Easy Hydroponic Seed Starting Factory

Patti Moreno's super awesome Hydroponic Seed Starting Factory.

December Ezine

From the Sustainable Home Front I am super proud to bring you issue two of Urban Sustainable Living, it is probably too long for a traditional email, but will be a great resource later, on the website. This issue is jam packed with information from planning next year's garden to delicious holiday recipes. In my garden, my Asian greens and Four Season lettuce is doing great under my hoop houses and I have started to prepare for Mel of Square Foot Gardening's arrival and our three day shoot together. Check out my new video with Mark Highland where we use a soil test kit over on the Fine Gardening blog here. Please leave a comment and show your support for sustainable living. I am also super busy launching my retail line of products. My products are only available at stores, as I do my part to support local, family owned garden centers. If you live in the Dallas Area, you can by my DVDs and other great stuff at North Haven Garden Center, and if you live in Vermont go to Gardener's Supply in Burlington. If your local Garden Center doesn't carry my products ask them to check out my line and contact me. Have a happy holiday season this year and come and share your thoughts with all of us at www.gardengirltv.com/messageboard. Thank you and enjoy! Patti Moreno the Garden Girl Cover Photo Fred Dunn www.fredsfinefowl.com

Welcome to the Ezine!

The Sustainable Home Front

A brand new garden

Alternative Energy

Staying Balanced through the Holidays

Little House in the Suburbs

Pumpkin Pie

The Chicken

A Real Estate Lender Plants a Garden!!! I'm a 36 year old commercial real estate lender in the Seattle area with two young boys and a stay-at-home wife. Growing up, my mother had two raised beds in our small back yard where she grew tomatoes, cucumbers and onions, among other things. But I was never into gardening. I have a ¼ acre lot that I hated to mow, let alone landscape and I can't even keep houseplants alive. So how did a black thumb turn into an avid gardener? My garden all started from a discussion with my older brother. A year ago I had a 250 SF area of my yard that used to be a dog run. In the decade since we owned our home, we never really went back there and it became blighted with foot tall and deep weeds, a crab apple tree and morning glories galore! Talking it over with my brother, who had picked up the gardening bug and had three raised beds in his yard, he suggested I turn the area into a garden.The area had a perfect southern exposure and was already fenced in. At first I laughed at him, but the idea kind of grew on me. About that same time, I was speaking to my best friends from college about starting a garden. My buddy recommended that I read Mel's Square Foot Gardening book. My brother was very skeptical, but I read it anyway and was hooked! It was so easy, anyone could do it. Finally, as if I needed further encouragement, I had enrolled in a blood pressure reduction program at work. The health counselor went through all the standard litany of methods to reduce blood pressure, but I was already doing them all. It ended up boiling down to stress reduction. With a stressful job and a young family, I had no time for stress relieving hobbies. So when I suggested gardening, the counselor was very excited. Gardening is a great stress relief and the byproduct is nutritious fruits and vegetables. So I turned to the internet to research gardening. I've found that I'm really good at research, and I am a quick learner. That and I love helping people, so I try to answer questions on various gardening forums whenever I can, of course while I'm learning from others.I write about my mistakes, my challenges, and how I overcome them. I've made more mistakes in my first season gardening than I can count. The funny thing is, the garden grew anyway! Mostly though, along the way this season I've made lasting friends, dozens of them. Gardeners are the friendliest, most helpful people on the planet. It's not a competition, it's a camaraderie. By Sinfonian Barelytone Talk to him over at the message board!

Alternative Energy Projects for the Homestead My wife and I became interested in alt. energy in 1995 when we first got access to the internet at home. I had seen solar panels installed at some buildings here in West Virginia, and was fascinated by the idea of self generated power that I knew was clean and green. After researching solar and wind power over the years we finally decided to try solar power first. Having a little working knowledge of electricity also helped. We watched videos of self installations and gained enough confidence to try it. We started small with one 80 watt panel and two 12v batteries and had success! Once we were successful with this project, it gave us encouragement to try some other projects including a small wind generator and a bicycle powered generator. I don't know how best to explain it but once we saw the working end result of our labor we were quickly enticed to do more. There is just something wonderful and gratifying about generating some of your own power, especially when you did the installation yourself. Saving money was also an incentive for all of our alternative energy projects. Initially we realized a small savings on our power bill but were able to capitalize on the Federal tax break of 30% on the purchase price of our solar panels. The savings have became larger as we expanded the system and began practicing reduced consumption methods such as compact fluorescent lighting and reducing "Phantom Loads". The whole experience has taught us self confidence and a much greater working knowledge of alternative energy, and how to be more self reliant. We have some alt. energy projects still on the drawing board and are looking forward to 2009. Have fun and enjoy! Ron and Pam Smith

Staying Balanced Through The Holidays By Cynthia McKenna The holidays are coming! There are usually lots of opportunities to gather, see friends and family, eat great food, and generally celebrate. However, the holidays can also bring on added stress and grief if we lose sight of our goals and get swept up in the many demands that come our way. Navigating through this season can be tough. Here are some steps to help you maintain a sense of balance and hopefully have more space for delight and joy. Food This is a season for eating. There are special meals, extravagant desserts, and lots of snack foods to enjoy. The downside is that it is not uncommon for people to gain 5 or even 10 pounds during the holidays. Here are some ways to avoid the gift of extra weight this season: Plan what you want to eat before you get to the food. Think about what foods really appeal to you, and how much you want to have. It might even help to tell your partner or companion what you are planning to eat. Eat slowly. Take the time to really savor each bite. Pay attention to the colors, textures, and aromas that make foods special. Concentrate on conversation. If you are at a party or similar event, allow yourself to indulge in the company of others. Take the opportunity to get to know someone new. Introduce yourself and perhaps make a new friend or rekindle an old friendship. When you are having a good time, you might not be so tempted to overeat. Alcohol has a lot of calories and carbohydrates. Try alternatives like juice or sparkling water. Put good things into your body as often as possible. Keep exercising through the holidays. Exercise burns calories, helps you release stress and brings oxygen into your body. Make your self-care a priority, even during this busy time. Finances For many of us, this is a gift giving season. If your family traditions include gifts during the season, these ideas can help. Talk with your partner about what you both want to spend and can afford to spend this season. Gift buying is easier to manage when you start with your goal in mind. Recognize that advertisers and the media really want you to spend - that is their goal. If you have children, you can use the media blitz as an opportunity to teach them about media pressure. You can make a game out of identifying what the commercials are telling you to buy or do. Older kids can identify what advertisers are promising you with their products (happiness, love, etc). In some families, there is a myth that the size or cost of a gift represents how much you love the person you are gifting. This can be a trap for over-spending. If you recognize this in yourself, or in your family, perhaps you can begin to think about gifts as tokens of affection rather than symbols of how much a person means to us. If you stop to think about it, we can't ever really give someone a gift that is equal to our love for them. A gift is a chance to say, "I am thinking about you and celebrating our relationship." This is a good time to celebrate the gifts we give daily: love, kindness, compassion, and laughter. Consider using food from your garden as gifts. Make a compound butter combining one stick of butter and fresh or dried herbs (try basil, oregano, thyme, or even lemon juice and capers) put butter mixture on wax paper and roll into a tube, refrigerate or freeze. Look for locally grown foods for gifts. I live just down the road from a pecan orchard and family and friends now look forward to getting their pecans for the holidays. My mom always sends my sister and I roasted and peeled green chili from New Mexico. Simple gifts, but they bring a lot of joy (and good flavors!) Family Some people have great relationships with their families and cannot wait to get together for the holidays. For others, families are both a source of joy and stress. Navigating the family demands during the holidays can be tricky. Here are a few things to keep in mind. Begin by talking with your partner about what the holidays mean to each of you. What are your own desires and expectations? What foods or activities are really important and which ones don't mean so much? In answering these questions, you begin to get a vision of how you two would like to spend the holidays. With this understanding and vision in mind, you can make better decisions with regards to family expectations. If your family always gets into arguments during the holidays, there is every reason to expect arguing this year, too. It is easy to get caught up in wishing that the family were different, or somehow better, or... This wishing is okay, but it can ruin our holidays if we are focusing on the ways people don't measure up. Recognize (and maybe say out loud) that no family is perfect. You might try saying to yourself, "Yes, that is how Grandpa always is," or even sigh with relief that you have moved out of the dysfunction and now are only a visitor. Plan some time for you and your partner to be alone. Actually schedule it on the calendar. Get a babysitter and take time for yourselves. It is so easy to get caught up in trying to see all the family members or attend all the parties and forget to nurture ourselves. Check in with each other, enjoy each other and celebrate the life you are building together. Here is a wish for you and your family to have safe and happy holidays. ~Cynthia Cynthia McKenna, LPC, NCC, is a gardener and writer who lives in South Texas. Cynthia is also a therapist who helps women reduce anxiety and depression and find ways to live their fullest lives. You can visit her on the web at http://www.cynthiamckennacounseling.com

Little House in the Suburbs By Luci Fernandez I get plenty of quizzical looks from neighbors as they walk past my house in an older neighborhood in North Carolina, "What is she doing with her front yard?" I didn't really have a well-thought plan when I started on my urban homestead venture a couple of years ago. Over the past few years, I have sought to get a deeper connection to where our food comes from and to teach my children that an awareness of what we eat and how we live are very important things to know and understand. My work in the energy field has given me awareness into how much energy we use to get our food from the farm to the table in this country. I wanted to take action, producing at least some of your own food is key factor in reducing one's carbon footprint. Replacing the front lawn was a top priority because lawns represent a tremendous amount of waste - high water and chemical usage on potentially usable land for growing food. This step would definitely make an impact and get other folks thinking, 'hmm, why is she doing that?"..... One of my first projects was to plant Provence lavender alongside the front walk leading to the front door. I planted 2 dozen of these in the early spring. The lavender took wonderfully to the very sunny spot and sandy soil. I harvested my first lavender harvest that summer to use in sachets. The heady aroma as you come up the walk is most enticing-my own little piece of Provence in the burbs! I also planted a small herb garden near the kitchen door; I included thyme, mint, dill, basil and rosemary. I now have fresh herbs throughout the year for my cooking. Chickens were the next project. I got two chickens from my college roommate, who was on the same path as me, learning to become more self-sufficient. These are good egg layers with a good temperament. I haven't had store-bought eggs in over a year. I had a combination chicken coop/garden shed built in the shady backyard. Our ordinances allow up to 10 fowl within city limits. I added two more chickens to my flock this past summer, a white Orpington and a Sussex. I have convinced a few neighbors that backyard chickens are a great way to have local food and they are great for the kids to learn about (I end up giving impromptu tours of the chickens!). In the backyard, in addition to the chickens, I have established my compost area. All my kitchen waste goes to one of 4 zones: the regular compost bin, the chickens, the red-wriggler worms or the Solar Cone in the front yard (only meat goes in here). I will use the compost to amend the soil in the raised beds I have built in the front yard. This past spring, my husband and I built raised beds for the front yard. I planted tomatoes, beans, lettuce, watermelon, green beans, peppers and eggplants. My soil in these beds will benefit from the compost that includes the chicken poop - next year I expect a bumper crop! Summer, I added my first bee-hive. I have yet to harvest the honey. The honey bees loved the lavender blossoms in the front yard. My plant selection for the flower beds includes plants that are attractive to insects. I have seen many butterflies, hummingbirds and bumble bees all enjoying the flowers over the summer. This fall I am growing cabbage and fall lettuce. My tomato plant, eggplant and peppers are still producing fruit. I will plant two fruit trees and blueberry bushes this fall to increase my fruit production. Having had very little gardening experience prior to this, I am happy that I have been able to incorporate so much of what I have learned from others. If I can inspire others to incorporate producing their own food into their daily life and leading a more eco-conscious life, then I have been successful!

Holiday Treat By Dana Wright Pumpkin Pie Ingredients: 9 inch pie 1/2 cup pumpkin 2 eggs 2/3 cups milk 2/3 cups sugar 1/4 t salt 1/4 t ginger 1/4 t nutmeg 1 t cinnamon 1/8 t cloves 50 min bake time. To Prepare Pie Crust Evenly brush sides, then bottom of a graham cracker crust with 1 beaten egg yolk. Bake crust for 5 minutes at 375 degrees and remove from oven. (Put the leftover egg white plus any leftover egg yolk in pumpkin pie filling). To Prepare the Pumpkin Use any firm pumpkin flesh scraped from your pumpkin. Don't use the skin or seeds. Boil until soft (like you would potatoes). Drain and mash. Firmly pack pumpkin when measuring, being sure to drain off any excess liquid. To Prepare Pie Filling Combine pumpkin, eggs, milk, sugar, salt, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves in blender or mixer. Blend until smooth. Pour into prepared crust and bank at 375 degrees F. 10 inch Pie 1 1/2 c pumpkin 3 eggs 1 cup milk 1 cup sugar 3/8 t salt 3/8 t ginger 3/8 t nutmeg 1 1/2 t cinnamon 1/4 t cloves 65 min bake time. (Photo courtesy of www.pumpkinpie.com) Check out more Recipe's on our message board and if you have questions, leave them for Dana aka Garden Green

Tale of a New Garden or, My Fun With Excel We moved to a new house this year, so my gardening plans had to change. I had experience with container gardening in Florida (note to self: use an automatic watering system next time or the plants will die again). Here, I have a Backyard. In case you city types aren't familiar with these incredible spaces, a Backyard is an outdoor expanse of ground, all in one place, usually covered with a green substance called grass. It is not green-colored substrate like the running track at the gym. As soon as I saw my new Backyard, ideas started swirling in my head-swingsets, kiddie pools, fancy-schmancy multi-level decks..... Forget big, space-hogging decks. No swingset, that's what the park around the corner is for. Kiddie pool? Only if it'll fit in the space left when I'm done with my new Idea. I want raised beds, chickens, rabbits and lots of other things I don't know about yet. I want a new garage-but that's a whole separate story. We moved in April, so it was difficult to get seeds started and into the ground at the right times, but we managed to have a little garden. I couldn't do it Patti-style yet due to time and budget constraints, so we decided to just do something. We put in a plot in the ground, out of which we were able to get a pretty decent amount of veggies. In an attempt to utilize every bit of space in our yard, we tried some crazy things just to see if they would work, as shown by this picture to the right. Yes, that is corn growing in the one-inch space between the driveway and the chain link fence, true urban style! We also used the fence on the other side of the yard for snap peas and melon. I wasn't happy, though. I started playing with Microsoft's Excel program, toying with square foot gardening spacings, filling up the eight raised beds I plan to have next year. I believe I have found a pretty good mix of tried-and-true vegetables that my family likes as well as some new ones that sound intriguing. I came up with something like the chart to the left. I'm in NE Ohio (zone 5/6), so I had to be creative with placing some of the specific vegetables since some of my beds will be partially shaded for the latter part of the day (until I can get this great big tree out of the way). I have lots of asparagus-we love asparagus-in bed 1 and pole beans in bed 2. Along the left sides of beds 3, 5 & 7 are summer squash & zucchini, which will be trellised up to the edge of the neighbor's garage. The rest of those beds contain peppers (sweet and hot), bush beans (green and wax), brussels sprouts, eggplant, cucumbers and cantaloupe. Beds 4, 6 and 8 have more tomatoes, okra, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, radishes, onions, beets, pumpkin, winter squash, watermelon, snap peas, parsnips, garlic and carrots. I also have 3 separate, smaller boxes that will contain lettuces, greens and Junior's garden. Phew! It's impossible to see the details with the picture so small, but I am very excited to see this jungle growing! Please follow this link to our message board where I posted a more readable link!

The Chicken Woven into the human experience throughout modern history. By Frederick J. Dunn w A source of science, social observation, inspiring to poets like Robert Frost, a nutritional necessity or merely a pet that produces, this is gallus domesticus. The modest chicken, historically so common in the door yard, has been, is, and should continue to be, commonplace in neighborhoods throughout the world. Take any period movie from the shelf or video rental store. how often are chickens seen just getting out of the way of the wagon wheel, picking through trash on the streets of old England, moving aside from the broom of a 12th century hand maiden? The chicken has been at arms length in many households around the world. Their availability for immediate observation has been the source for human/chicken comparisons and deep thinkers watch at length, contemplating the origins of such a useful bird. Any scholar would be hard pressed, to truly pin down the first domestication of this diverse and often stunningly beautiful bird. They are written into documents as a domesticated animal, extending back as far as 3000 B.C.! Modern science and efficient mass management, have made the egg protein, among the most beneficial and affordable foods to occupy a grocery cooler shelf. Thus, successfully removing this long domesticated bird, from the warm hands of our children and daily lives. Today, many people have never even seen a chicken in the flesh, save that it be already dressed and packaged in the meat department. So, what is it about the domestic chicken, which makes it such a wonderful companion bird on the human homestead? Why is it tailor made for urban settings? For these answers, we simply go the chicken's inherent behavior. What's a chicken in the first place? Don't worry, you won't receive a genetic history here, I leave that to Darwin and other genetic researchers of days gone by... A chicken is originally jungle fowl and was probably first observed by hunters. The chicken was easy to find, because, unlike most of our native wild birds today, chickens are gallinaceous, which means, among other things, that chickens are resident birds. They could be found in the same nesting area time and again, where their eggs and even offspring could be harvested/collected, with relative ease. This fundamental instinct in the chicken, makes the domesticated version, easy to keep and manage in nearly any homestead (city or country). People like to keep their animals, chickens included, in predictable and easy to maintain domiciles, convenient to their own living quarters. In some cultures, the chicken even occupies the same living space as its owner. People and chickens are symbiotic, people cast off uneaten food and other waste material, which the chicken thrives on. In return, the chicken, being highly prolific and predictable, produces eggs or chicks in great numbers. Chickens were among the first homestead recycling systems. Many people enjoy the company of a bird which is not only useful for utility, but also fills a need for companionship in many cases. Chickens have specific vocabularies, the hen more than the rooster, and do murmur, cluck and chatter away at their keepers. In turn, some keepers talk frequently to their birds. The rooster is an alarm clock and would crow with great regularity. Chickens in all their adaptability, even come to tolerate being held and some actually insist on lap sitting, or perching on the arm of someone snapping beans on the porch. Put up a small chicken residence (coop) and chickens would return to the building they were raised in, even if given free range, the birds returned unaided, to their home by night fall. Birds, so easily conditioned and so hearty in their ability to subsist on forage, were bound to be a part of the human homestead from the start. Today, there is a breed of chicken for virtually any environment and a personality tailored to that of its potential keeper/owner. From the Jersey Giant, to the tiny Serama, people have bred the chicken to nearly every foreseeable form and disposition suited to a particular end use. I would suggest, that bringing back this meaningful and indeed, beautiful bird, to our backyards and into the joyful care of our children, will serve to enhance and indeed improve, the overall life experience once known to virtually everyone. Every person should know the joyful shriek of a child, gathering a fresh egg, still warm from the hen and carefully delivering the same to your kitchen counter. Few pets are so inexpensively kept, so easily reared, so responsive to human interaction and ever so adaptable to virtually any climate. From the Great Wall of China to the Pyramids of Giza, all were built with domesticated chickens in their shadow and eggs in their stomachs of those who did the work. www.fredsfinefowl.com w

The Last Word: Organic Soil by Mark Highland www.organicmechanicsoil.com Creating rich, living soil that crumbles like chocolate cake may sound like the most daunting task to undertake in any garden. It reality, it is not that hard. Anywhere new home construction takes place, you can be almost certain you do not have good garden soil. There are exceptions to this rule, but how many of you actually measured the inches of soil before you bought the house. ;-) Rehabilitating soil takes a few weekends, some elbow grease, and usually, lots and lots of compost. You can make compost yourself at home, or for larger projects find bagged goods at your local independent garden center. Soils are influenced by the parent material, so in college I gardened in sandy soils in Florida. I moved onto the volcanic soils of Oregon, then moved back to the east coast to the clay soils of Pennsylvania. While these soils are fundamentally different, they all equalize in the vegetable garden. Adding organic matter or compost enhances soil food web productivity and gives life to the garden. To begin understanding your soil, get out there and grab a small handful, 4 Tablespoons for you techies, put a splash of water on the soil and ball it up in your hand. Now try to make a ribbon with it. If you get lots of cracks, you have lots of sand. Smooth ribbons, no cracks, you have clay soils. Now rub your fingers together, feel like flour? It means you likely have a good bit of silt as well. This test gives a measure of soil texture. Texture describes the soils ability to provide water and oxygen for roots. That "garden-of-eden" soil I described would not form ribbons too well because of the high organic matter content desirable in a vegetable garden. Highly organic, living soils have excellent soil texture since they hold moisture well yet allow air into soils for roots to breathe. Soil testing shows a profile of the soil's nutrient reserves and provides advice on adding soil amendments and minerals to balance soil nutrition. Soil tests are available through your local land-grant university, which involves sending about two cups in for testing. Search online to find sample or submission forms for cooperative extension programs in your county. Those who favor instant gratification can head down to the local garden center and pick up small rapid test kits for pH, Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium. pH tells you about nutrient availability in soils. Plants like azaleas or blueberries prefer acidic soils (5.0); however, the vast majority of plants are happy in soils closer to neutral (7.0). Knowing pH tells you how much lime to add if any is needed. Lime raises pH of soil, a perennial problem since rain in North America is on the acidic side. Nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P), and Potassium (K) are the big three nutrients found on any bag of fertilizer. These nutrients help plants grow and produce fruit. "N for shoots, P for fruits, and K for roots" is the easy way to remember what fertilizers to use at different stages in a plant's life. Organic nutrients will always have low numbers as compared to chemical nutrients - but organics pack a bigger punch in the long run. My hands-on test for soil quality involves seeing how far a trowel sinks into the soil with nothing but dead weight pushing it down. Do this test in early spring, as the ground gets harder naturally as summer begins to dry things up. Just an inch is hard-pan soil, needing amendment. If it sinks to the hilt easily, that's good garden soil. DIY soil warriors can start by getting two indispensable tools, a shovel and a digging fork. Now is not the time to skimp on quality as these tools do the work in soil. Drop forged steel makes long lasting tools. Plunge the shovel one length deep, make a circle and turn over the shovel of earth. The next plunge should be about 5 inches away, making a half-moon shape of soil to turn over. Continue this process along the edge of your new garden bed. Go back and slice through each clump of turned over soil to begin breaking it up in rough chunks. Continue this process in strips until the entire garden bed area has been turned over once. Now add compost over top. Add three to six inches at once, then plunge digging fork to maximum depth, turn over forkful of soil to mix compost with native soil, and repeat across entire garden bed. Sounds like a lot but only takes a few hours to finish about 100 square feet. You can do it! Get a soil test, get a good digging shovel, get lots of compost, and get started making great garden soil! Don't forget to check out the new videos Mark and I made here: How to test your garden soil: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx7JjPmsaZc How to make compost tea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1_1Jy5GPno

Please continue to share my videos and website with everyone. Thank you all again, from the sustainable home front. And don't forget it all started in a garden... Besos(kisses), Patti Moreno, the Garden Girl

If this email has been forwarded to you please click below to...

For Tips on gardening & Urban Sustainable Living subscribe to Garden Girl TV via rss feed by clicking here...

rareseeds.com

Planting garlic

This Lawn is Your Lawn

Eco Friendly Christmas

October Ezine

Welcome to the Ezine! The Sustainable Home Front Fall Asian Garden Video on Fine Gardening Wild about Gardening P.Diddy Flies commercial Why I home School The Chicken Win Free Stuff! Flip that House Immoral? Energy Tips The Last Word The Sustainable Home Front Welcome to the first edition of Urban Sustainable Living the ezine. I've recruited a diverse group of people to shere their knowledge and experience with you about all things sustainable. You'll find articles from them below. You can also meet them on my message board. I have also uploaded some great new videos this month. You can find links below. Please check them out and share them with your friends. I have found myself watching the television news lately about the financial collapse like it is some sort of natural disaster, and take great solace when I get out in the garden on these crisp autumn days. The stories from my grandparents about the great depression are very much ringing in my ears and the importance of gardening and sustainable living becomes more important as the financial crisis continues to shake itself out through the global economy. There's lot's to check out this month and please remember to forward this e-zine along to anyone that may be interested. Feel free to comment on the new message board and share what you have learned to help inspire others. Thanks you all, Patti the Garden Girl New Garden Girl Videos Now online! Check out my brand new Fall Asian Garden video on Fine Gardening Magazine's Blog. This video shows me turning over my garden beds and starting my fall crop of Asian Greens. I love Asian Greens and here I am planting a Siamese Dragon Mix. Fall and winter doesn't mean the gardening season is over. Check out Eliot Coleman's book Four Season Gardening for a lot more on cold weather gardens. http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/videos/index.aspx?id=102432&c=5 My Omelette Video I swear, since owning an egg laying flock, I have tried to make everything I can with eggs. So here is a video starting with the basics, the cheese omelette. This is a simple, quick, and flavorful recipe. I hope you enjoy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TvQYiHCAEA Making Newspaper Pots My daughter Alejandra takes you through this great project, using recycled newspaper to make biodegradable pots for my seedlings. If a 10 year old can do it you can too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqywwIr5-aI Wild about Gardening ~by Cynthia McKenna I grew up in the high desert of Albuquerque - that translates to very little rain. I can well remember watching my mom mound the dirt around the cucumber plants to help retain water. I can also remember complete strangers showing up at our doorstep to praise mom for her beautiful gardens. Now a lively 85, mom is still gardening. I inherited her love for dirt and plants, and the anticipation of things to come runs through my bones. I've had a tiny apartment garden that was pretty successful. I even had a secret compost pile hidden near the apartment manager's office. Late at night, I would sneak out, dig a hole behind the overgrown hedge, and bury my kitchen scraps. This composting was so much fun - partly because it was clandestine, but also because it produced beautiful soil with very little effort. Now I live in the country, and gardening in the country is a whole new ball game. I have ample space to try 20 varieties of tomatoes instead of just growing one tomato in a container on the porch. There is room for pumpkin vines and giant Jerusalem artichoke plants. Strawberries share space with sage and thyme. It is all so lovely. But here is the rub: Living in the country means living with wild animals and wild animals are very interested in my garden. My country garden has been raided by: raccoons, possums, deer - white tail and axis, a porcupine with a penchant for Mortgage Lifter tomatoes. Tallulah - my yellow Labrador retriever, and most recently, some really dedicated earthworm-loving armadillos. So my gardening questions have evolved from, "What varieties of lettuce I should plant this fall," to "How can I create an organic garden that provides food for my family and keep out the __________?" (Fill in the creature of your choice.) To me, part of organic gardening means seeking peace with nature. I've come to the place where losing some plants to the local animals doesn't devastate me. I built a garden that has a good fence, and rock bottom to help keep out those armadillos. Gardening in the country is a delight. However, I never imaged my biggest challenges would be the wild animals that I love. I just don't love them in my garden. I have found that there is a gift in these garden visitors. Their destruction and persistence has caused me to talk with neighbors and gather the local wisdom. Lots of people have had successful gardens here, and I now have the regular opportunity to talk with them about what works, what they tried, how they managed the land and the creatures. By reaching out, I have become a better gardener and made new friends. ******** Cynthia McKenna is a therapist and Episcopal priest. When she's not working, she can often be found in her vegetable garden, water garden or relaxing with her three cats and three Labrador retrievers. http://www.cynthiamckennacounseling.com/Home.html Welcome to the Apocalypse: Even P. Diddy Can't Fly His Jet These Days P. Diddy, aka Sean Combs, doesn't have the money to fly his private jet these days. Diddy is a victim of the high cost of gas. Clearly the apocalypse is truly upon us, when rich guys are upset and suddenly have to fly commercial. Diddy begs the next president to do something as his lifestyle has been so drastically changed. "Gas prices are too motherf******g high," he ranted to fans in a recent YouTube video, which was shot by a member of his entourage as he wandered through an airport terminal. "As you know, I do have my own jet, but I've been having to fly back and forth to LA pursuing my acting career. Now, if I'm flying back and forth twice a month, that's like $200,000, $250,000 round trip. I'm back on American Airlines." Even An interesting take on the effects of Peak Oil on all of us. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yh1NHRP3NA Why I Home School Abbey Lehman When we found out that I was pregnant with our son, my husband and I lived in a school district that was known not for its prestigious awards and accomplishments, but for its bumbling mistakes and embarrassingly low graduation rates. We knew immediately that we would not be sending him to the public schools if we hadn't moved by the time he was five, but we weren't sure what we *would* be doing. We didn't give it much thought until well after he was born. Two years later, Junior was amazing us daily with his ability to understand learn and mimic. We thought we had a genius on our hands, but what parent doesn't? We started thinking about the options we thought we had-Catholic school and private school. We hadn't really "heard" of homeschooling yet-it was mostly in one ear and out the other when we heard the word. One day while speaking with my mom, she mentioned that she had considered homeschooling my sister and I when we were young, but had allowed her family to talk her out of it. Looking bad, she wished she had at least given it a shot, since the public school system hadn't done wonders for Sis and me. I got to thinking about it and I hit the internet that evening. WOW was all I could say! There was SO much information out there; I didn't even know where to start reading about it, much less doing it! I read as much as I could, soaking up testimonials, studies, analyses, message board posts-everything. I started talking to Hubby about it daily, quoting this and that at him, and overloading him with information. He basically told me to back off, since he couldn't even think straight with so much at once (what can I say, I tend to hyperfocus J )! We temporarily dropped the topic when we transferred to Florida for work right after Junior turned three. We were there for two and half years, enough time for Junior to be in daycare for the very first time (another bad experience, story at eleven) and for him to enroll in *gasp* Public School. Unfortunately, Hubby and I were both working full time and needed to remain that way, so we didn't have the option of homeschooling. I had "worked on" Hubby since discovering homeschooling and he was s-l-o-w-l-y coming around to it, especially when he saw Junior reading at four-all from what I was doing in the evenings with him. Junior's Kindergarten teacher was wonderful-thank you God-so he did as well as I could expect. He was actually pretty bored, since Teacher said he didn't leave Kindergarten knowing anything more than what he knew going in-he was already at a first grade level. She cried when we pulled him at the end of February to move home to Ohio because she was losing her best test scores in Junior and had just received a new student who only knew the letter "X" and the number "3". Since we were moving near the end of the school year and because Ohio's compulsory attendance age is six, we decided that we would "try on" homeschooling that March through that August and see what we thought before we decided whether or not to enroll Junior in public school. I only needed to work two days per week at that point due to Hubby's better job, so it worked out perfectly. The rest is history J we love it so much that we wouldn't think of doing it any other way, even if I had to back to work full time. There are a number of things that we really see as being the BIG reasons that we, as a family, love homeschooling. First, we live on OUR schedule, not the schedule of some random, make-it-all-fit, stressed out administrator. Hubby works third shift now (as do I, on my two days), so this is a biggie for him. Junior and I are NOT, I repeat, NOT morning people, so this works out so well for us I can't even tell ya. Next, we can progress in each individual subject at the rate that is best for Junior, not the rest of his class. He excels in reading dramatically, so he's reading the same books that the fifth grader next door reads. He can stand in front of our family picture collage on the living room wall, knowing the age of one person in each picture and figure out the rest. *I* can't even do that without some serious brain crunching. He can follow a recipe by himself, figuring out doubling or halving as he goes. He's very uncoordinated, however, so the simple P.E. stuff is more his speed. His handwriting is a lot like his daddy's, too-almost scribbles-so getting him to write is an exercise in extreme patience, and even then it's iffy. Finally, our third main reason that locks us into homeschooling forever is that he's not learning how to gun someone down at school, how to most efficiently get through the metal detector lines, or how to get through life doing the bare minimum, which is the philosophy most schools teach these days, however subconscious it is. If you haven't made the decision yet to homeschool your child(ren), please note: The style, the curriculum or where you fall on the school-at-home (classic) to no-structure-at-all (unschooling) spectrum is not the most important part of your decision. Homeschooling is about you and your children doing what is best for your family. Some families even go back and forth, doing public school some years and homeschooling other years, depending how the needs of the family. And that is the best part of homeschooling-the freedom to do what is best for you and yours. You can reach Abbey at our messageboard www.gardengirltv.com/messageboard The Chicken, a domesticated bird, yesterday, today, and the role it may play in our future. Frederick Dunn, Of Fred's Fine Fowl As I'm writing this article, Oprah Winfrey is having a discussion on her program, regarding the label "free range" and where your food comes from. Chickens among other farm animals are in the main stream media frequently these days. Knowing where your food comes from is key to modern health and animal well being. It's important, in my thinking, to understand how the chicken has made almost universal contributions to human well being, throughout history and nearly every culture of the world. They are in our language, consider how often a term, relevant to chickens, is used in everyday speech. Like it or not, the chicken is apart of us. In this country (the United States), there has been a profound rise and fall, in poultry management and related poultry/egg health and nutrition through the years. Like anything else, when money drives the machine, surpassing all else, something will suffer in the end. Though I will focus on chickens in this and articles to come, the underlying theme is, locally managed smaller flocks are as always, healthier, happier and more sensible regarding animal and human well being. Around the turn of the century (1900) somewhere around 40% of American families, or more, had backyard farm operations on a large or small scale. The casual observer knows, that rural America is dotted with one decaying farm after another, no longer worked. Large scale industry and importation have taken the place of the local family farm. Patti Moreno and others have it right, use everything you have available and reduce waste. Urban "Sustainable" Living, has a place for the domestic chicken (gallus domesticus) and it's relatives. It would be naïve to assume that everyone could be sustained by moving to the country and returning to the traditional family farm. However, what can be done, is bring manageable portions of agriculture to your own backyard. This is the current movement for the domestic chicken as well and it's exciting to see how many people are interested in bringing their food resources home "to roost". Consider the chicken's life in large scale industry, as compared to small scale micro-farms. This would not and could not, be for everyone everywhere. But won't you take a moment and learn about what the chicken really is and the contribution it has, does, and can make in modern American society? Frederick Dunn is the Author of Regarding Chickens. Meet him at Garden Girl's message board and check out his website: http://www.fredsfinefowl.com/ Win Free Stuff!!!! Want to win a DVD? Email me a Article about your Sustainable Life and win my DVD. There will be Five prizes so get yours in early! Nature Hills is having a great contest as well. Click & find out more! http://www.naturehills.com/green_america_awards.aspx Flip that House is Immoral TV For those that don't have cable TV, there is show called Flip that House: (http://www.actualreality.tv/production.html?production=flip) If you own cable than I am sure you have seen it. The show follows as someone, usually a new family, buying a house, re-designing and cleaning it up and then re-selling it at a profit. They never actually show someone selling the house, just a realtor telling the person, or victim, what they think the house is worth. The show is produced by R.J. Cutler of Actual Reality TV, basically is a slow motion car crash of the current American economic collapse. What I really challenge the producers, but more importantly the sponsors of that show is to show me what happened to those people and houses. I bet it is safe to say that there were many unhappy endings involved. Hey RJ, maybe you should do a show called "BailOut" and it is about how we the American people put together a class action suit demanding our 700 billion back from you and the Discovery Channel network and your sponsors. You know, something like a tobacco lawsuit, because you probably new that people were getting into trouble and this would surely lead the economy into crisis. This type of programming, and they have produced dozens of spin-offs, worked hand in hand with wall street, selling a giant pyramid scheme that has blown up in all of our faces. So write your congressman and ask them look into weather or not the Discovery Channel hid the true facts of what happened with their people and homes on "Flip that House". To send comments to the Discovery Channel encouraging them to Yank it from their programming: http://extweb.discovery.com/viewerrelations To send comments to RJ Cutler: showfeedback@arp.tv To Contact your congressman check this guide: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml A few things we can all do to save energy and money! Open blinds and Shades on cold days. By letting the sun in, you will get simple passive solar energy from the sun. Be sure to close them after the sun goes down. Use a pressure cooker or slow cooker, and try to cook more one pot meals. That will save energy from using all the burners on your stove. Use LED lights this Holliday Season. LED lights are much more efficient and look nice too. Lower the temperature of your thermostat and where knitted hats and sweaters in the house. The Last Word! Mark Highland the Organic Mechanic's Top 10 methods to build healthy soils 1. Compost! Make compost from garden debris / kitchen scraps and carbon (leaves, paper, straw) 2. Use compost as mulch 2x / year. 1"-2" in spring and again in fall - this builds soil organic matter. 3. Cover crops - leaving green understory plants vs. cover cropping for nutrients. 4. Compost tea. Brewed aerobically, research has shown it to improve plant health and disease resistance. 5. Stop tilling! Tilling destroys soil structure. Double dig new beds instead. 6. Raised beds warm up earlier in spring, created from scratch you have control over growing medium. 7. No pesticides, chemicals that harm soil flora and fauna and beneficial insects. 8. Harvest rainwater to use in your garden - replenish the local water table and encourage local soil biota. 9. Remineralize - Adding ground rock dusts, paramagnetic or otherwise, adds key micronutrients and essential elements vital to healthy plants. 10. Plant more plants! The annual growth cycle adds beneficial organic matter to soils as roots decompose. Please continue to share my videos and website with everyone. Thank you all again, from the sustainable home front. And don't forget it all started in a garden... Besos(kisses), Patti Moreno, the Garden Girl

My goat Asher had a boy! Isn't he cute? If this email has been forwarded to you please click below to... For Tips on gardening & Urban Sustainable Living subscribe to Garden Girl TV via rss feed by clicking here... All Natural Products It's Great Stuff, Try it! Use discount code GGTV for 10% off of your 1st on-line purchase. Check out the website at: gardengirlskincare.com. rareseeds.com