What’s in the ground:

Hopefully everyone’s winter greens are looking good and are safely translplanted in the ground. In our growing zone, most people are accepting the fate of barren November soil. But if you keep your transplants well mulched with salt hay (wood chips invite pests) and cover your plants with remay, espeically when they are still small seedlings, they will survive. Remember, spinach tastes best in near freezing soil.

What’s going on in sustainability:

This week I was inspired by the renewed energy in my house as our new housemates have settled in. I’m inspired not only because the house has come back to life after transistion had left it in neglect for so long, but because I’m rediscovering all of my sustainable projects that I’d left dormant for so long. I’ll hopefully be blogging about this over the next few weeks, so I’d like to start simple.

As we cleaned out the kitchen, stuffed way into the milk crates we converted into shelves was an overly stuffed bag of plastic bags, ones ranging from your standard grocery bags, to small bread bags. Underneath our sink was the cabinet that I’ve dared not look in for so long, the one overflowing with plastic containers without lids, and lids without containers. Now, this mess was created with total good intention to do the whole reduce, reuse thing. But somewhere along the way, time and energy banished these tokens of sustainability into the depths of our dirty house.

But now we’re back, ready to get on track to really reduce our strain on the land fills and recycling centers. But it’s going to take some force of habit. Just like the bike accident I had last week that reaffirmed that I need to wear my helmet, I plan to make reusing containers, and moving farther and farther away from plastic just as second natured.

So here’s what you can do if you’re just starting:

-If you go to the grocery store, bringing your own plastic bag for check out is good. But also trying to remember those little plastic veggie bags.

-When you have those bread bags, they can easily be reused as sandwich bags when you are packing your lunch.

-When visiting your favorite restaurant, the place where left overs are just as good as the intial meal, bring your own take away containers. These can be your own tupperware, or ones that you received from the establishment before.

-And as always, an initial purchase of an aluminum water bottle will not only save you money, but will also reduce your overflowing recycling bin.

For those of you who’ve already done the above:

-Now is the time to start collecting glass jars for canning, store crushed peanut butter, and your raw goods. I know it’s a bit tricky to go to your co-op, health food store, famr market or gorcery with glass. That’s why you can reuse those plastic bags to buy bulk and then transfer them into the containers at home.

-Although everyone these days may be carrying those cloth tote bags, using one trumps trendsetting, and if you are concerned with carrying the Whole Foods tote everyone has, get some fabric and thread and make your own. 

The main thing to remember is to keep track of how many containers you have and keep reusing. The problem we ran into was saving, but forgetting we had them and not being in the habit of taking them with us. If you stay mindful, you can exist with a small number of containers and plenty of room in your kitchen.

Until next week, that’s the Note from the Urban Homestead.