Postmod: Tips for Greening your home

I'm over at Postmodyrn today with six tips for greening your home. Without giving too much away, remember those three R's we learned in elementary school? Reduce, Re-use, Recycle? Well my tips for greening your home stem around remembering those principles. Hop on over to read the full article.

Composter from Home Depot

- Jess

Spoken Glass GIVEAWAY

Recently I was introduced to Conor Gaffney's line of dinner table carafes Spoken Glass.  In his Venice, CA studio, Conor laser engraves reusable glass carafes with sayings and custom designs.  He started the company in 2006 seeking to support people in giving up plastic, especially when it comes to water bottles.

Most people know that plastic can be recycled, and perhaps they don't feel so bad about drinking out of a plastic bottle when they throw it into a recycling bin.  But recycling requires energy and plastic bottles can only be downcycled - in other words they can't be made into more plastic bottles.  Because they are contaminated materials they can only be made into other items such as carpet fiber.  Glass bottles can be recycled into more glass bottles.  But these ones you won't want to recycle.  They have swing-top stoppers and give your dinner table a classic bistro look.

Conor has been kind enough to do a giveaway with the Eagle's Nest.  Just comment below let us know which item you like from his Affirmation line (entrants must follow the Eagle's Nest).  The winner will be announced on Satudray morning, March 26.

To Market!

So, I spend a lot of time on my cross-Pacific plane rides watching the adventures of various traveling chefs - Anthony Bourdain, Jamie Oliver,  Gordon Ramsay.  Usually I end up drooling over the recipes and frantically scrawling down notes to take home to my own kitchen.  Most recently, however, I watched Jamie Oliver on a trip to the French Pyrenees and Anthony Bourdain in Provence. 

Photo by Brian Gibson

What struck me in both locations was not only the fresh farmer's produce that was so easy to come by, but also that none of the locals are walking around with a wad of folded cloth bags with the Ralphs or Vons logos on them (or whatever the French equivalents are).  Everyone is carrying a practical, sustainable, yet beautiful market tote of some sort.  Now, I'm not going to run out and throw away all of my super ugly freebie reuseable bags, but I think there is something to be said for good sound design for practical items.  Why not do a little self-curating and get a bag that's nice to look at, that you wouldn't mind leaving by your front door for a bit?  In the end, if you spend a little dough on one of these I think you'll end up with a product that outlasts those papery-fabric reuseable things and outperforms it as well.

Three options for your traditional french market tote (I think the leather might be friendlier on the hands):

L' Ovale

La Vie

Maison de Kristine 

The classic string market tote from Kir DeVries for those of you who absolutely must have something foldable and compact

The classic LL Bean Boat and Tote, a workhorse from grocery to kitchen, to beach, to sleepover.

Swiss Family Hotel

When I'm on the road for work I spend a lot of time reading in-flight magazines, travel publications and other various glossy periodicals.  One thing I've noticed that keeps cropping up lately is the idea of tree house hotels.  Perhaps it's the whole green eco-tourism movement that has given rise to the idea of literal tree-hugging, or maybe it's just the next obvious step after ice hotels, under-water hotels, and the likes of Virgin Galactic.  Either way, it's a trend to watch.  You know it's a keeper when a tree house hotel shows up in Vegas or Dubai, New York or Hawaii.  Here's a roundup of the latest.

Costa Rica's Tree House Hotel

Sweden's Tree Hotel which opened in July (shown here under construction)

Sanya Hainan's Nanshan Treehouse Hotel

The Central Treesort in Cave Junction, OR

 The Ariau Towers Hotel in Amazon, Brazil

The Yellow Tree House Restaurant in Auckland, New Zealand (unfortunately they are still waiting for their permit - I guess there's a lot of red tape that goes along with tree dining)

 The tree-top dining pod at Soneva Kiri resort in Thailand.

And Travel & Leisure's article about their top 10 high-end tree house hotels.

Finally, one has to wonder..... leaves as toilet paper? or is that taking it too far?

Weekly Weeds: We Are Family (well, sort of)

You know that sisterhood of peppery salad greens, arugula, watercress and nasturtiums? With the similar spicy taste? Completely different families.

Well, specifically, different genera; they are more like third cousins, twice removed. Just for confusion’s sake, Nasturtium is actually the genus name for Watercress (Nasturtium officinale) and only a common name for what we call nasturtiums (Tropaeolum species). “Nasturtium” is from the Latin Nasus tortus, twisted or wrinkled nose, no doubt a response to the pungent bite of the plants. Arugula (Eruca E. sativa) has this characteristic too. Climbing up the family tree, all three are related through the Order Brassicaceae whose members commonly produce mustard oil compounds (glucosinolates). This explains the whoo-ee factor, which you might not really experience unless you grow your own. By the way, glucosinolates are being studied for their cancer-preventing properties, so eat up.

Besides their distinctive peppery flavor and diluted mustard family ties, these plants share an easy cultivation habit. They can be started from seeds or plants. Harvesting the arugula and watercress repeatedly will stave off flowering, which can make the leaves too strong tasting. Nasturtiums and arugula are much less thirsty than watercress. Those of us in water-challenged areas with no burbling stream nearby should consider planting watercress in well-irrigated containers.
I sowed wild arugula from Seeds of Change more than ten years ago and still have clumps of it that return every year. How's that for ROI? Unfortunately some are now at the edge of the street (how? I don’t know) at perfect dog height, which feels a bit dodgy when gathering it for dinner.
Most use arugula (or rocket, roquette, rucola) in salads. It’s also great in risotto, soup, pasta, chopped on top of pizza and as a pesto.

The arugula flowers are edible too and taste great, but somehow they seem a little buggy-looking to me as a foodstuff. If I didn’t know what they were, I might be inclined to discretely pick them out of my salad & hide them in my napkin.

Nasturtiums are equally as persistent as arugula, though if you are planting unusually colored varieties, be prepared for the plants that re-assert themselves next year to look fairly different from the packet. They are a fun addition to your garden - with their big saucer leaves and surreal flowers, squint and you can just see the fairies living beneath...

Fantasy aside, for ornamental value, nasturtiums easily win the family beauty pagent. The lily pad leaves bead up water, begging to be photographed, and the flowers range from creamsicle to fanta to mahogany. They are as photogenic in your salad as they are in your garden.

The flowers and leaves can beautify cheese plates or desserts. You can pickle the flower buds to use as you would capers. If you are making pasta from scratch, roll a few petals into your fettuccine for a pretty confetti effect. Or how about chopping up some in cream cheese for a lovely sandwich spread or using the leaves for dolmas?

The last cousin here, watercress, to me conjures up scenes of afternoon tea from a PG Wodehouse novel: "I say, Jeeves, what about another of those watercress sandwiches? They are rather spot on, eh?"

It is one of the main veggies in V-8, in case you think you’ve never had it.

Jeff Cox has done such a great job in writing about watercress that I defer to him in his lovely article, All About Watercress – complete with Watercress, Beet, and Orange Salad Recipe. This is a great recipe which is interchangeable with arugula, by the way.

My favorite way to use watercress is to add to a basic vichyssoise for a delicious cold spring and summer soup. I’m not sure about watercress ice cream but the color would be ethereal!

Weekly Weeds By
Nancy Knapp
Weeds Garden & Interior Design

/

Win it!

HGTV Green Home Giveaway

Enter to win everyday. And if you win because you found it through mean, pretty please can I at least take one vacation in the house prior to you selling it off and paying and exorbitant amount of tax on your winnings?

Weekly Weeds

Carpenteria californica, commonly known as tree anemone, is an oxymoron to be sure. A shy, uncommon weed

In nature, it’s found only in a tiny area of 20 square miles in the foothills of the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains here in California. Yet it grows like a weed (if a bit of a sensitive one) in that it survives and reproduces in a harsh environment of annual drought, extreme heat and cold.

The interesting thing is that it doesn’t seem to like its native environment very much. During stressful, waterless times it droops, wilts, turns yellow & half dead only to pop back to its very attractive state with some rain. Compared to its native neighbors, it is a show-off, producing an ostentatious display of blooms happily pollinated by local insects, loads of viable seeds but a net result of almost no seedlings. Most of the typical California native evergreen plants have developed much more sangfroid in their survival strategy.

And the poor plant was not even discovered properly. An explorer, J. Charles Fremont, found it in the 1840’s, but unfortunately he was a bit confused as to his actual whereabouts at the time, so it was lost again for almost half a decade. Somehow, in the meantime, it ended up in the UK and Europe, where it is still very popular. In fact, there are cultivars available there of which we can only dream.

After a century and a bit, it has finally made its roundabout way back into cultivation here in the US, and is available as an absolutely lovely bushy plant with scads of fabulous big white scented flowers, blooming for several months of the year. And as long as you don’t impose a complete watering hiatus upon it (though it is considered drought tolerant) it will give you nice foliage as well.



An added bonus is that if your house burns down, Carpenteria californica grows back and multiples best after a good, raging fire. Also, it apparently tastes quite bitter and is unappealing to sheep and deer, should that be an issue.

If you have a spot for a really pretty survivor do consider the tree anemone.

Bird is optional, but makes a nice addition....

Weekly Weeds provided by

Nancy Knapp
Weeds Garden & Interior Design

Free Mulch

Otherwise known as fmulch or frulch or freech

Where does all that stuff go that you throw into your green bin?






















Yes, the City of LA provides free mulch. Bring your own shovel and pile it in.

Weekly Weeds

I'm starting a little segment called Weekly Weeds that my friend and Garden Designer

Nancy Knapp will be contributing to.

Welcome Nancy and Welcome to Weekly Weeds.

Ask anyone what is a weed and you'll get a barrowful of different answers. Dandelions..clover..ivy..sunflowers.. Sunflowers?

“Weeds” are really in the eye of the beholder. A beautiful peony in a field of corn (don't even get me started on monocultures) would be considered a weed, after all.

It’s a thankless job nowadays being a weed, poisoned or chopped to extinction. Yet, historically weeds were often let be to keep erosion at bay, to channel nutrients to topsoil from deep below, and encourage pollinators. Weeds were also gathered for medicines, foods such as wild carrots and strawberries (have you seen the price of dandelion greens at Whole Foods?) and useful materials like hemp, in both its licit and illicit forms.

Then there are plants that act like weeds but can pass as invited botanical guests in your garden. It all depends on the gardener and the context.

I think it’s high time to give “weeds” a chance.

Now, I’m not advising filling your borders with stinging nettles, unless you are planning to throw a fabulous nettle soup dinner party. What I am suggesting is to look for those plants which embody the spirit of a weed, its exuberance, energy, grow-forth and conquer attitude. And if you can cook it, so much the better.

So, which “weeds” qualify? Which are beautiful, hardy, non-invasive and, especially for these drought-conscious days? Which avoid being prissy, high-maintenance water hogs?

Let’s start with a classic, the Santa Barbara Daisy.


Santa Barbara Daisy, Erigeron karvinskianus, aka Mexican Daisy, is about as tough as they come. This plant thrives on being cut down only to spring back up into beautiful mounds with scads of tiny daisy flowers. Once it is established, just throw a little water on it when you think about it and mow it down periodically. Sorry, but you can’t eat this one.

A word of caution: as with anything, when it comes to weeds or weedy plants, you can have too much of a good thing. Some, like the Japanese Knotweed, may even have the USDA down on you with hazmat suits and nasty chemicals. Not-weed? I don’t think so. Watch it grow like crazy.

Nancy Knapp
Weeds Garden & Interior Design

Rock Row Townhomes

Rock Row, LA's first LEED Certified Subdivision is about to be sold out. The final townhome (actually they are zoned as single family residences) is up for grabs. There is an open house from 12-5 this Sunday. The floor plans are really cool Great indoor/outdoor spaces. Maybe not altogether child-friendly. And definitely not friendly to those with sore marathon-training knees. Come join our little neighborhood!

http://www.leangreenlivingmachine.com/