Urban Ecoist

If you are a good little Urban Ecoist, you should be starting to harvest some pretty nice tomatoes right about now. Remember, even if you don’t have a yard in your urban environment, tomatoes are easy to grow in pots outside your door, on a balcony, or you can find a community garden to rent a plot. So you have no excuse to not grow your own tomatoes. And of course, I know you are growing them organically, because you are a smart, attractive, sexy gardener that eschews chemicals.

When I chose the tomatoes I am growing, I experimented with a few different hybrids. One is an “ultra early,” one is a extra-early, and then I tried a “determinate” and an “indeterminate.” What does all that mean? The “earlies” refer to when the tomatoes will be ready for picking, and the determinate versus indeterminate refers to how the tomatoes will come in, all at once or little by little. If you plant a good variety, as well as some fun heirlooms, you will have yourself a nice little harvest for the end of July and into September.

Of course, there is always that week or two when you feel like you are literally swimming in tomatoes, but if you don’t mind doing a little prep work, you can convert all of that lycopene-y goodness to salsas, marinara sauces, or you can “can” those puppies for those long winter months. Personally, I give tomatoes away to my neighbours, but as I now live in Portland, Oregon, where everybody seems to have a vegetable garden, I will try my hand at canning for the first time this year. If anyone has any advice, by all means, please let me know, and I will pass it on to my awesome, kickass readers!

Anyhoo, I did have another idea for all my little urban ecoists. Use your tomatoes to clean your face. Click on that last sentence to see how to do it. It’s simple. Tomatoes have really good acidic qualities, and can act as a toner for your skin. They are also great at clearing up blackheads. I have great skin (thanks to some good genetics that run through the Mcgrew and Neile Families), but heck, even I get blackheads on my nose. I tried those stupid Biore strips, I tried all kinds of mud and peel-off masks, and frankly, I have never had better results than from tomatoes. Crazy, I know, but effective.

garden, gardening, urban, community garden, tomatoes, salsas, Portland, Oregon, toner, skin care, DIY, blackheads

I live in Portland, Oregon, and it is a lovely city. Very lush, with verdant landscapes and plenty of slugs to eat their way through it.

I can honestly say that I have never seen so many slugs before, in such abundance and especially size. One night, under the light of my headlamp, I swear I saw a five inch long slug. It was disgusting, but as I cannot kill the little guys, I had no idea what to do, or if I had to do anything at all.

Well, come to find out I did indeed have to do something. The slugs, my friendly, slimy neighbors, were going to town on some foxglove in my garden. I moved the foxglove, and mulched with stones. Too extreme, but effective. I have plenty of Foxglove around the backyard, and the slug issue is not yard-wide. However, I started noticing the same tell-tale slugs bite marks on my strawberries. It was a new patch that I had planted this past spring, and as the problem was earlier this season, I had to take some action. Ain’t no slug gettin’ my berries before they are even berries!

So, I consulted an organic gardening book. And slugs hate caffeine in the form of coffee grounds. I collected a weeks worth (maybe two) of grounds, and I set to work. I used a big spoon and laid out a two to three inch wide band of coffee grounds around the perimeter of my strawberry patch.

The effects were immediately noticeable. It took about two weeks before I would say the slugs skipped dining on my berries (and peas, as I tried as well).

America!

slugs, Portland, Oregon, garden, urban, coffee grounds, organic gardening, strawberries, peas

Wow, this blog has been dormant for quite some time, and oddly, just when being green and sustainable and eco-friendly and zero-emissions and composting and stuff is getting hot. Ew, kind of a bad pun there, with global warming and all, but you’ll see that I am full of bad puns.

Welcome to the first day of Urban Ecoist’s new life.

About me, the writer, your host: I live in Portland, Oregon. If you didn’t know, Portland is a very green and “green” city (I could add one more green referring to the populace’s penchant for pot, but I won’t — oops). LIving in Portland is like a test case for how a major American city can be environmentally sensitive and responsible.

Personally, I am a bit of a granola. I am not wearing hemp, but I do own a bamboo shirt. Not a hippie, but close in some aspects in terms of stereotypes. I was raised by grandparents that went through the Depression, so recycling and gardening was a big part of my childhood and teenage years. For me, this stuff is the ways things are and have been, but like everyone, there are always new ways to help out our environment. Adapting is what we do, and it is interesting how we are all adapting and going to adapt to this sudden realization that Earth is a closed ecosystem and we have the power to muck that up.

Anyhoo, here is my first shot at becoming Urban Ecoist. Living in a city may result in apartment living or renting a house. It is hard to install more efficient appliances and such when you don’t own your residence. Here is what I did as soon as I moved into the house I am currently renting. It’s easy and it will save you water.

Ta Dah!! The incredible low-flow toilet.

You can easy take a half-gallon milk jug or something similar and watertight, fill it with water, and sink it in your toilet’s water tank. By displacement, you effectively reduce the use of a half-gallon of water used in each flush.

Rubber bricks that do the same trick are available at hardware stores, but why not use something you have around the house already. You can add more bottles if you are totally serious about this, but be careful about decreasing the pressure of the flow too much. It may have messy consequences…

Portland, Oregon, sustainable, ecofriendly, environment, urban, zero emissions, low flow toilet

Found this video this morning and thought it was really pretty inventive. That lead to this Instructible on how to do it. I know that toilets have this sort of function in Japan. I know a lot of Americans would be grossed out about using water destined for the toilet… but it *is* just regular water. Additionally, of the idea of germs bothers you, perhaps you should keep a cleaner toilet. =P

toilet, water, sink, instructibles, DIY

Most people don’t know this yet, but I am moving. Moving to North Carolina in the next couple of months. In trying to pack up everything I own and get my household slim and trim (I’ll be moving back into an apartment) I’ve been throwing out bags and bags off clothes. Let me rephrase… I’m been donating all of those clothes to Goodwill. Mostly jeans, and polo shirts. But the whole process made me wonder… is there a way that I can use some of that old clothing?

I found this article over at Green Options. It’s definitely worth the read.

recycle, denim, goodwill, green options, recycling, upcycling

And of course, I meant, don’t put that in the recycling bin just yet. Not because I need to water the plants, or lug a gallon of water anywhere (which seems to be all that mine get reused for). I want to make a lamp out of it.

“A lamp, you say? How’s that?”

“Well, I found this really neat kit that I can buy online that will let me turn that milk jug into a festival lamp. Its a Milkit.”

That incredulous look I know so well….

“I’m serious. That’s its name!”

“A lamp?” You look at me skeptically.

“Okay, a party light! We can use it at the luau next month.” I say as I quickly leave the room.

“What luau?”

(No really… I think they are cute.)

OK folks. Here it is, my first installment in the DIY category. I know you’ve been waiting with baited breath. =P

So I went to the the local Home Depot this weekend, as is my habit lately. I needed a piece of sheet rock to patch the ceiling where my man fell through it. Of course, I did not bring my own tie-downs, so I grabbed some of the thin tie-down material they had. I believe it’s nothing more than 20 or so fishing line filaments. Either way, when I got home, I was loath to just throw it away. Instead I put it on my Knifty Knitter loom and created a Recycled Tie-down Kitchen Scrubbie. I uploaded it to my personal site, but I think it’s worth mentioning here too.