Washing lettuce

Well, we've been getting loads of fabulous veggies from the local farmer's market, and among those veggies that are coming out right now is lettuce. Now if you've only been privy to lettuce that you buy in the grocery store, then you are probably unaware of the amount of dirt that can accumulate in between the leaves.

So the other week I came home with two large heads of lettuce and proceeded to prepare them to put in the fridge. To make things easier for later I decided to wash and tear the lettuce up so that all that I have to do is pull out what the family needed and use right away. To wash farm fresh lettuce it is best to soak the lettuce in water so that sand and dirt can sink to the bottom of the water, then take the lettuce from the water and use a salad spinner to get the moisture off the lettuce. Typically I do this by loading the lettuce in the spinner to do the whole process, taking the basket out with the lettuce to dump the water out of the lower bowl then replacing the basket with lettuce to spin.

The problem is, that with so much lettuce it would have taken 4-5 times to do this and that a lot of wasted water. I didn't want to fill the whole sink, not to mention I had already filled the salad spinner. While looking over my options, I happened to have a bucket that my family uses to pick strawberries with and I decided to dump the water from the sald spinner (along with the lettuce) into this bucket. I would add lettuce to the water, swishing it around every now and then until the lettuce took up about 1/2-2/3 of the water space (you want to have room at the bottom to collect the dirt). By the time I was done putting the lettuce in the water, it was ready to move it on to the salad spinner. I spun the lettuce and transferred it to a bag that would go in the refridgerator (this is a good way to reuse a ziploc bag), and then repeated the entire process.

Instead of using 4-5 buckets of water (approximately one gallon sized), I used one bucket of water to rinse 2 of the largest heads of lettuce I've ever seen. If I did this every two weeks (which is probably less often than it actually would be), I can save up to 8 gallons of water a month, and up to 24 gallons per season (since we maybe get local lettuce for 3 months, at the outside). This is a small amount of water, but all these little things add up.

If I find some other vegetable like this (say Swiss Chard, Leeks, and other really dirty veggies) and use the same concepts, finding the smallest volume that I can use and just using it repeatedly until all my veggies are clean, then I could save much more water in the process. Since most dirt and sand will just sink to the bottom, the water above the bottom 1/4 should be relatively clean (maybe a little green, but free of sediment). For particularly dirty leaves I rub a thumb over them to break up anything that's not realeasing on it's own.

The Importance of Gardening

AHHH, SPRING!!!

It's time for me and my family to get outside more and work in our garden. A garden is a fantastic way to save money on groceries (evnetually), reduce stress, teahc the kids valuable lessons, and stay green. Even more green than a garden in your back yard?? A garden in your front yard!! Grass requires a lot of water, it's tough to get much biodiversity (diversity in insects and other good creatures living in the dirt), and the chemicals required to keep a green lawn without weeds are pretty harsh to the environment (see biodiversity of grass).

The benefits of grass?? Well, it's pretty, you can walk across it without shoes, and on a hill it can prevent erosion.

The benefits of a garden instead?? You can eat what grows, it's much more colorful, more forgiving of mistakes, more motivation to working in it, and your dogs that live in the backyard can't destroy it!

Here's a picture of my garden just before planting for the spring. As you can see there are still lots of plants there that have stuck around over the winter.

Here's the same garden with a tiny bit of snow (a rarity around here).

And here is the same garden today (3 weeks post planting)

Okay, so maybe I just wanted to post pictures today, but there are some serious advantages to having a garden out front, as mentioned before.

One advantage is that gardens are more forgiving than lawns. If you plant multiple fruits and vegetables in your garden, your bound to get something out of it. If your soil is missing something you may have a problem growing some things but others may thrive. If your soil is missing something that the lawn needs it will all look bad. If you have a dead patch in the garden, just pull up the plants, add some compost and plant something else. If you have a dead patch in your lawn your going to have a harder time digging it up and replacing and it will be awhile before it blends in to the rest of the grass.

Another advantage is that it's easier to go organic with a garden than with a lawn (see more forgiving). While it is possible to go organic with a lawn, it is less forgiving and if you don't get your fertilizer ratios right (ie you'll most likely need store bought ) then it won't be the image of perfection that most want and the use of herbicides to get rid of weeds are generally used by most.

Let's face it, I'm lazy! I LOVE gardening, but if I don't see my gardening daily (even multiple times a day) then I just won't take care of it. It just won't be at the forefront of my mind, and I suspect it's the reason so many others fail at their back yard gardens, as well. I need to see the weeds as they pop up to pull it or they'll grow out of control. I need to see the ripe plump tomatoes and other veggies to realize that I need to pick them or they'll wither and rot on the plant. But most of all, I just need the reminder to go out and enjoy the garden and my children playing in it.

The last advantage that I'd like to discuss is the wonderful circle of life it creates. When you grow a garden you appreciate your fruits and vegetables more (even the ones you buy), in turn you are more likely to eat them helping to create a more healthy habit. After eating your produce you typically need to do something with the waste left behind and a common sense move is to start a compost (free fertilizer, who doesn't love that?) and that in turn will give you a bigger healthier garden.

Check those toilets!!

OK, so we all know that water is wasted when we have a leaky toilet. So every now and then you need to check them. Now, if you have a new toilet you may be thinking "Oh, this doesn't mean me." BUT, we used to have a nice pretty new house once too and within weeks of moving in we discovered one of the toilets, was in fact leaking. So we had to call in the contractor to fix it, and he showed us what was wrong with it. We continued to have to repair that toilet about once or twice a year after that. Now we live in a beautiful 102 year old house so EVERYTHING leaks.

So how do you check your toilet? Several ways. Of course, sometimes you can hear a leak, especially if it trips the water to cut on to refill the tank. You can also put some food dye in the tank (keeping the bowl clear) and check back in a few hours. If the bowl has the food dye in it then you've got a leak. Lastly, check the floor around the toilet. If there is water, or if you see an area with dried water (typically a brown ring) then you may have a leak (or a boy in the house who can't aim).

Oh no, do the toilets need replacing!? Well, no. While a new low flow or dual flush toilet would be a great help in conserving water, there is also the whole throwing away of an old toilet that you have to deal with. That's still wasteful to throw away a perfectly good toilet. Many times fixing a toilet is quite easy and inexpensive. What's even better is that now there are flush systems that only allow the tank to refill a couple of times before it stops the cycle. If the leak continues the tank will eventually empty without refilling itself and wasting water. We have this on one of our toilets (see old toilets above) and it works well. If a leak develops we know because the next time we go to flush the tank fills up instead of flushing. It can be a bit annoying to have to wait for it to refill completely before flushing, but I know that it means that water was saved. This same system is going to be put on our other toilet very soon because I have started to hear it reflling itself in the middle of the day.

How does one fix a toilet? Well, it depends on what's wrong. Look in the tank and check to see if the chain is knotted up, if the ball is gunked up, if the wax washers are disintegrated, and if the handle is functioning is a good start. Make your observation, pay attention to the brand of toilet you have and go to your local home improvement store. Tell an associate what you saw and chances are they can direct you to what you need to replace. The replacement parts typically have instructions, but you can always clarify with the sales associate. Toilets are pretty straight forward and can be a good way to dive into home repair if you've never really tried before, but of course you should gauge your abilities first before deciding to dive into repairing them.