Choosing The Best Indoor Plants For Your Interior It’s no secret that I’ve been a wee bit obsessed with plants lately. After taking a good look at my interior and realizing that multiple areas of my home are a bit bare, I’m convinced that a few houseplant purchases will help breathe new life into my living room, bedroom, powder room and home office. I’m fairly good at keeping plants alive, but when I get busy, I tend to be forgetful about watering. And sometimes I water all of the plants the same way, without paying attention to their individual needs. Succulents in a light-filled window For starters, several of my favorite blogs have recently featured posts on caring for houseplants. Today I thought I’d share some tips and tidbits for choosing and maintaining the best indoor plants for your interior. Indoor Plant Ideas I thought I’d begin by sharing a few houseplant ideas that experts consistently recommend as sturdy indoor greenery. Fiddle leaf fig in a woven pot Zee zee plant in a colorful pot Rubber plant in a red pot 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
DIY Satsuma Candle A friend of mine DIYed her own candles, made from the peels of Satsuma oranges, for a recent dinner party. I was so excited by this simple yet clever idea, I had to share the tutorial on HonestlyWTF. My only regret is not discovering this sooner when Satsumas were at their absolute peak in December. Hopefully, you’ll still be able to snatch up a few at your local grocery store or farmer’s market and impress your guests at your next dinner party! The stem side of the Satsuma will be the bottom and base of the candle. Because Satsumas are known for their loosely attached peels, the orange should easily be removed. Once the flesh of the orange is taken out, the pith connecting the outer stem should remain. Pour a few glugs of olive oil into the orange, leaving just the very tip of the pith exposed. Depending on the length of the pith, the candle should burn for at least a couple of hours. (all images via HonestlyWTF)
Urban Agriculture: A Guide to Container Gardens A Guide to Container Gardens With inexpensive containers and suitable soil mix,you can create an urban garden virtually anywhere - on roof tops,vacant city lots, borwn fields, and unused portion of parking lots Job S. Ebenezer, Ph.D.President, Technology for the Poor, 877 PELHAM COURT, WESTERVILLE, OHIO - 43081technologyforthepoor@yahoo.com It is estimated that by 2030 AD nearly 50% of the world’s population may live in urban areas. As a consequence of this many millions of acres of productive farmland are expected to be lost to housing and other usage. Due to the recent terrorist attacks, food security and safety are seriously compromised. Migration from rural areas also brings into the urban areas many persons with very little formal education. Urban agriculture has the potential for creating micro-enterprises that can be owned and operated by the community members without too much of initial capital. Urban farming is not new. Wading pools should be set on a level ground.
Are Coffee Grounds Good For Plants? You only need to walk past a coffee shop in any American city to see that our country loves java. With so much coffee being consumed on a daily basis, it’s encouraging to learn that there is a productive use for all those grinds. Next time you make a cup, save your coffee grounds and add them to the soil in your garden. Coffee Grounds as a Mulching Agent Coffee’s breakdown materials can be used as a mulching agent, as well as a fertilizing agent, for gardens. Coffee Grounds as a Compost Addition Adding coffee to your compost or worm bin is a great idea. Coffee as a Fertilizer As a fertilizer, used coffee grounds are slightly acidic and full of nitrogen, a mineral that aids vegetable and plant growth. Coffee as a Pesticide Coffee-ground mulch has the added benefit of deterring veggie and flower-munching slugs and snails. How to Use Coffee Grounds in Your Garden Don’t use coffee grounds that have fermented or rotted. Where to Get the Grounds? - Dr. References: Oregon State University.
DIY: Repurposed Tins as Magnetic Organizers + Free Printable Hello lovelies! I am proud to say that today’s post was dreamed up by my sweet 11 year old daughter, Miss K. The other day I walked into my kitchen to discover that she’d brilliantly repurposed an old Chimes candy tin as a magnetic pencil holder on our fridge! I definitely had one of those, “why didn’t I think of that” moments and asked her if I could share her smarty-pants idea with you all here today. This project is so ridiculously simple it literally takes seconds to do. Here are the easy directions: Collect up your supplies: You will need: Small tins (tea tins, mint tins, and candy tins are perfect). How to: Place a minimum of two super strong magnets on your fridge or any metal surface you would like to use. I also put together these cute little Bird Brain Shopping Lists + Notes Lists for you to download and print. Download Bird Brain Shopping Lists (prints 4 lists per page)Download Bird Brain Notes Lists (prints 4 per page) Enjoy!
Let’s Make 2-Liter SIPs! Photo: Rachel Glass My mom and I have really been expanding our gardening knowledge lately. Though there is a lot more to learn, we have been sharing that gardening knowledge with kids and families in our community. When we were asked to teach children at a special event sponsored by the AUA (Advocates for Urban Agriculture) and Hull House, we decided to teach a workshop on making SIPs. A SIP is a Sub Irrigated Planter. Sub meaning bottom, irrigated meaning watered, and planter meaning… well you know. “First the water at the bottom of the SIP is wicked or sucked up by the fabric. After teaching the Becker girls (above) how to make SIPs I took a quick break. My mom and I invented the seed match game so people could learn what seeds go to which plants. The Becker girls extraordinarily (unlike some other kids I’ve taught) seemed to want to learn more about gardening. After the kids constructed their SIPs, we gave them chocolate mint seedlings to plant in their new homemade planters.
How to Build a GeoDome Greenhouse - Northern Homestead When it comes to gardening in colder climates, a greenhouse is almost a must have. It extends the growing season and gives the plants a lot more heat. With a greenhouse, we can actually pick ripe tomatoes here and grow some plants that we would not be able to without one. A greenhouse can also be a great place to hang out on those cool spring days and summer nights. When we started to look out for one to build, our expectations were very high. Very unique, lightweight structure Stable in wind and under snow Optimal light absorption Has the most growing ground space A unique hang-out place An eye catcher The GeoDome greenhouse seemed to be just what we were looking for. What materials to use? We looked at dozens of how-to instructions and even bought a pricy e-Book (with very little value). Here we share our GeoDome building experience for anyone who wants to build a GeoDome -Wood. Acidome is one of the best Geodome calculators we were able to find on the internet. Finished struts: .
Cheap Craft Ideas - Inexpensive Crafts Adapted from Clare Youngs’s The Perfect Handmade Bag ($19.95; Cico), this cute carryall requires little more than a pair of small wooden spatulas and two tea towels ($15 each; motherlindas.com). Cut six strips of fabric from one towel. Two, measuring 33⁄4"W x 141⁄4"L each, will serve as the decorative horizontal bands at the top of the tote and should incorporate the towel’s graphics (as shown, left). The other four, measuring 31⁄2"W x 8"L, will form tabs for the bag’s handles. Turn under the long sides of each strip and press a 1⁄4" hem. To make a tab, topstitch one of the long sides of a 31⁄2"W x 8"L strip near the edge. Lay the second towel on a flat surface, right side up. Flip the towel right side down. Fold the towel in half, wrong sides together.
How to Make Moss Graffiti - The Step by Step "Grow" Guide Before getting into our guide on making moss graffiti, let’s talk about the impact of paint in the graffiti world. Obviously paint is not the most environmentally friendly medium for artistic expression. A significant number of these products contain substances that may be harmful to the environment such as lead, cadmium, formaldehyde, CFCs in paint spray, and many other similarly toxic substances. An alternative to using paint is to use moss instead. This medium is not only ecologically sound but also grows with time. Choosing The Right Spot Areas that are exposed to the sun throughout the day are not conducive for moss growth. Planning The Graffiti Piece Good artwork takes careful preparation. Gathering The Materials Once a tentative plan has been chalked out, it is now time to collect the materials needed to churn out the moss paint”. Preparing The Moss For Processing Wash the moss carefully. Mixing It All Together Place the washed, broken up moss in the blender. Applying The Moss Paint
100 years ago, people were eating things that most of us will never taste. So what happened? Narrator: In 1905, a book called The Apples of New York appeared. It featured hundreds of Apples with names like Westfield Seek-No-Further or Esopus Spitzenburg, a favorite of Thomas Jefferson. If it wasn't for preservationists for like Ron Joyner in Lansing, North Carolina, most apples including the Virginia Greening, an apple dating back to the 1700 with thick green skin and yellow, coarse, and sweet flesh would no longer exist. It isn't just apples. In the last, century nearly 75% of our agricultural crops had disappeared. Vandana Shiva is a global ambassador on a mission to save seeds around the world. To learn more about seeds swaps and seed sovereignty, visit www.lexiconofsustainability.com. THE LEXICON OF SUSTAIN ABILITY www.lexiconofsustainability.com There may be small errors in this transcript.
Cheap Craft Ideas - Inexpensive Crafts Adapted from Clare Youngs’s The Perfect Handmade Bag ($19.95; Cico), this cute carryall requires little more than a pair of small wooden spatulas and two tea towels ($15 each; motherlindas.com). Cut six strips of fabric from one towel. Two, measuring 33⁄4"W x 141⁄4"L each, will serve as the decorative horizontal bands at the top of the tote and should incorporate the towel’s graphics (as shown, left). The other four, measuring 31⁄2"W x 8"L, will form tabs for the bag’s handles. Turn under the long sides of each strip and press a 1⁄4" hem. To make a tab, topstitch one of the long sides of a 31⁄2"W x 8"L strip near the edge. Lay the second towel on a flat surface, right side up. Flip the towel right side down. Fold the towel in half, wrong sides together.