep my garden bed. Some guides have said that I should use the amount lettuce of I've grown at this point and call it quits. Others say that I can keep trimming to soil level and get knew regrowth. I'm looking forward to seeing how many rounds I can go. 

End goal? If I only get 1 round of small leaves regrowth, I'll still save 25% on my produce purchasing. Hopefully, I can go multiple rounds, reducing my shopping by 50% or more.

Potatoes v2

So my 2nd potato plant was ready for harvesting, 5 weeks later than the 1st plant, and yielded 13 ounces of baby potatoes.

And boy, what beauties they are! There are still several super tiny potatoes but the larger ones are almost small russet sized!

My full harvest from this plant:

And one of the larger potatoes in my hand for scale:

Lesson learned: keep the plants alive for as long as possible for full sized potatoes. I still have one plant left, a red potato I planted in June: I'm looking forward to seeing how my red potatoes fare in a couple months.

Real world savings? 13 oz potatoes for $0.00. 

 

WE HAVE BABIES! (Potatoes, that is.)

I started my early adulthood thinking I had a black thumb. All of my plants never lasted more than a few months. Then I realized I was always buying annuals. :)

A few years ago, I bought a cherry tomato starter plant at the Vashon Island farmer's market, and it grew rapidly taller, and grew beautiful little super sweet cherry tomatoes (in fact, the type was "Sweet Million"), and it renewed my faith that I might be able to not kill a plant.

Fast forward to this year, and I'm still not an amazing gardener, but after finding some sprouted potatoes in my pantry, I decided to try my hand at growing potatoes.

First, I found a YouTube video to give me some basic pointers, and I put the sprouted potatoes in some planters. The smaller planter ended up in my windowsill and sprouted quickly with lush green leaves. The larger planter had to stay outside and got a little slower start due to the cold.

Last month, the Seattle area finally started thinking about having Spring/Summer, and it was time to transplant the planters into the garden, because I didn't feel like my planters were quite large enough.

Well, the plants that started outdoors are still growing, and the leaves look green and healthy. The plants that started indoors didn't transplant as well. The leaves started yellowing, then wilting, and then dying altogether. YouTube tells me this means the potatoes are "done", but I was pretty sure this was a failed batch, since the plants died so quickly after transplant.

Tonight, I decided to play in the dirt to see if there was anything there, and lo and behold - I found over a dozen baby potatoes!!

Here's another shot with my hand for scale. Some are like small marbles, while others are almost new potato sized. Keep in mind that the parents(?) were regular russets, so even the larger ones are pretty small. I cooked one up and sure enough, it tastes like a potato. I can only imagine that the other plant, which will have more growing time, will result in larger more flavorful potatoes.

Overall, I'm pretty excited that I successfully grew something new, with very little effort. As you can see, I had no controls in place - some were started inside, some were started outside, I transplanted halfway through because I didn't have large enough containers. I watered them when I remembered to, but took a lot of short vacations and weekends away... Seattle has been temperamental weather wise, and ultimately, there have been few sunny days. Seems that potatoes are pretty easygoing. If I can do it, anyone can!

It's Alive!

Hi lovelies,

So I've been pretty busy adulting the last few weeks: stretched thin at work, buying new carpet for our house, etc. What this means is that I neglected some basil that I had bought for meal prep.

I was reading some tips about keeping ypur cut herbs longer, and the tip for basil was to put it in a cup of water in the windowsill vs. keeping it in your fridge. So there it was in the windowsill, in a cup of water, for a couple weeks. Every odd once in a while, I'd top off the water, but I never did get around to my recipe.

I kindof assumed it would just die and go to waste, but to my surprise, I checked on it today, and IT HAD GROWN ROOTS!

Now, mind you, this was not one of those fancy "living herbs" with the rootball still intact. No, this was just plain cut basil. Who knew that it could regrow roots from essentially, a leaf? Is this the earthworm of plants, that can regenerate after being cut in half?

So, after the surprise wore off, I decided to plant my new basil plant in dirt, and enjoy my accidental herb garden. Check out that growth on the top couple inches - it looks like I'll have many more basil leaves to come.

I rarely buy fresh herbs, in part because of how expensive they are and I rarely need the whole package during its normal shelf life. Now that I have a plant that I can trim leaves as I need them, I'll be enjoying fresh herbs more often and saving about $4 per recipe.  Cheers to a happy discovery!

Potato Progress

Quick update, friends: I'm not sure what it looks like inside the pot, but what's happening above the soil is super promising. These are the little sprouted potatoes I planted last month! :-D

Regrow: Tomatoes and Potatoes

I'm starting to think about a spring garden. There's nothing tastier than a tomato that's 10-seconds fresh off the plant, and you know that you grew it yourself!

The good news is tomatoes are SUPER easy to grow (I am not careful with reading directions, and not a patient care-giver.) This year I'm going to try potatoes as well. Both tomatoes and potatoes are grown from scraps or waste.

True confession: around Thanksgiving, Safeway had "Buy a 10 LB Bag of Potatoes / Get One Free" special. I made my way through the first bag, left the second in the garage, and now have a bag of sprouted potatoes. It seems like a huge waste of food, even if they were free, hence my desire to start growing potatoes this year. :)

If you want to sprout potatoes on your own, leave them in your pantry in their regular bag for a month or so, and they will sprout on their own.

So I'm reading up on how to go about planting these, and the interwebs recommend cutting the potatoes into pieces, with each piece containing a couple sprouts. Then you leave them out for 24 hours before planting 4" deep in soil. They say potatoes do best in 45-80 degrees F, so these will be started inside in planters. I'm still early in this process and will keep you posted in the coming months about the results.

A couple weeks ago, I decided to start my tomatoes. I've been doing tomatoes the last few years, but have been starting too late, planting my seeds around April, and unfortunately losing a lot of green tomatoes in October. So, this year, I figured I'd get the ball rolling in February, and am hoping for a fuller season. Yup, these sprouts are just a couple weeks old!

Getting the sprouts started is as easy as starting with a tomato. I took a regular tomato that I was dicing for dinner, and scraped the seeds straight into a 1" deep pocket in the soil, pulp and all. You don't need to clean or dry the seeds, and bonus, they were free. Add a little water, forget about them for a few days, and you've got sprouts!

Once the weather warms up, and your seedlings are about 6" tall, you can transfer them from their indoor pot into the garden. You'll want to plant them on a very sunny side of your house, and once they're outside, they'll need daily watering or a drip sprinkler. Lots of sun + lots of water = lots of tomatoes!  

Happy almost spring, everyone. What are you thinking of planting this year?

Regrow: Onions and Garlic and Scallions, Oh My!

Did you know: it's super easy to regrow a lot of vegetables and herbs from your scraps?

For years, I would buy green onions as garnish for tacos or nachos, use about 1/2 of one green onion, and then forget about them in the produce drawer until they were a rotten mess. I started reading about how you can regrow the allium (onion) family pretty easily, as long as you have the base or roots left.

What you need:

• some partially used onions
• a glass
• 1/4 cup of water

Yep, that's it. Set the green onions upright in the glass and add enough water to cover the roots. Add water every few days as the level goes down. The onions will last a few weeks with no additional care.

In fact, they just keep growing! You'll get several inches of growth. Just snip off what you want to use when you're ready for it, and it will just keep growing. 

I found that with just water, the onion does start to wither after a few weeks; however, you can also choose to plant the onions in soil for a longer growth cycle.

This technique of simply setting the roots in water should work for the entire onion family. Give it a try with yellow onions, garlic, and shallots too.

Now you'll always have onions available for some extra flavor. T likes to tease me when I snip some off into our scrambled eggs: "Gee, I wish we had some fresher onions!"

Savings: About $10/year