Today, I’m introducing a new feature: Guest Greenies. Guest Greenies will share with us their favorite green projects, recipes, hobbies, design, food and anything Earth friendly that they want over the course of a week.
Please join me in welcoming our first Guest Greenie:
Kris Hackbart of The Big Boat. Kris was raised in the suburbs by a farmer, and probably pulled carrots out of the garden before she could walk. She has always composted, canned, recycled, reused and reduced. In fact, she thinks she was green before it was popular! After all that’s it’s not too surprising since her first real job was as a Soil Conservationist. Right now you will find her caring for her little kid creations, crafting, gardening, and writing about everything that she loves.
Here is a quick intro from our guest:
Hi! I’m Kris from The Big Boat. I’ve been having a great time reading all the lovely posts and ideas at Sweet Greens, so I was thrilled when I was chosen to be a Guest Greenie! I’ll share a few of my ramblings and ideas for greening up around the garden, since it’s summer and us Minnesotans spend all the time we can outside before the snow flies.
Hello, Everyone. Our first week of summer vacation is coming to a close. Based on the amount of time that we have spent hanging out by the pool and enjoying dinner on our patio, I would say it has been a huge success. Tomorrow, I want to get up early and hit our neighborhood yard sale (don’t you love when a huge neighborhood has a yard sale, so many great things that I can walk or bicycle around to see.) Then, Mr. Sweet Greens and I are going to do a litttle work on our house (touch up painting, decluttering and organizing the garage.) We are going to be selling a lot of things from our home in the near future, furniture, beer and wine making supplies, toys, clothing and books, so I need to start getting everything organized. Are you like me and love a great organization project? I am kind of a junkie, really, I should have been a professional organizer, maybe a future career?
The rest of the weekend shall be spent – you guessed it – by the pool. I also need to finish the arrangements for Eben’s 9th birthday pool party that will happen in the next couple of weeks. The party is going to be super minimalist, to reduce the impact on the environment. Plus, once you add children and water, do you really need anything else to have a blast? Also, should I bake a cake or cupcakes? Do you have a preference?
Stay tuned, next Thursday will start my Guest Greenie series, where I invite a guest blogger to share their green ideas, how to projects, recipes and recommendations over the course of week. Won’t this be a fun way to find new ways to be green? I have a great list of greenies lined up and if you are interested in becoming a Guest Greenie, then click here.
I just can’t help it, I want chickens! Did you know that? Do you live in an urban area that allows chickens? Lucky! The perfect retreat for your urban chickens: Frederik Roijé’s breed retreat. I would have my nose pressed up to the glass looking in – all the time. You?
Do you live somewhere that you can have chickens? Would you ever consider raising your own chickens? Or does that sound like too much work?
PS: Do you get a chicken sitter while you are out of town – just like we do for our dogs?
When I saw that The Home Depot was offering a ‘Do It Herself’ workshop featuring Martha Stewart, I was intrigued. When I saw that the workshop would be on Eco gardening, I signed myself and one of my closest friends up.
The workshop was informative, however it wasn’t as geared towards Eco friendly gardening as it was towards traditional gardening. The workshop was 60 minutes, rather than 90 minutes and I would have loved to see the workshop focus more on the Eco friendly version of the different products that were available and learn more about the benefits of composting and water harvesting. Also, I never saw anything that was related to Martha Stewart at all. Nothing. I was looking forward to seeing what products Martha would have available for Eco minded individuals.
However, I did learn a few new things and the workshop was a great way to get away for an hour with a close friend, which is always fun. Also, if you are a gardening novice, the workshop would have been a great way to learn the very basics of starting a raised garden bed.
Here are a few things that I learned:
1- When watering the plants in your garden, you should only use soaker hoses or water at the base of the plant. Watering on top of the leaves can cause molding, especially in tomatoes.
2- When fertilizing, choose an organic liquid fertilizer to stimulate vigorous growth and provide the largest yields, while improving your soil at the same time.
3- When planting your veggies, follow the planting instructions exactly. If it says to plant the entire tomato plant 2/3 under ground, that is what you need to do. The planting instructions will vary depending on the farming practices that were used to start the seedling and if you follow the directions exactly, you will get a higher yield.
Did you attend The Home Depot: Do It Herself: Eco Gardening Workshop in your area? What did you think about it? Was it completely geared towards Eco gardening?
Our weekend family camping trip to Steamboat Lake and Strawberry Hot Springs was a huge success and definitely a trip that we will take again in the future. It was a little chilly, but perfect weather for hiking and soaking in the hot springs.
Here is a run down of how our weekend went:
1- The first thing that I wanted to do once we arrived in Steamboat was go to Strawberry Hot Springs. It turned out to be the perfect day for it, it wasn’t crowded at all. In fact, there was a large period of time that Mr. Sweet Greens, Eben and myself had a hot spring overlooking the river – all to ourselves! It was a fantastic day! If you ever visit Strawberry Hot Springs, here are some tips:
a- If you go during the fall/wintertime, you will need 4wd and chains, it is a super steep incline on a dirt road to get to the hot springs.
b- Bring your own lunch and drinks (there is no one to purchase food once you get there).
c- Leave your lunch and snacks in the car until you are ready to eat them, or the chipmunks will chew a hole in your North Face backpack and steal your Clif Bars. FOR REAL! Mr. Sweet Adorable Chipmunk that we were chatting with when we arrived, chewed a giant hole into my backpack and ate our Clif Bars.
d- Since you are so close to the sun, it was warm and super sunny. Don’t forget your sunscreen, sunglasses and hat.
2- The next morning, Mr. Sweet Greens made us breakfast! Isn’t he the best? Then we packed up all of the essentials for a 4 hour hike at Mad Creek. I enjoyed this just as much as the hot springs. It was a fantastic hike, high up on the mountain, so you could see the river below us. We were then able to hike down to the river and hike along it for a couple of miles. If you get a chance, Mad Creek Trail is something that you definitely want to hike. It is spotted with old barns, homes and other structures, which I found fascinating. One of the homes, still had the stove inside of it and another had a fantastic green door that I wanted to take home.
PS: This was Noodles’ (our Pug) first hike ever and she was a trooper!
3- Then we were off to soak in the hot springs again, because that is what you do after a long day of hiking, right? It was much busier this time, which was fine by Eben. Being an only child, he was ready for some kid to kid contact. The children and Mr. Sweet Greens had a fantastic time going from the hot springs to swimming in the river and back. After, we had a late dinner in Steamboat at The Boathouse Pub. It has a great patio right next to the rushing river and was a great way to end the night.
If you would like to see more pictures of our weekend, click here.
