Garden Update

So here we are, one week after planting, with our first garden update! I could have updated everyone on the garden four days ago. No lie. Apparently cucumber and zucchini plants grow really.. really.. fast.

Day 3

Did I expect to see anything growing in three days? Holy cow no way. I expected tiny tiny barely visible is-that-a-leaf-or-a-piece-of-lint sprouts in, I dunno, a couple weeks? Wow I definitely did NOT expect to have such big, strong, healthy looking sprouts from MULTIPLE veggies! There are cucumbers (the tallest) and next to those, the zucchini, and at the bottom right, a small green bean sprout.

Day 6

This is what I came home to tonight. Giant cuke plants (I should probably transplant them tomorrow), the zucchini are on their way, and look at our little bean plant standing tall (with another one on it's way). If you look really hard, you can see a little teenie tiny sprout of baby spinach! I'd circle it for you, but that requires opening up Photoshop and connecting my tablet and I'm just too lazy right now.

Day 6

Tiny tiny carrot sprouts! I'm excited to have fresh carrots, but sad that I will only get six of them. :(

Day 6

Tiny tiny tomato sprouts! I'm really excited about tomatoes, not because I like them (I actually hate them) but because they're so pretty to look at. There's something about tomatoes on the vine that I just think is so pretty.

And there you have it! My garden thusfar. We still haven't had any pepper, jalepeno, or scallion sightings. I don't expect the scallions any time soon, but I'm really excited for the bell peppers, as they are my favourite vegetable.

I guess I have to say that if anyone is thinking about starting a veggie garden, starting the seeds off in the peat moss greenhouse thingies really work! It's also been really rainy and cloudy this past week. Mostly everything shot up today because they actually got to see sun and it warmed up their little hut nicely. I also talk to them, and tell them how awesome they are and that I love them. Try it! (They also like to be misted.)

Happy Gardening!

:: Celeste

Homegrown: Veggies, Herbs, and More!

It's that time of year again; SPRING! Though here in New England, the spring weather is just a tease right now, it's right around the corner. The trees are budding, the flowers are sprouting, and I have an itch to garden.

Which is strange, since I used to hate helping my mom in the garden.

Seriously though, I really have been having the itch to garden. I'm not very interested in flowers; they're pretty and all, but that's about it. So I decided (and we've talked about it so many times) to start a vegetable garden. I thought it would be pretty difficult seeing as how we live in a corporate building and there isn't much of anywhere to actually plant anything. Then I went to my parents' house and my dad showed me his garden (he's growing basil and rosemary I think. or is it Thyme..) and I knew I could do it to! (Because anyone who has been reading this blog knows that I do just about anything my parents do)

So I high tailed it to Job Lot and bought:

 

THIS AWESOME STARTER GREENHOUSE THINGY!

This was perfect for me for a number of reasons.

1. I have nowhere to grow
2. I have limited space indoors (seriously I have almost no counters with sun)
   
3. It was cheap

Mine came with 36 little peat moss pads for $5! FIVE DOLLARS. I'm pretty sure that's cheap! (The one pictured retails at $8.99 for 25 peat pads.)


It was super easy to use. I just had to water the pads until they expanded to the point of not taking anymore water in, sowed my seeds of choice, covered with a little bit of potting soil (you can probably get something more super awesome), misted it, covered it, put it in a sunny window. BOOM. Greenhouse.


I have two. One is the 36 seeder where I have:

• Tomatoes
• Carrots
• Cucumbers
• Zucchini
• Scallions
• Baby Spinach
• Green Beans

Then a 10 seeder that I have:

• Bell peppers (A variety of colours so I have no idea)
• Jalepeno peppers

Once these little guys reach transporting size (and I'm praying that they do), I'll be putting them in (painted of course) terra cotta pots outside. My house is conveniently built where if I go out the back, there's a section of the roof that is about waist high and gets full sunlight. :)


I will keep everyone updated on the progress of these plants and I encourage you all to make a mini garden and keep me updated! (I think this whole operation cost me all of $15)


Happy Gardening!


:: Celeste

Talk Clean to Me: DIY Salt Scrub

This is probably my most exciting post yet-- for me at least. I have a facial routine that I have recently realized is awesome on my skin, but not so much on my wallet. As a money saving fanatic, I overstepped my first rule (never purchase anything at full price [M.A.C excluded]) and became obsessed with the Store LUSH. This is Adam's fault. He showed it to me, I can't stop. My absolute favourite product is their Ocean Salt. You really can't beat it. I use it on my face every single day. The people at the store will widen their eyes and step back, but I'm tough. I will rub coarse sea salt over my skin every single day. Or at least I used to. When I had fewer bills and looser spending habits. Now we make a pot of it last 6 months between the two of us.

This morning, I noticed we are running (very) low. So I took a trip around the internet for some DIY recipes. Even lasting 6 months, I can't justify $34.95 for a facial scrub when my entire grocery bill is just over $60.

I was really in the mood to try my hand at making a scrub, but all the recipes I could find called for essential oils and I just don't have any of those at my house! So I went into the kitchen and made it up.

The first batch was a disaster and I'm sad about that because it used a lot of salt, EVOO, and all my lemon juice. Don't use EVOO if you don't want your face to smell like Italian food. I tried everything I could think of to neutralize the smell, but it was just too strong. By the end of it I had an oily mess that looked too similar to pee that I couldn't stand to look at it anymore.

Then I reached for an oil just because I liked the smell. I mixed it with the other things I wanted to throw in there, then hopped in the shower to wash my face. (I can't stand washing my face in a sink. Too much water where I don't want it)

Not to toot my horn too loudly, but I won't be buying Ocean Salt again for a long time. This is so inexpensive and easy to make (and I can't stop feeling my face! So soft!) I really encourage everyone to try this recipe.

Sea Salt: Any type will do. I had fine in my kitchen, but coarse is good too. It hurts though, so be careful haha

Baby Oil: If you don't have any at home, it's only about $4/20oz bottle and that will make about 10 batches, depending on how much you feel like making.

Citrus: I ran out of lemon juice on the crap batch, so I used a clementine.

Vanilla extract: For scent, I think. I don't actually know if vanilla does anything for the skin. It was in one of the recipes I couldn't use so I figured why not.

Now I don't have any exact measurements, I just fiddled around.

Pour your salt into a bowl and then slowly add the baby oil. Put a little in, mix it up and see where that gets you. It will seem like the salt is eating it up and then all of a sudden you might have oil pooling at the top before it even had a chance to sit. It happened to me a couple of times, don't worry.

• If you do end up with too much oil, you can empty your mixture onto a cloth (I used linen, but a tee shirt will do) and squeeze the excess out and let the cloth soak up some too. You might have to repeat this a couple of times
• You also want to probably put in less oil than you think you need because the citrus and the vanilla are also liquid and like I said, the oil pooling.. not so much fun.

It doesn't matter if you add the citrus or the vanilla next, just mix all your ingredients until you have your desired consistency. I think it works when it's like sandcastle sand. It might smell like, and sort of look like tasty and delicious cookie dough, but please resist the temptation or else you will be severely disappointed.

Store it in a tupperware near wherever you wash your face. I recommend scooping it out with a popsicle stick when you use it because you don't want any water to dissolve the salt.

Happy Exfoliating!

:: Celeste

Cut It Out: Saving Money Through Laundry

Yet anther topic just about everyone can relate to: Laundry. I have the fortune to not pay any utilities (my landlord rocks), but after years of living with my parents, I am well aware of what an expense laundry actually is. I have also learned, from having a pukey baby, laundry is never ending and just when you think you're fully stocked in detergent and dryer sheets, you're out at the store buying more. Tired of the seemingly never ending, "Oh honey, we need laundry detergent," I thought to to myself a whole bunch of what ifs. The what ifs turned to whens and now I share with you my laundry secrets.

Down With Sorting: Lump all your laundry together. Seriously. Down with sorting. When I did laundry for my mom, I was an obsessive sorter. White, Brights, Lights, Jeans/Blues, Blacks, Greys, Earth Tones. What the-- now that's out of control. Not only was I going totally overboard wasting time, but also wasting water and energy with smaller loads. This may not apply to larger families who can still sort and make full loads, but for my family of 3, it would probably take every white sock, shirt, and panty to make even a medium sized load.

I have yet to have any colors bleed onto anything else. The only times I actually sort is if I have new jeans or towels. Those will probably bleed for a few washes, but jeans and towels are big/heavy enough that I can make a decent load of them fairly quickly.

I also wash the baby's clothes with ours. Like the whites, it would take far  too long to conjure up a load worth the energy and water I'm using, what with his pants being a whopping 8 inches tall. A lot of moms couldn't believe I did this, I mean, don't you need to use special baby detergent? Well sure. I just wash our clothes in baby detergent too. No big deal.

Some Like it Hot: But the laundry doesn't. Washing clothes in cold water will save you money and the energy that is required for heating up the water for warm or hot wash cycles. I have been washing in cold since I've been washing and my clothes come just as clean, though this seems to be a topic of debate among germophobes. 

Throwing in the Towel: Washing a towel after every use is like washing PJ pants after every use. There's no real need. I mean, come on. What do you use a towel for anyway? To dry off. To dry off your clean body. Hang it up, let it dry, then use it for another two or three times. Cutting down the number of towel loads you do will cut down on everything big time. Towels, after all, take the longest to dry.

Recycle Denim: I used to think I was pretty grody for doing it, but apparently, it's more common than I thought! Wearing a pair of jeans two or three times a week, is another good way to save on laundry, much like the towels. Naturally, clothes get messy so if you drop the gravy train, by all means, please put them in the wash, but for a day of hanging out or errand running, throw them over the back of the chair (or in my case, the bassinet that I still have to move to the basement) and give them a little extra love later on before washing them.

Going Halfsies: See the 'fill line' on your detergent cup? Ignore it. If you use half the amount of detergent you normally would, I promise you won't notice a difference, and that's coming from someone who washes poopy diapers on the daily. (see my article on Cloth Diapers for cleaning and sanitizing)

While you're at it, nix liquid fabric softener altogether.

Walking the Line: If you have the opportunity to, (I can't wait) Line Dry. Clothes that are hanging out on a line get naturally freshened and softened by the air, and aside from a line of thin rope and clothespins, it's free! In the spring and summer months, unplug that dryer and get a little old fashioned. When I was a kid my mom used a clothesline and I used to love running through the sheets and the towels. The clothes always smelled so good too.

In the winter months or rainy days, a drying rack can be used in place of the clothesline. It doesn't have the same effect as line dried clothes, but for those of you gung-ho about significantly reducing the use of your dryer, it is a pretty good alternative. My mom used to dry all my jeans this way because teen jeans are made of so much spandex they just love to shrink in the dryer.

My mom also uses the pipes in her laundry room (in the basement) to things like dress shirts, chef coats and anything with beading or sequins on it. If my laundry room weren't 5x5 I'd come up with something creative like that, but it's dryer central for me for now. 

The way I Felt: Literally. Felt. Or rather, felted wool. Felted wool dryer balls.

Wool Dryer Balls

These are great, and I only just started using them in place of dryer sheets. I have heard of people using tennis balls, but the general consensus I have found was that wool balls are preferred. They get all up in between your clothes, cutting dry time (and for anyone paying their own electric that's a big hooray). I'm sure the more you put into the dryer, the more you can cut down on time. I have two of them, both of them on the smaller side and I've noticed that with large loads, the dry time is shorter by 15 minutes (75min to 60min), and smaller-medium loads by 15-20 minutes. I'm sure my landlord is thanking me.

I hate dryer sheets. Really. I think maybe I'm just a little crazy but one of my household pet peeves is the remains of the dryer sheet while I'm folding laundry. 

The wool balls do everything a dryer sheet is meant to do. They reduce static and they soften your clothes (so you really can nix the fabric softener), even jeans! They do get a little pilly, but you can shave them down with a sweater shaver/sweater brick, or leave them! I leave the pills on mine because I read somewhere that the pills create extra surface texture, making your clothes softer.

But really, the best thing about these? You can make them yourself. (Tutorial HERE at GoodMama) And I really mean you can. You don't have to have a crafty bone in your body, and you can still make them. Just make sure that you get felting wool yarn, not machine washable yarn. While wool is expensive, I don't know if it is any more expensive than other yarns, since I am not a knitter. I paid $6 for my wool yarn and got 3 dryer balls out of it. I like to think that $6 to cut out the cost of ever having to buy dryer sheets again, plus the savings on your electric bill is absolutely justified. My mom did say she saw felting yarn, for $1 at Job Lot, but I haven't checked it out yet.

Happy Laundering! 

:: Celeste