Ok South Florida gardeners…I’ve killed spinach, I’ve watched zucchini fail, I’ve looked longingly at raspberries and drooled at the possibilities. There are just some plants that hate Florida and will cause you grief if you try to grow them in your urban homestead. I’ve found two alternatives to two of my favorite plants that just suck at growing in my back yard: squash and spinach. Sometimes “going green” isn’t just about more eco-friendly growing techniques, it’s about bio-regionalism.

Bad Squash: Zuchinni
I’ve had my heart broken by failing zucchini plants that loved to stretch out over the hot cement then get sick. Flowers that weren’t pollinating, plants that were getting chocked out, but I had these visions of zuchinni bread and that raw living spaghetti I am so in love with, I couldn’t bear to think of the possibility for going zuke-less. So I started doing my research and came up with something I am even more in love with:

Good Squash: Luffa (Luffa acutangula)
Growing up, I always assumed those funny tubes my mom had in the shower were a sort of sponge. I finally figured out they were actually from a plant! The Luffa, when young is an excellent replacement for squash that normally take up a ton of space. They grow vertical as a vine, which is always something I look for, we can go up easier than we can go out. What I love most of all is that it does double duty, if left on the vine to maturity, you can peel the skin off and walla! A scrubie for use in the bath, around the house and on dishes. The vines grow like crazy and I am just now getting flowers. A few have even pollinated and little luffas are forming below the bloom!

Bad Green: Spinach
Where as my salad box is doing well with it’s mix of lettuces, I never had much luck with spinach. It never grew, required lots of room and usually died shortly after. But I love spinach and with all the buzz about radiating greens, it was time to find an alternative. Enter:

Good Green: Malabar Spinach
I just brought home my newest addition to the garden family: Malabar Spinach (Basella alba). With a gorgeous red stem, this VINE saves a ton of space from traditional spinach and is disease and bug resistant. Its a perennial, so you don’t have to continuously plant new crops every few weeks like with lettuce. If there are two things I love about urban edibles:

1. lazy crops, the less work, the better

2. perenials! I hate when my plants die

3. food that doesn’t go to waste. With Malabar, you collect it when you need it and as far as I can tell there is no ’season’. Luffa won’t go to waste, if you don’t harvest it, it turns into an easily storable sponge.

Festive, originally uploaded by shellgreenier.

Halloween is here! So we wanted to share with you some of the spooktaculars happening around these parts. We all know decorating with pumpkins, squash, hay and cornstalks is eco-friendly (assuming they are grown eco-friendly), but it’s so hard to pass by your neighbors all orange and blacked out and not get jealousy pangs. So how can you keep up with the Joneses and still love the plant?

Inflatable Figurines
It’s my all time favorite waste of electricity…the blow up figurine! So how can one look festive, but not waste a ton of electricity in the process? Simply stated: don’t turn it on. Our youngest has a thing for the large, tacky, blow up figurines. Her grandparents instilled it, now we deal with the consequence. She is still a bit young for “it wastes energy which in turn dries up the resources of the earth and throws pollutants in the air which will one day result in the mass destruction of civilization as we know it.” In fact, her attention span wouldn’t last to the end of that rant, so how long would she really be interested in the balloon kitty in the front yard…about 15 minutes. So we only turn him on when we are out there to enjoy him. Passerby’s in cars driving by won’t remember if the cat is up or down, so in the end she is only there for our enjoyment anyway.

Pathway Markers
Pumpkins make great pathway markers, homes for bugs and tempting items for middle school punks to pick up and smash in the street (smashing puimpkins!). But if you are like me and your heart breaks everytime you see a smooshed pumpkin, maybe it’s time for some other ideas.

Luminairies are always good for the big day, but lighting them every night might be a bit of a hassel. Use mason jars if you want to give it a go, bags are easily tipped over or brushed up against by those highly flammable cosutmes everyone is sporting these days. Set them off the path a bit to help keep them out of the way as well, and all those other safety tricks I am sure you know.

Ghost lolipops! A stick (or dow rod if you want to reuse them year after year), recyceled paper, and white fabric or palstic garbage bags and a sharpie make great ghosts to rival our own “plastic big box store” gift ghosts we have here. When they retire in a few years we will be upgrading to the biodegradable reusable sorts ourselves.

Yard Decorations
Sure, you can get your share of plastic and foam decorations, but for about the same money and a stack of wood or fabric, you could easily make your own spiders and ghosts to hang from the tress or grave stone garden. The best part is, instead of getting stuck with the off the shelf coined phrases of “here lies Fred” you can have a blast coming up with your own ones that reflect your family (morbid? a bit, but all in good fun!)

Trick or Treat!
Skip the plastic bags for the delux edition pillow case…durable and it hold much more!

Handing out the treats? Here is a toughy, candy is everywhere and who has time to go into how it’s made, how bad the candy wrappers are and what it does to kids. But unwrapped things like apples bring back images of snow white and with teh seven dwarves off in the carribean somewhere, we can’t take the risk. Oriental Trading Co. has loads of little “made in china” reusable alternatives, but you could make like the Berries (us) and give out “Grow your own” kits. We don’t get nearly as many kids as some people may, so this year we are making about 3 dozen kits complete with halloween cup, soil, seeds and directions.  Kids stopping by our side of the street get to try their hands at pumpkins!

There are numerous other great green friendly halloween ideas, what are your favorites? Share yours in a comment below!

Polio outbreak campaign, originally uploaded by coda.

So today was David’s appointment at the Health Department to file for the girl’s Religious Exemptions for their Immunizations. Before you FREAK OUT and tell me what a terrible mom I am for not protecting my children, allow me to enlighten you with our beliefs.

1. We are immunizing our kiddos, just not on schedule. We waited until they were older for MMR and the like

2. They aren’t getting the Varicella vaccine. Let them itch and eat cake.

3. And if HPV becomes manditory, they aren’t getting that either. Too many girls have lost their lives to that vaccine, not going to happen.

So off we went to the Health Department. Hmmm. It was…interesting to say the least. Don’t get me wrong. I am very happy with the program, it’s a wonderful program and helps many people who need it.

It’s the “health” part of it more than the “department” part that got to me. I can’t stand hospitals, waiting rooms…even the dentist skeeves me out. (Don’t get me started on places like malls and amusement parks, bleh). And the more stressed I get, the more germophobic I become. So going to “health” places when you’re already healthy…not a happy camper. Even worse when the place wreaks of urine.

So I stand in the hallway waiting to get called in, my nose buried in D’s arm pit, 30 minutes. Five minutes, we go in, sign the papers, get a few trees worth of literature and a talking to make sure understand our decision.

Because, you know, “religious exemptions” are the new ughs boots for babies. Most people don’t really know what they are or how they are made, all they know is they want them!!!! (Sarcasm.)

I’m under the assumption that most people applying for a religious exemption have done more research than those parents who blindly trust what is being shoot into their kiddos arm is for the best interest of said spawn and not the company that created it. Not all are bad, but we have our standards on the “put it in ‘em” category. Small pox, not something we want to take our chances with. Chicken pox? No Immune issues here, so we’ll take our chances.

The irony of it is two fold:

1. The paper they have you sign is more permission slip for them to pull your kid out of public schools in the event of an outbreak (and point many, many fingers) thanth a legal form of the grave necessity it is made out to be. A signature, a date, that’s about it. No address, no telly, no SS#.

2. They have you come into the clinic to do it, where all the creepy crawlies you are trying to keep away from your kids jump a ride back to your house on your shoes. Why not an administration office?

David laughs at me as we pull up to the house, I jump out of the car still moving, open the front door with my wrists, bolt up the stairs and bathed myself in purrell and lysol. The kiddos stayed at the MILs “just in case”.

~ Ga Ga in the Tropics,
Freak Show Shell

P.S. I was half expecting a battle, an evil, terrible hassle with all the horror stories floating around the internet, but the Health Department here is AWESOME! And “supported” our decision but reminded us if we changed our minds we could come back. I even discussed the HPV vaccine with the Dr. who was following the decision to make it mandatory (in TX, apparently). We didn’t go into detail about what religion (but I had my “Amish” answer all ready to go) or the fact we aren’t NOT vacinating completely.

The Medicine Woman, a new-to-me blog I’ve recently fallen in love with, is a must see. This woman is amazing! A practicing herbalist in the Anima Medicine Woman Tradition with a writing style like none other, everyday is filled with new recipes, medicinal inspirations and more following the lines of “Bioregionalism”. She says about her practive:

 My practice is focused on local plants, sustainability, whole person/whole plant understandings and earthy, practical ways of teaching people to work with the plants themselves rather than being dependent on experts. (…) Traditional healers have long known that the medicine we need the most, grows very near to us.

Today she posted a recipe for Green Olive and Pomegranete Relish. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Check it out!

American Beautyberry, originally uploaded by pellaea.

I blame you.

The American Beautyberries have come into…berry? Seed? Bloom? And I decided it would be AWESOME to venture out to the local berry picking haunts and pick some. Ever since the blogosphere ignited with stories of Freezer Jam and photos of perfectly ripened berries last month…I’ve been itching to try a new recipe I found for these gorgeous wild berries in our area (reprinted below). And now they were here! So I hit the tubes to find out how much I would need (1.5 quarts) along with a few other odd bits of information I didn’t think relevant at the time and off we went.

Mutant, Crazy Blood Sucking Zombies
So we got to the place, shut off the car and ventured off…all lathered in Skin So Soft and armed with baggies. To my dismay, the berries still weren’t completely ripe. So I snatched a cutting to see if I could grow it (yay foldable embroidery scissors…perfect for sneaky snipping) picked a few palmetto berries from a near by palm and headed back to the car. RAN back to the car make that. Sorry avon but your skin so soft might work on those Northern Skeeters, but we have super skeeters here. Mutant, crazy, super skeeters that followed us into the car.

After swatting the dozen that snuck into the closed car, D dug out the keys. Usually this is the point where the key…in the ignition starts the car. Ckick, click, click, click is NOT the sound of a car starting. The car wasn’t starting. Sitting in the middle of Mosquito Forest, in a dark car with no air conditioning, we realized the battery was dead. It was like a bad horror move…with ittsy-bittsy tiny Romero zombies with wings.

Existential Conversations
Iz and I sat in the car, trading the increasing temperatures for the potential West Nile virus as D waited for our designated jumper to arrive. Finally, soaking wet and on the verge of heat stroke I realized something I had read online today. American Beautyberries are a natural insect repellent. But which part? I couldn’t remember. Anything was better than this, so I hopped out of the car, grabbed a few handfuls of the berries and smooshed them into the baby after hesitating a second to convince myself they were safe:

Bad S: birds eat them…

Good S: but birds get drunk on fermented fruit too.

Bad S: Yeah, on college campuses. Everyone gets drunk in college.

Good S: Good point. Besides, the whole jelly thing. And you ate them a few times and didn’t get sick

So on to the smooshing.
Iz looked at me shocked. Shocked gave way to WTF which eventually gave way to a giant smile and feet flailing. After rubbing ourselves down with tiny purple balls we sat in the shade and waited. The mosquitoes never came. The berries actually worked. American Beautyberries are an excellent all natural insect repellent, and they smell great too! Now I might have used the wrong part of the plant, you might be sitting out there going “your doing it wrong”. But it worked…who knew?

American BeautyBerry Jelly
Found via Biosphere Buzz
via Florida’s Incredible Wild Edibles, by Dick Deuerling and Peggy Lantz (a book I’ve read from the library recently, but it’s here on amazon for 6 Bucks (p.s. affiliate link: support the madness, or freegan it from the library like us)

1 ½ qts. of beautyberries, washed
2 qts. water

Boil 20 minutes and strain to make infusion
Use 3 cups of the infusion, bring to boil, add 1 enve-
lope Sure-Jell and 4 ½ cups sugar. Bring to second boil
and boil 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand until
foam forms. Skim off foam, pour into sterilized jars, cap.

P.S. Check out this recipe for Beautyberrie Jelly Rolls…nom.

Countinuing our previous discussion on Space Saving Composting for Urban Gardening Series, I like to call this:

THE SQUIRREL METHOD:

We also have lots of containers back there, I usually just dig holes around the plants and bury old fruit and veg around the pots. Coffee ground, tea and ground up egg shells can be dumped right on the surface near the roots and the nutrients leech when it rains/waters. Eggshells help add calcium back into the soil, good for troubleshooting and preventing things like blossom end rot, the nasty black or clear bottoms found on tomatoes sometimes when you first plant them. Grass clippings make good mulch, it adds nitrogen as well and retains water. Seashells add calcium as well, another good mulch.

Check out Part 1 of the series Part 1 of the Space Saving Composting for Urban Gardening Series. Subscribe and never miss an Urban Gardening tip

Hey! I just read your article on ohdeedoh. I am really curious about your composting process. We’ve just finished redoing our backyard and are getting ready to garden next year and one of my dilemmas is composting. I don’t really want to give up garden space (or ruin the newly planted grass). So any advice you have to give… ~S

THE GARDEN BOX COMPOSTER METHOD:

We built up garden boxes (we have “cool decking” or “a big cement yard” and couldn’t get to the dirt with out MASS DESTRUCTION!)…which you can see at this link here.

We built up compost extender sections (1′x1′ squares we place on the dirt in the box seen in the upper right and left corners of the instructables link and peeking through the cuban oregano above), and use it as a regular composter: veg, fruit, organic plant mater, coffee grounds, tea bags (w/o milk), egg shells and whatever else you feel the desire to put in…we stay away from baby poo and all animal poo for that fact (but human urine is a great source of nitrogen for plants, I have yet to pee on my plants though, so we will save that for another Urban Homesteading post). These sit in our garden boxes, but you can put them directly on the ground in your garden.

Anyway, we fill up the box over a couple weeks, then dump about four inches of dirt on top of it. You can plant directly in this and the plants LOVE IT! Plus you don’t lose the great liquidy goo (”black tea”) run off like you would in a separate compost bin: it leeches off into the other plants along with the nutrients. As the plants begin to grow, the stuff under the dirt begins to disintegrate, and the whole mess collapses to the point you can pull the extender box off and move it to a new area. We have three of these guys in our boxes right now. If you can time it right, you can catch a new section as the old plants die off. I’m still working on that. About once a year you will want to mix all the dirt in your garden up, or at least plan your crop rotation for half sections and do a half at a time.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Don’t use pressure treated wood if you make the boxes, it has arsenic that leeches off and could poison the plants and yourself.

What else have you found to work in safe saving composting for urban gardening?

Stick around for Part 2 of the Space Saving Composting for Urban Gardening Series. Subscribe and never miss an Urban Gardening tip.

DO YOU HAVE AN URBAN HOMESTEAD GARDENING QUESTION? Send me an email at shellgreenier_AT_yahoo_DOT_com or via one of the social network links at the top right!

Googling today, I found I overlooked a small thing…just our FEATURE ON CRAFTZINE! Totally Rock! My bad, how did I miss that one? Click the pic below to see the feature.

I am super surprised that our little ole’ Urban Homestead has made such a splash the last few months. It’s so peaceful and does wonders for the spirit of the backyard.

P.S. I found a copy of Bartholomew’s book over at Amazon. This is a must add to your collection. Buy it. Now. (Affiliate link…help support the madness)

I spent the last five minutes in my garden watching the ground move. No, it wasn’t sun stroke, I wasn’t dizzy…well, originally. But after I realized it was an inch and a half maggots nomming the rotten tomatoes I “fed” the bean plants last weekend I became a bit dizzy. BLEAH.

It’s funny, I’m so tolerant of the cute things in our little established ecosystem… baby geckos (EVERYWHERE), butterflies, I can even tolerate the caterpillars and the snails that eat through my passion flower plant. (But hey, there be no room for prissy plants…if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen!) Sometimes I forget it comes with the not so pretty too, like ground moving maggots. BLEAH (sorry, that’s me puking a little).

Which brings me to my moral dilemma… my zucchini-melons are dying. (p.s. not a new hybrid, I just forgot where I planted the zucchini and where I planted the cantaloupe, so I just call all of them zucchini-melons, no need for species confusion, unlike gender…not so much a social construct) I have things eating them, and leaving black pellets (eggs? poop?). I feel like I need to kill them. I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to kill them, but then again I want a happy-little-peaceful-social-utopia-hippie-commune garden and war is not the answer. I’m getting an existential crisis from a bug.

Baby Green Bean, originally uploaded by shellgreenier.

The beans are here…