Posts from the ‘greening’ Category

I happily finished one of my craft projects in time for the sale.  Muslin market bags – ones to take to the farmers’ market or any market and fill with produce.  Next time I will go for the bigger size; these are a little small.  But nice for a bunch of carrots or some onions or garlic, or a few apples.

And I am getting even better at printing on fabric; at last I am developing some better techniques.  It is helpful to minimize the number of stampings on each piece; 2 was just about right.  I still love carving using the rubber carving blocks.  You can’t get the same detail as with linoleum, but it is better to keep it simple when printing on fabric anyway.  And the ease of carving – particularly on the onions, made it so fun to do.  Here’s to the next project, likely those napkins in search of a stamp….

………is compost.  Many cringe or get squirmy at the thought.  And please don’t look at the following pictures if you think they will present a problem.  But now that I have spent years perfecting(?) my approach, my visits to my compost pile bring me more joy than you might ever think.  Sometimes I just add the pail to the pile and walk away, but typically I fill the pail slowly with rainwater (from the rainbarrel) while I rake up some decaying leaves – which are plentiful in my garden.  I then add the leaves to the pile, and pour the rainwater on top.

If I have a little more time, I visit with my worms.  I take my favorite fork and turn the pile, hunting for the squirmy worms and other bugs and organisms in the compost, teeming with life.  I find the worms to be the PERFECT pet – no training or cleaning up required.  They just quietly do their thing, and turn our garbage into the most amazing soil for our garden.

It’s raining today, finally (we really need the rain here).  I also finally decided to practice what I preach (not that I typically evangelize), and installed 2 rainwater barrels at the Pumpkin House.  We got them quite cheaply from the City of Oakland Rain Barrel Program.  I have used the water for my compost pile, and other hand watering in the vegetable garden – especially during this dry winter!  They only take a few days of rain to fill, and unfortunately don’t capture as many gallons as we begin to use in our veggie garden.  But it is so wonderful to collect the rainwater and return it to the earth while using it to feed ourselves (and our worms).