Environmentally friendly weed exterminator

Posted on June 13, 2009 by admin

It’s that time of year when unwanted greenery pushes its way up through every available crack in our patio stones, sidewalk and even in between our retaining wall and driveway. It is of course illegal to use most chemical pesticides and herbicides in Toronto now (not that I would use them if they were still allowed), but I’ve found an all natural and very safe herbicide which we can use on the little green opportunists.

Weeds making homes in the patio stones

After buying a commercial brand “natural” weed killer from Home Depot a couple summers ago, and discovering that it smelled an awful lot like vinegar, it got me thinking that there must be a way to make this stuff at home for a fraction of the cost (that product cost something like $9 for approximately a litre, and we were going through it pretty quickly).

Homemade natural herbicide

Online I found a recipe. All it uses is vinegar, salt and a bit of dish soap (I use biodegradable soap). The only other ingredients you need are a hot, sunny day and a spray bottle, and it works exactly the same way as the commercial stuff that cost 10x as much!

Results

Environmentally friendly weed killer:

1 litre of white vinegar
1/2 cup of table salt
squeeze of biodegradable dish soap (this helps the solution stick to the plants)

Mix together the ingredients until all the salt is fully dissolved.
Pour into a good quality spray bottle. You might want to get a pump spray bottle (one that allows you to pump pressure into it) from a garden centre, if you’re doing a lot of spraying — it will save your hands from a lot of squeezing.
Generously spray your weeds on a hot, sunny morning. The sunshine will help do the work of drying out the foliage and killing it.

Tips:
Note that this stuff is not selective. If you spray it accidentally on your lawn, you’ll kill the lawn. Also note that some plants with thicker stems might require a couple treatments to kill them completely. It works best when weeds are small and tender, so pull out bigger weeds and spray small ones before they get big. I find I have to do this a few times each summer to control the little ones that like to creep up through the patio stones. I’ve also read that the salt can contaminate the soil for up to two years, making it harder to grow things you want to grow in it, but I have only ever used this solution on weeds that insist on growing in our patio stones, and since these are exposed to road salt all winter, I think they’ve adapted to the salinity.

Finally, and unfortunately, I’ve found that the salt is not so kind to the inner workings of the sprayer, and while I rinse and clean it thoroughly and pump clean water through it a lot afterward, the metal parts still tend to corrode. So obviously a plastic bottle with no metal parts is best, but probably hard to find.

Yes, carrots do grow in the ground

Posted on April 6, 2009 by admin

I know things have been a little slow on the blog updating lately and I do apologize. I do have lots to post about, soon enough, but there are some things going on that have me a bit distracted. A very long post is coming soon…

However, in the spirit of the spring and the near launch of the growing season (don’t let that freak snow out there fool you, or get you down), I thought I’d pass along a book recommendation.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

My friend Alice has been raving about this book for months, and she finally finished it and passed it on to me (Alice is fantastic for sharing her favourite books). I have only just cracked into it; I’m literally only past the first few pages, but it already has me sucked in. I think the timing is perfect for me and this book, since I’m about to embark on my own adventure freaking out the neighbours with my little farm plot on the front lawn.

The book is a non-fiction telling of Kingsolver and her family’s deliberate move from what I like to refer to as a “depletist” existence (thanks OCAD Think Tank students, you guys rock!) in Tuscon, Arizona to a farm in Virginia where they resolve to live for a year growing and raising their own food, and should they need to buy food, buying only that which is grown on neighouring farms:

“This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew . . . and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air.”

The book’s website also contains many recipes and additional local food resources.

One of the most resounding ideas that Kingsolver has laid out in the beginning of the book is just how separated our society has become from even the remotest of understandings of the life of our food. This idea in and of itself is not new of course, but the examples she gives are mind blowing (a boy exclaiming in disbelief the first time he saw a carrot come out of the ground, that it had touched the dirt, and crying, “but how did it get in there?”). She discusses the idea of how unless you grew up on a farm, you likely have little to no understanding of the importance of rain at the right times of year, in the right amounts, when at what times of year you don’t want it. For me, this is the common sense I grew up with that is now not so common. It makes me sad to think too that my own kids, when and if I have them, will likely grow up lacking this breadth and depth of knowledge that I now take for granted. Even if I make every attempt to pass it along, just by virtue of growing up in an urban environment it just won’t be the same.

As for my own garden adventures, the tomato seedlings are already quite robust and will soon need to be repotted, and the peppers have nearly all poked through. We managed to cut and sand the wood for the raised beds on Saturday, and on Sunday I took advantage of the sunshine and put a coat of stain/sealer on them. Next step is assembly, then a second coat of sealer. Chris has also decided we should spend the extra cash on putting a layer of “foundation wrap” — that dimpled plastic stuff the put outside concrete foundations as a moisture barrier — on the inside of the frame to help prolong the life of the wood by allowing for some air circulation and drainage. While I can be a bit of a purist and don’t like the idea of the plastic, nor the added cost, it probably is a good idea for us to do it. We didn’t invest in cedar, and of course we didn’t use pressure treated lumber, so we might as well try to do as much as we can to protect the investment we did make.

Quickie garden update

Posted on March 30, 2009 by admin

Did you hear? The Obamas are going to put a veggie garden on the White House lawn!! Well if they can do it there, who’s to tell me I can’t do it on mine? Posh neighborhood be damned!

I’m just posting a little update that we purchased the lumber to build the raised beds this weekend, and we hope to get around to cutting it up and assembling through the week, and this weekend if the weather cooperates. We had to make a slight change of plans – while I really wanted cedar, and I wanted to avoid pressure treated lumber, we compromised with pine that I’ll have to coat with a sealer. I know, I know, maybe not as eco-friendly as cedar, but its probably easily 5 times cheaper. Cedar was just so prohibitively expensive. We also have upped the bed sizes to 4 x 8 feet (x2) instead of 4 x 6 feet, so I get even more room! I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t be putting Chris to work building me a roadside veggie stand as well.

And finally, today I nailed down a good price for bulk soil delivery. In total I talked to four garden centres, and the best price comes from J. Jenkins & Son, located in Gormley, Ontario (check out their handy soil calculator on their website). We can get up to 11 cubic yards in one truck load, and since the trucking is the majority of the cost, we just might take advantage of a big order and use some of the extra soil in the backyard and to ammend the front gardens. I’m certain we’ll have no trouble using it up. So… in a couple more weeks, I should have some installation shots to share!

Keg fridges: not just for frat boys

Posted on March 28, 2009 by admin

Last weekend we had a group of friends up to the cottage to welcome the first weekend of spring. No cottage weekend is complete without beer, and Chris used the opportunity to do a little upgrading.

Rigged up kegs

A couple of years ago we came into possession of a keg fridge for our home. Cass, one of Chris’s friends and his business partner told us he’d ordered it, and it was going to be delivered to our place, because he didn’t have room at his. “It’s for the cottage,” he said. Well… several years later, and it never made it to the cottage. It’s sitting here in my living room. I wasn’t a huge fan at first, because well, nothing screams “frat house” louder than a keg fridge in your living room.

Mill Street microbrew

But I’ll admit, I’m now a total convert. Why you ask? Well beyond the constant availability of fresh draft on tap (a good enough reason alone), having a keg of beer means we don’t have a constant, towering pile of empties gathering dust and Zeus hair in the corner of the kitchen. Chris and Cass, and all of the guys we’re friends with actually, are micro brew fanatics. You can’t imagine how bad the empty situation can get. And ever since The Beer Store started accepting bottle returns for both products they sell and products sold at the LCBO stores, and since The Beer Store redesigned their purchasing system so that you return your bottles and buy your beer from the same cashier, well, I don’t have three hours to stand in line. Do you?

The first pour

Not to mention that buying beer in 30 litre kegs is much cheaper than by the bottle. Yes, you have to make a keg deposit, but that’s negligible. Mill Street’s Brew Pub in the Distillery district sells kegs of most of their beers through their store to individuals, and so we generally just buy from them, because it’s easy, and well, they make excellent beer. We picked up a few growlers recently as well, so we can fill up from home and take to friends’ places when visiting.

Kegs are also a greener choice, since they’re reused indefinitely. And because we’re buying from a local micro-brewery, we’re supporting a local business and the product doesn’t go through any shipping, aside from the drive from the brewery to our home.

The upgrade I was talking about however refers to us going from having one tap to two. Chris used the cottage gathering as an opportunity to visit a bar equipment specialty shop and get a new tower for the keg fridge that has two tap feeds. The only problem we were having with the fridge before was constant foamy head. You had to pour off a pitcher and let it settle before drinking it. We suspected the problem was that the lines were getting too warm in the tower, and so Chris added extra bubble wrap insulation to it, but the problem persisted. Since the fridge can just barely hold two 30 L kegs, he opted to try getting a higher quality pouring system, and that seems to have done the trick. And it was useful for having the two kegs tapped at the cottage. The month of March by the way, makes for excellent, natural refrigeration.

The next thing for us to do, to help lower the not-so-green energy usage of the fridge, is to put it on a timer. After all, we don’t generally need cold beer first thing in the morning.

Let there be life!

Posted on March 24, 2009 by admin

After only a week I have a gazillion tomato seedlings! Oh and okra too. The only thing that hasn’t popped up yet are any of the chiles, but that’s not surprizing, as they tend to take quite a bit longer to germinate.

Tomato seedlings

Now the big question is, where will I put them all once they grow out of their little peat pots? I want to try Terra Edible’s milk bag idea, which I think is brilliant, and I’ve been saving milk bags for months for this purpose. The downside however is how much extra space this will need, and I just don’t have it. I think it will soon be time for me to invest in some grow lights.

Okra seedlings

We were hoping to build the raised beds this weekend but the weather is supposed to be yucky. And we’ve got some family obligations now to attend to, so that might put a dent in our construction plans. But there’s no big rush. I may not be able to get soil for a few more weeks anyway (this is still under investigation as well).

One of my biggest fans

Posted on March 19, 2009 by admin

The Queen of Green, Adria Vasil, has given me way too much credit in her latest podcast, coinciding with this week’s NOW magazine cover article “Home grown”. Although the part about wanting the chickens is totally true. My Mom even had a plan all worked out for me to borrow some hens from my Aunt and Uncle, just for the summer, so I wouldn’t have to worry about caring for them over the winter. But Chris says no way, not while it’s technically illegal. Poo.

Adria’s first book, Ecoholic: Your Guide to the Most Environmentally Friendly Information, Products and Services in Canada was released in 2007. She’s got an American version coming out soon, and another Canadian book in the hopper as well.

Ecoholic, by Adria Vasil

Full disclosure: Adria and I have been pals since the late 90s, shortly after I arrived in the T-dot.

Do you see a pattern emerging here?

Posted on February 7, 2009 by admin

I’ve been knitting up a storm the last couple of weeks, and I think a lot of it has to do with a sudden infatuation with hats. They make for nearly instant gratification projects, since they can be completed in as little as one weekend. I have to thank Michelle for this sudden spurt of hat-making, since it pretty much started with her “another green hat.”

Felted cloche

Technically, this hat actually started some time ago, after I saw the film Changeling (I just adore the clothing of the 1920s, even though the style would not flatter my curves one bit). I had a stash of Patons Classic Wool Merino on hand that I was purposefully saving to try out on a felting project. The St. Vincent Cloche by Fawn Pea was the perfect match.

It’s a super simple knit; the only reason it took me a few months was because I had to put it on hold and order more yarn in the peacock blue because I was sure I didn’t have enough (the unfelted version of the hat was huge). In the end I actually only needed a few yards of the new ball – I probably could have gotten away without it.

Hat band and slit detail

This was the first time I had tried felting using our front load washing machine. I’d heard that it can take more runs through these types of machines to make it work. I tried the first round on a normal setting with hot water, and the hat only felted a small amount. So the next round I put the washer on the “sanitary” setting, for extra heat, and holy smokes – it almost came out too small! In the end the hat just fits!

There are some creases I need to figure out how to smooth out, and I’m not sure how to fix those. I’m also not certain how I should fasten the hat band to the hat itself, but I think I need to, so that it doesn’t shift all over the place. But overall, as a first felted project in my current machine: it turned out pretty sweet!

Currently on the needles: you guessed it — another hat! Foliage, from Knitty Fall 2007, to be exact!

Significant additions to my library

Posted on January 14, 2009 by admin

The Christmas book haul was extraordinary!! I received several books I had been hinting oh-so-tactfully that I wanted, as well as a few others which, while I didn’t really know much about them before, make great additions to my library!

Christmas book haul

Out of the books I received, Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes by Jennifer McLagan is by far the most interesting and coveted. I haven’t been able to put it down. I caught onto this book after reading the article “Praise the Lard” by Sascha Chapman in Toronto Life magazine last month. In a nutshell, the book describes our misinformed, convoluted relationship with fat over the past thirty years, and revisits what our ancestors knew instinctively about fat: that it’s not only needed to survive but it’s also needed to be healthy, that its soul-satisfying, and that it’s Nature’s gift of flavour. This book has already revolutionized my understanding of lard, a fat that’s been labeled BAD BAD BAD for my entire lifetime. And I’m not alone. Fat has been highly praised by the critics and Chris said he searched high and low to get his hands on a copy. And if there was ever a do-it-yourselfer manual for techniques long lost in history, like how to render different kinds of fat, this is it.

I also received the book French Food at Home by Laura Calder, who also has a show by the same name on the Food Network. I’ve been watching her show since the summer when I was on medical leave because of my surgery, and she is the most quirky and lovable host. She makes cooking French food seem effortless (she is always wearing the most sexy little dress and the most luxurious red lipstick while she cooks). This book includes many of the show’s recipes and more, which I’m sure I’ll enjoy. The only downside: no food-porn photography. Which I have to tell you, is a big seller for me on any cookbook.

Chris’s sister Lorraine gave me a copy of Bonnie Stern’s IACP Cookbook Award-winning Essentials of Home Cooking, which does have lots of food-porn photography, and which is also chalk full of amazing recipes, including a most unusual but incredibly tasty Corn Risotto with Chipotles and Cilantro, which Lorraine made for a family dinner recently. Lorraine swears by this book, and I know it will become a regular go-to volume for me, too.

Chris also picked up The Science of Good Food by David Joachim and Andrew Schloss for me, mainly because it answers the great mystery of the carrots turning green in the carrot cake conundrum (say that five times really fast). I haven’t even scratched the surface of this hefty manual yet, but so far it appears to be full of fascinating factoids. Oh and what’s the answer? Apparently the anthoxanthin pigments in the carrots can react with cast-iron or aluminum baking pans, creating a blue colour, which when mixed with the yellow carotine pigments in the carrots can turn them green. Who knew? Well apparently these guys do.

The final book in the stack is called The Natural Treasures of Carolinian Canada, edited by Lorraine Johnson, which includes lots of yummy pictures of Southwestern Ontario’s natural diversity and lots of info about our local wildlife. This will make for a great cottage read.

Portland book haul

Portland’s famous Powell’s Books yielded no shortage of treasures, and the extraordinary weight of my (conservatively sized I’m told, for a girl) checked luggage may explain why my bag was subjected to an inspection by Canadian customs on the way home (which I discovered only after I had found it at YYZ, two days after landing, and after I got it home to unpack).

I debated for about an hour in the knitting section what to buy – there is so much to choose from and I can be knit-picky about my books (ha ha, excuse the pun). In the end I decided to pick up a copy of the first Vogue Knitting Stitchionary, Knit & Purl. There are tons of great textures explored here and I don’t really have any kind of stitch dictionary so this is a nice start. It’s a beautifully designed volume, with, you guessed it, lots of yummy photography.

I also picked up Blue Ribbon Preserves by Linda J. Amendt, which contains about 300 state fair prize winning recipes for jams, jellies, marmalades, butters, pickles and on and on. I’m obviously on to something with the excitement my canning and preserving generates with everyone around me, so this will help me add some new recipes to my repertoire. Oh and there’s a recipe for a pear butter, something I had recently at a local restaurant (infused with vanilla bean – YUM!) and fell head over heels for.

At Powell’s Technical Books, Chris found Pickled, Potted, Canned: How the Art and Science of Food Preserving Changed the World, by Sue Shephard. This book is a history of preserving, and it’s next on my list to read. We also bought a facinating almanac titled Country Wisdom & Know-how: Everything You Need to Know to Live Off the Land, from Storey Books. This will no doubt provide hours of leisurely reading at the cottage; “8,167 usefull skills and step-by-step instructions” for everything from growing garlic, drawing sap for Maple syrup, making milk soap and weaving baskets to sharpening tools, making cheese, butter and yogurt, and building your own home brewery! Did I mention Chris is a total junkie for this sort of book? And yes, maybe me too!

Finally, Powell’s Technical Books had this series of small handbooks, called Storey Country Wisdom Bulletins: Building Chicken Coops by Gail Damerow; Building and Using Cold Frames by Charles Siegchrist; and Building or Renovating a Small Barn for Your Horse by Jackie Clay. Can you tell where my fantasies lie? I think I’m just going to have to start collecting these little books, which were only $3.95 USD each at Powell’s. They have many, many others on topics I would just love to read more deeply into. They also have great little illustrations and diagrams.

Portland book haul

Me = guest star on Ecoholic TV!

Posted on October 9, 2008 by admin

This just in – fresh picked video on how to can your own salsa at home, starring yours truly…ME! NOW magazine doesn’t allow me to embed the video (grrrr!!!) so have a visit to the NOW Ecoholic TV cast page and watch!

Ecoholic

Can your own salsa DIY video on Ecoholic TV!

Enjoy!!

Spreading the good green clean word

Posted on October 3, 2008 by admin

Ballband dishcloth

Friends of ours recently bought a house, and their parents threw them a send off party where everyone was invited to bring their favourite cleaning products to give the new home owner. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to spread the good green word, I got a bucket and filled it with a jug of vinegar, borax, baking soda, a spray bottle, a hand-knit cotton dishcloth and a copy of my friend Adria’s book, Ecoholic, with all kinds of tips for living a green life.

Clean green housewarming gift

Diggin' the Dirt

A little gardening, quilting, knitting, cookin' and more.

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