It ain’t easy getting vegetables started the right way. A measly amount of seeds are not genetically modified these days. Charlie, the trusty gardener at Cheney Mansion, suggested Baker Creek Seeds. They’re his favorite seed company, and since Charlie was propagating the seeds, Baker Creek was an easy choice. Read more about this great company here.
Okay folks, time for a check-in! Let’s chat about how our Arkansas Travelers are doing. Please send us your pictures, comments, questions, and all things AT-related!
In case you haven’t already planted your Arkansas Traveler tomatoes, here’s a nice video on how to get them planted. Also nice advice for planting a variety of tomatoes.
I came upon Dave’s Garden, an excellent garden blog that includes reviews of Arkansas Travelers. The reviews look great! I noticed one that said it performed well in hot weather, which is nice to hear considering it was about 200 degrees F today. Also noted that it’s the best all-around tomato one reviewer has ever grown. And a few comments that it’s a great canning tomato!
Take a look to see what people are writing–it may help you plan and prepare for the season.
Last year as I was secretly planning Green Home Experts’ expansion, I met a wonderful guy named Justin Vrany. He met with me in our cramped shop to talk about his plans for Sandwich Me In, a sustainable sandwich shop in Lakeview. His passion and drive oozed out of his pores as we discussed ways to work together. His enthusiasm inspired me to keep working away at our expansion plan.
Justin’s dream of creating an eco-friendly restaurant runs the entire gamut. This guys knows what he’s doing! Here are all the wonderful things I remember about Sandwich Me In’s sustainable practices. I’m sure there are more!
–Justin used as many reclaimed and repurposed building materials as possible for build-out.
–Justin sources his ingredients locally and from organic farms.
–Sandwich Me In is this/close to a zero waste restaurant. They recycle everything they can, including packaging waste and other materials that are difficult to recycle.
–All food waste is picked up by a service that brings it to a commercial composting facility.
–Delicious sodas are made in-house using SodaStream soda makers (furnished by us, of course!).
–Sandwich Me In only uses biodegradable and compostable food service products (furnished by us, of course!).
–Sandwich Me In’s cleaning supplies are non-toxic and biodegradable (furnished by us, of course!).
On Thursday I picked up lunch for the GHE staff at Sandwich Me In. I loved the pulled pork, which Justin told me they smoke for 13 years. And he uses an old family recipe for their barbeque sauce! Delicious. It’s been an honor and a pleasure to work with Justin, and I look forward to working with him for years to come! Make sure to visit next time you’re in the neighborhood.
Learn more about Sandwich Me In and follow their progress on Facebook and Twitter @sandwichmein.
Mid-May has blessed us with this beautiful summer weather. The birds are singing, butterflies flutter through newly sprung gardens, and our thoughts are drifting toward home projects. Spring cleaning is done (right?). Garden plans are made. The grass is mowed. What about your garage?
The garage is the standard holder-of-overflow. Can’t find a place for it? Stick it in the garage. Want to move something out of sight because company is coming? Stick it in the garage–I’ll get to it later! Well, it’s way past later. It’s time to tackle the garage, and here are some tips to help you*:
–Gather up your latex paints and primers and bring them into the shop. We send them to Earth Paints Collection System to be recycled.
–Donate unwanted bikes, toys, tools and more to your local organization of choice.
–Give everything a good washing with non-toxic cleaning supplies. Earth Friendly Products and Mrs. Meyers Clean Day are our two most popular lines!
–Clean oil-stained concrete with Emerge, a soy-based biodegradable cleaner that’s made in Illinois. It’s powerful stuff!
–Give concrete a new coat of non-toxic, no-VOC paint with AFM Safecoat Deckote.
–Get organized! Label bins so you can find things easily. Create a space for everything: garden tools, storage, hobby area, etc. Ok, ready for some real organizing tips? Check out this info from our friends at Within Your Reach. Want to see an example of their work? You probably already have–their beautiful storage system holds all of our personal care products in our Kid & Baby section. Read here for more about their sustainability initiatives.
*Disclaimer: Anyone who knows me knows I’m not famous for being organized. So I’d never write a post about being organized! These tips are designed to help you declutter and clean.
So folks, how’s it going? This is the first of many check-ins throughout the season. We want to hear how your gardens are going. What have you started? What’s in the ground? What do you have left to do?
My garden has gotten off to a slow start, thanks to my toddler and the opening of the garden center. Nevertheless, I brought home some plants last week that have made their way into the ground. My annuals are in my containers in front. The rest of the front is a native garden, so it’s basically maintenance-free!
In back, I have about 1/3 of my veggie garden planted. So far I’ve put in: brussels sprouts, broccoli, onions, basil, eggplant, summer squash, jalapenos, habaneros, poblanos, Roma tomatoes, and Arkansas Traveler tomatoes.
Thanks to the mild winter I had several herbs come back: oregano (of course), parsley, and sage! I’ll try to get a picture of my Arkansas Traveler up here soon. In the meantime, tell me…how are your maters faring? And the rest of your garden?
Gina T. from My Skinny Garden dishes on homemade pizza:
The other day I had a conversation with a coworker who is about to become a grandmother, way too early in her opinion. Our discussion was mostly about what the baby would call her but I took advantage of the opportunity to tease her because she is young and vibrant and stylish, nothing like her image of what she thinks a grandmother is supposed to be. The more we talked, the more I realized most of he qualities she attributed to a “proper grandmother” were around food. Specifically, she mentioned homemade ice cream and biscuits at least five times. To hear her talk, it was as if making homemade ice cream was akin to making bars of gold from bars of soap. I just kept mumbling….”making homemade ice cream isn’t that hard…making homemade biscuits isn’t that hard…”
This isn’t news to any of you but we’re trying to cram so much stuff into our day that we have stopped doing some of the simplest things that make lasting memories for our families. I remember as a child always preferring restaurant food because it seemed so fancy. But as I sit here writing this post for you I can’t think of a single restaurant meal I loved as a child. What I remember is the amazing roast beef my mother made. Falling off the bone, crowded by tender delicious chucks of potatoes and carrots, my mouth waters just thinking about it. I haven’t eaten meat in over 10 years but if I walk into a house and smell roast beef cooking, I always have a flashing thought that being a vegetarian is stupid. That I am missing out on something really special. When I still lived at home, part of our birthday celebration always included the home cooked meal of our choice. I wondered why we didn’t ever go out to dinner for my birthday, but now? I cherish the memories of the chicken stroganoff I chose every year for my birthday dinner.
Cook for your children. Our memories around good food last forever. Even if money is no object and you can afford to pay someone to prepare every meal for you, it’s so worth it. One of my favorite things to make from scratch is pizza. It’s versatile, fun to make and so much better than any pizza that can be delivered to your house.
A few years ago I was on a quest to make the perfect pizza dough. I scoured the Internet, read millions of blogs, tried dozens of recipes. In the end I found the best pizza dough for me was a simple recipe I found on the Cuisinart website after I received one of their food processors as a gift. The ingredients are simple, the recipe is fast and easy and it makes perfect dough. Pizza dough can be frozen for later use or made into smaller crusts and pre-baked then frozen for quick meals.
The biggest lesson I learned from The Pizza Investigation is that the key is to cook the crust really fast. Preheat your oven at the highest temperature possible then cook the pizza for about 10 minutes. Don’t use pre-shredded cheese because it’s coated with some type of cornstarch, which prevents it from sticking together, but also affects the melting process. Lastly, put the cheese in the freezer for about 15 minutes prior to topping your pizza with it. Otherwise, the cheese will burn in your extra-hot oven before the crust is done.
I can honestly say I don’t know a single person who doesn’t like pizza. And when you make your own, you can make it as simple or exotic as you like. My husband loves a plain cheese pizza. My favorite is anything involving goat cheese and sun dried tomato. And today when my family came over for dinner I even tried barbecue hash brown pizza inspired by Julia at SnarkyVegan. Making pizza is fun. The magic of watching the dough rise, the challenge of seeing how thin I can roll it out. I realize that pizza isn’t the healthiest food out there but making it from scratch allows more control over the ingredients and somehow making a great pizza is always the most gratifying cooking experience for me. I hope you’ll try it and come back to share your experience.
I’ve been putting this waiting period to good use–it’s given me plenty of time to talk bees with the locals.
Green Home Experts’ own Maria Onesto Moran, who is doing a wonderful job as my agent, arranged for me to appear as a beekeeper at Oak Park’s Earth Fest, and at two screenings of ‘Queen of the Sun’ during the One Earth Film Fest. At all three events, visitors and viewers impressed me with their knowledge and interest in beekeeping. Along with insightful comments and information.
Some of the buzz I’ve picked up lately:
2. The Chicago Honey Co-op has established a beeyard with more than 20 hives within four blocks of Oak Park.
3. Beekeeping supplies are now available in Chicago at Belmont Feed & Seed, and at Christy Webber Landscapes Farm & Garden Center.
4. Some local animal shelters have become overwhelmed with chickens–because people have been buying chickens without really knowing what they’re getting into, and decide it’s for the birds just as fast. I worry–will there be a rash of similarly feckless beekeepers?
5. The Illinois Department of Agriculture has let the urban beekeeping community know that, due to this year’s early spring, the Ag Dept. has been getting way more calls than usual about bee-swarm removal, and also, a lot more calls from residents of Chicago saying they are uncomfortable with their neighbors keeping beehives. And some said, when they complained to their neighbors, the beekeepers refused to work with them on a solution.
Too many complaints will put Chicago’s unrestricted beekeeping at risk.
This has started area beekeepers thinking that we need to be a lot more proactive. While we already swarm ‘green’ events and talk passionately to anyone who’ll listen about the benefits of honeybees, we need to find a way to reach people who have never even thought about where honey comes from, much less about how pollination works. And we would like to reach out to prospective and new beekeepers. If anyone reading this would like a beeyard tour or to be mentored, please speak up!
To do this month: Install bees!!! Feed with sugar syrup and pollen patties to keep the bees going while they produce wax–one flake at a time from a gland in their abdomens–to make comb to store nectar and pollen. Inspect the hive within one week and every 1-2 weeks after that, looking for the queen, or at least making sure she’s laying eggs.
This morning a new customer walked through the door, collected some cleaning supplies, deodorant, a gift for her co-worker, a few plants, and some paint swatches. As she was taking everything out of her basket to be rung up, she asked, “What don’t you carry here?”
It’s true, I try to offer a green alternative to everything inside and around the home. Of course we can’t carry every single thing, but we sure do try. Over the past four years, we’ve come to be known as the local general store. Need dish soap? Check. Run out of toothpaste? Check. A birthday card? Check. Green has become mainstream for our customers. They shop here because they want to live as sustainably as they can; therefore, they shop as sustainably as they can.
What this tells me is that green is becoming mainstream. When we opened, we were a unique store (with difficult parking and limited hours) that carried green products. Throughout the years we’ve expanded to a larger location with better parking, expanded product selections, and we’re now open 7 days a week! And it’s thanks to the support of our very loyal customers that we’ve found a comfortable status in Oak Park as the neighborhood general store.
GreenBlog by Green Home Experts 
