Plastic

I would like to just take this time to encourage everyone to take a few minutes to read the article linked at the bottom of this post.

As you read through it, you'll have feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and maybe even guilt. But remember, that as consumers, we have the power. We have the power to demand change, and to refuse to use products that do not reflect the kind of change necessary to protect our home for our children.

Next time you're out shopping, take notice of all the plastic in the store. Think about how many stores there are in America... in the world. And realize that the volume of plastic you see probably gets completely turned over every month. Now think of how many years we have had plastic packaging, and how much longer we will have plastic around if consumers do not demand alternatives. As you're considering all of this, look for a container packaged in more friendly methods.

Plastic Ocean

Homemade Flour Tortillas

I finally got brave enough to try making homemade flour tortillas. They were so easy! And not too much mess. I used the recipe here.

Here's how they turned out:


The first several didn't turn out too tortilla-y. Rolling them out was pretty difficult at first.


Everyone warned that you don't want your dough too wet, so I think mine was just a bit too dry. What I did was to put the ball of dough under warm running water for just a second before rolling it out. Then I coated it nicely with flour to make sure it wasn't too sticky.

I conjured memories of my grandmother while doing this because I don't have a rolling pin. She always used a wine bottle to roll her dough, so in her memory I used a wine cooler bottle from last night!



Like I said, the end mess wasn't too bad. It was that area (I used parchment paper re-used from making granola bars last night to just double be sure that my dough didn't stick to the countertop), the skillet that just has some flour dusting in it (a bit burnt), and a plate/spatula that they were placed in and used for turning them in the skillet.

I also found this forum with a few different tortilla recipes on it. I intend to get more adventurous and try some out. Also, if I were to use this recipe again, I would probably do a half and half mix of whole wheat flour and white flour. They taste ok, not amazing, but I think it's from using all whole wheat flour.

The guilt of a horticulturalist

Something that has been bothering me a bit lately is the guilt I feel about my choosen (future) profession. I'm a student of horticulture. Horticulture is a field that has done quite a bit that is neglectful or harmful of the earth. We've introduced invasive species that have destroyed natural habitats such as Water Hyacinth, we proliferate fertilizers with high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorous which are known to upset the natural balance of these chemicals in the soil and our waterways, and we are a huge huge consumer of plastic.

The soils, soilless mixes, amendments, and fertilizers we purchase more often than not come in plastic. We have massive quantities of plastics in the way of nursery pots for our plants; even many greenhouses are built entirely of plastic. We purposely put black plastic in the ground as a moisture and/or weed barrier.

I'm trained most specifically in floral design. The floral industry is anything but natural or nature friendly. When flowers arrive, they are packaged in massive amounts of plastic - generally we get 6-10 stems of flowers wrapped in plastic. Sometimes several bunches will be wrapped in additional plastic. Each bunch is usually wrapped in 2-3 rubber bands, most likely synthetic. The flowers are shipped to us in cardboard boxes. In the field, the flowers are sprayed with insane amounts of pesticides and fertilizers.

We often design in plastic containers, which eventually get thrown away. Each and every one of these plastic containers is wrapped in an individual plastic bag (not labelled for recycling) and then placed in a cardboard box. The flower stems get stuck into "Oasis" which is "thermoset plastic and is not biodegradable." Yet on the MSDS it is recommended that it be recycled (what facility will take it for recycling??) or to be "cut up and used as a soil conditioner" (the company wants us to put plastic purposely into the ground?).

In my lab, we try to compost plant material waste as much as we can, and return the plastic wrappings and cardboard boxes the flowers get sent to us in with hopes they will be reused. We reuse the plastic bags the containers get packaged in as much as possible, but that tends to be a 1 time reuse. We are going to start asking students to bring back containers they don't want so we can reuse them the following semester (but students are lazy, I don't have high hopes that many will get reused).

The only solace I take in all this guilt I feel regarding my choosen industry is that horticulture also has the potential to bring about great change. Organic and urban horticulture are growing fields which seek to bring nature into our daily lives. I may at some point have the opportunity to collaborate on research on the effects of wrapping the post-harvest flowers in plastic (which in my opinion increase mold and the difficulty in removing often makes the depetals a lot of flowers). And as a future professor, I would have the opportunity to teach students about the importance of gardening and using organic materials in the garden.

This is a topic I have been thinking a lot about lately. What are some other ways I can help reduce plastic use in horticulture as a lowly grad student? What are some other things I have to look forward to about being a part of the solution to our ecological problems as a horticulturalist?

Berryland Farms of Texas

My Mom, Dad, and I visited Berryland Farms of Texas on Friday... we got there at 8am. We picked blueberries, blackberries, and peaches. They wanted to give us buckets lined with plastic t-shirt bags (the kind you get at the grocery store), so we had to request no bags (we brought our own buckets - reused cat litter buckets). We talked with the owners a bit about how we decided to reduce disposable plastic in our lives, and are trying our best to avoid plastic when possible. They agreed that those darned bags are everywhere. The husband (Mike) even mentioned that he had spent some time cleaning bags and other plastic out of the ditch near their place.

The farm was nice; they had a great set-up. It was located near Winnie, Texas.

Unfortunately, their crop is coming in much later than last year, they suspect it is due to Hurricane Ike, which had also caused their Peach trees to go into an early dormancy and bloom/fruit in the fall.

So we got there a bit early for this season's crop, but we did get a bit.

My mom asked Mike if he thought the late berry production was due to a lack of rainfall, and he mentioned that he collected rainwater in a pond and irrigated with the reclaimed rainwater with a drip irrigation system he installed. We were impressed with their wise water use! I thought we got a picture of their pond, but I can't find it. They mentioned their intent to expand the pond because it was very very low, and they were going to expand their crops in the coming years as well.

We stayed there till about 11am, but only spent about an hour or two picking. The rest of the time we spent talking to the owners. Turns out Mike worked at the company my dad works for in the 80's, so they know some of the same people (but they didn't know each other). Diana (the wife owner) is the sweetest lady. We definitely intend to visit again (hopefully again this year).

Here are some more pictures from our visit. All picture credits go to my wonderful Mom, who is also trying to reduce, reuse, and recycle (we got her set up with a compost pile this weekend!), and were taken AFTER we picked, which is why there aren't many ripe berries on the vines. I think we picked them pretty clean!

Mike mentioned that when his peaches bloomed early, he thinned the setting fruit out and he got bigger peaches. But when they bloomed again for the normal season, he didn't thin them to see what he got, and he ended up with much smaller peaches. This is his first year working with peaches, but they were still delicious.

We talked to Diana a bit also about the "hoops" you have to go through to start a farm like this, because ultimately that's my dream type life. She said there really weren't many, and that the only time there are a lot of hoops in her experience is if you're selling processed foods from the stuff you grow at the farm, and if you're trying to be organic. She went on to say they do not spray their berries at all, but she does use a light pesticide on her tomatoes because they get some terrible stinkbugs that will wipe them out if she doesn't. But she mentioned that she stops applying it well before harvest, even though the instructions say that it can be applied all the way till the day of harvest. I like their practices, even though they aren't entirely organic.

We ended up with about 12 lbs Peaches, 12 lbs Blackberries, and 2 lbs of Blueberries. Blueberries are my absolute favorite, so I'm a bit sad about that... but that's why I plan to go back!

Here's the picked fruits:

I spent the rest of the day after we got home putting all the fruit up. No plastic! But lots and lots of sugar! I ended up with 2qts. and 2 1/2 pints (so a full pint) of peaches (plus some we saved for eating of course!), 3 qts. of blueberries, and 12 qts. of blackberries. I plan to share some blackberries with a couple of school friends. I was supposed to bring them back some blueberries, but if I do I won't have enough for us. So their blueberries will have to wait until the next trip. The last picture is of Mike and Diana, the farm owners. They are holding what we picked, plus their tomatoes (we didn't buy the tomatoes, but they were proud of them!)

Here's the canned goods:

There's 3.5 pints of peach syrup (made sort of following this recipe for peach honey - I think the name peach syrup fits better, and doesn't make people think it has real honey in it). Also 3 pints of peach preserves, sort of following the recipe in the sure gel box minus 1 cup of sugar (I didn't measure the fruit out either - and I used the low-sugar pectin). There's 2 qt jars of canned peaches, and 2 half-pint jars. Then all the jars of berries in the freezer.

It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun too. I only wish I had about 4x the amount of berries and peaches!

Homemade Granola Bars

Granola bars are one of my favorite breakfast foods. Unfortunately, I've decided to stop buying them because they come in plastic packaging (so sad).

But today I tried my hand at making some homemade ones. Here's how they turned out:


They are delicious. I'll be taking them to school/work tomorrow to share.

The best part is they are amazingly inexpensive to make because almost all of the ingredients can be purchased from bulk bins, meaning I can get as little or as much as I want package free. All the waste from making these is compostable, including the parchment paper.

I put together bits from several recipes I found on the web to come up with one I liked. It has a lot of health-nut ingredients. If you live in College Station, you can get them from bulk containers at Brazos Natural Foods on Texas Ave.

Here's the recipe for you to try:

Go ahead and preheat oven to 350.

Mix in a bowl, then let stand about 5 mins:
2 cups oats
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 c unsweetened apple sauce
1 Tbsp melted unsalted butter or margarine (I read you should always include a touch of butter/margarine/oil when using apple sauce, because it binds with the flour and apple sauce does not - but the apple sauce is fine for making the dough moist)
1/4 c wheat germ
1/4 c wheat bran
zest from one small-medium orange, chopped finely (should be about 1.5-2 tsp)
juice from that orange (should be ~1/4 cup)
1 egg
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup powdered milk
1 cup nuts or dried fruits or seeds of choice (I used about 1/4 cup flax seed and 1/2-3/4 cup of chopped walnuts... I thought about putting a smooshed up banana in too but decided against it because one of my friends I'm sharing with doesn't like bananas)

Mix in another bowl:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda

13x9 cake pan, line with parchment paper to get the bars out easier and easier cleanup. If no parchment paper, lightly grease/flour.

Mix flour mixture with the other stuff, stir up nicely.

Use about half (can use a touch more) of the mixture and spread it on the bottom of the cake pan. (I liked doing it over the warm oven, seemed like it made spreading it easier.)

Top that layer with a thinly spread layer of jelly, jam, preserves of choice (I used homemade by a friend's family Fig Jelly).

Then layer another fine spread of the oat mixture over the top of the jelly. Sometimes my jelly smooshed through, but I think it still turned out ok.

Bake until golden brown, about 20-22 mins.

It smelled like oatmeal cookies baking, and they taste just like oatmeal cookies!

Mine made 18 bars, but I used a cookie sheet instead of a cake pan. The cookie sheet was larger than a cake pan. I think a cake pan would be better because it was very hard stretching the dough far enough to cover the entire cookie sheet. If you want thinner bars, use a cookie sheet but be ready to work hard to get your dough to cover the full thing. I think a cake pan would be better though you may get fewer bars, or just smaller thick bars.

Good luck!

Criminal Composting

As most of you know, I live in an apartment while I go to school. This means I just don't have the room to do a lot of the things I want to do towards living a less disposable life.

Recently, however, I decided that I was going to start a compost pile... at my apartment complex. I'm lucky to live in an apartment complex surrounded with trees and underbrush. I live on the outer edge of the complex and the trees are right out my door. I don't really think apartment regulations allow for composting... so I've termed my compost activities "criminal composting."

Composting is one of the best ways to reduce disposable trash. Any paper, food, or garden material can be composted. Read this blogger's post for more info on what to compost. You can even compost the corn cobs left over from feeding the squirrels, Mom! According to this article, Americans throw away 30 million tons of food each year! That's a lot of compost. All of it makes excellent garden soil! Much better stuff that what you pay a LOT of money for and comes in plastic bags at the garden center. And it's completely 100% free.

Composting greatly reduces your trash. And since most of the kitchen garbage is the yucky wet stuff, you're left with trash that stinks less. For this reason take your kitchen scraps to the compost every day!

Anyways, I tend to take my compost materials out at dark, or make sure no one is around when I take it out. I feel like I'm going to get caught! Paranoia! Criminal composting!

But, I know that my composting is better for me and everyone at the complex.

Composting is easy. There are complex methods for speeding the process along, and recipes for making the best quality compost, but really composting is like cooking. You can do it the hard way with a recipe and make sure it turns out nicely, or you can do it the easy way without a recipe just throwing in a little of this and a little of that depending on what you have. As with cooking, I prefer no recipe!

I just took out some scraps (in the daylight!) and took some pictures for you.

Here are my kitchen scraps I took out:

There's lettuce ribs (they were bitter), squash ends, lime rinds, avocado peels, sweet potato ends, and egg shells. In my past experience avocado peels take forever to break down, but I've decided to put them in my compost anyways.

Here's what my criminal compost pile looks like:

You'll also notice some old flowers in there, that's a by-product of my floral design work, and the guilt that particular work produces, which I'll blog about at some point because it has been on my mind a lot.

If you look closely, you'll see that I picked a poor spot for my compost pile:

I think that's poison ivy.

What do you think?

I'll just have to be careful!

Anyways, I encourage each of you to start a compost pile. We used to have one at my parents' home when I was younger, but stopped using it and even dismantled it when it became unmanageable because we put all our Live Oak tree leaves in it. But there are other uses for your leaves, and you can just put a few in your compost pile. Compost piles work better if you have a large variety of materials in them, including some leaves. But if they are almost full completely of leaves it gets hard for them to break down.

For fun, and more compost goodness, go down to your local bait shop and buy some earthworms to put in your compost pile. Try to find some that aren't in a plastic or styrofoam container though!

On my way in, I took some pictures of my plants for ya'll too. I need to rearrange them some, my peppers in front of the walls are doing much much better than the ones not in front of the wall. I guess the sunlight reflecting off the wall is good for them. I need to figure out something to do with my tomato plants too.

Glass

I try to buy products packaged in glass instead of plastic whenever possible. I've been doing this for some time now, but I have (unfortunately) just thrown out my glass with the trash. While I've been trying very hard to limit my disposable plastic consumption, I haven't really been paying attention to all the other stuff.

So I was asked today, "Why is it better to throw glass in the trash than plastic?" I had to think about it. The reality is, nothing breaks down in a landfill, ever. Well, maybe in a billion trillion gazillion years when the next intelligent specie is harvesting and mining our trash as "new" materials! Anyways...

The truth is, it's not better to throw glass away than it is to throw plastic away. Landfills are, ultimately, bad for any material. I had already decided before being asked this to start saving my glass for recycling.

But, I still feel it's better to purchase products in glass containers instead of plastic ones whenever possible.

Here's why:

1) Plastic is made from fossil fuels, aka oil. With the continuously rising cost of oil, why increase the demand? It's a non-renewable resource.

2) While we all "know" plastic can be recycled, the reality is that recycling plastic does not, in any way, alleviate our demand for new plastic. When plastic is recycled, it deteriorates. This means that a new laundry detergent bottle cannot be made from the laundry detergent bottle you took to the recycling center.

Glass, however, is completely recoverable when recycled. A new glass pickle jar can be made from the glass pickle jar you took to the recycling center.

3) When you take plastic to the recycling center or leave it for curbside pickup, it may not even be recycled. Most recycling programs only recycle #1 and #2 plastic narrow-necked containers. This means tubs that you bought yogurt, margarine, cream cheese, etc. in will not be recycled even if they are #1 and #2. There are many many types of plastics, and they are coded from 1-7. Just because they are coded, doesn't mean they are recyclable (or that your center will recycle them even if they are recyclable).

4) There has to be a market for recycled materials to get companies to recycle them. If you don't buy products made of recycled plastic, then recycling does no good. Since glass can be made into new glass products, the market for "recycled" glass is the same market as that of "new" glass.

5) Glass is inert. This means it does not leach. It does not leach chemicals into our food when heated like plastic can, and it does not leach chemicals into our ground water like plastic can (this might be one reason why glass is better in a landfill than plastic...).

The downside to glass is that it is heavy. It costs more to ship (and it takes more oil to ship heavier loads) than plastic does. This is part of the gray area of being green. Does this weight factor outweigh all the other negatives about plastic making plastic the better choice? I don't think so, but this is why I'm trying my super very best to reduce my reliance on any type of packaging where possible.

I'm starting to see that each individual has to be responsible for the waste they generate. We can't continue to live our lives as if everything was disposable, for nothing is truly disposable.