Sustainability

A woman in Oak Park was involved in a court case with her city because of the raised garden beds that she had in her front yard.

All she wanted to do was plant some vegetables for her family to eat, but apparently this was not considered "suitable plant material".



After reposting this video on facebook so many things came up. It was shared with me that she is a pretty interesting lady who apparently now lives in Seattle according to her blog oakparkhatesveggies.

And as if I wasn't already aware America is ridiculous when it comes to laws and regulations for farming. This is just one article about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

As far as I know today the government pays corn farmers not to produce corn instead of corn being produced and used and made into other valuable resources, like biodiesel.

And back to this court case in Oak Park, what about someone like my parents who want to have a green yard full of native plants that do not require excess water or care like grass does. My parents in who live in Southern California decided to rip up all of their grass and plants and turn their whole front and back yard in to a dessert landscape with drought resistan plants except for the small patch of yard and raised bed in the back devoted to growing their own vegetables and fruit.

Towns like Todmorden in the UK and our small hilltop community, Bat Ayin, where many people devote much if not all of their yards to growing produce and are interested in sustainable gardening. This is how land should be used.

Sustainable gardens don't need to look like farms, beautiful gardens with bright colors and shapes can be designed using all edible plants. I have just started to garden but my dream is that one day I will have a house where my yard will be beautiful and full of yummy edible delights. What a great educational tool for our children and what a wonderful way to connect to our land and work towards sustainability!

magical garden

On Friday I was looking at my "wee little garden gnome" and thinking how he might just belong in my herb box above the kitchen sink. I didn't ended up putting him there but after what happened Friday night, I think even more he belongs in there!

My herb box was only full of mint, that was from the centerpieces from our wedding and has been thriving for months now. After all the other herbs one by one died and I thought the mint was alos on its way out, it miraculously came back and has been thriving ever since. So what happened on Friday night you may be asking yourself now? We had just come home from a wonderful meal at our friend's house followed by a great game of bananagrams, and I was getting ready for bed, when Y screamed to me from the kitchen to "come here and look at this"! He told me to look at the flowers, so I looked at my small plant with purple flowers next to the herb box expecting to find some crazy looking spider, but then he said, "what you don't see it? Look at the mint!" So I look at the mint....and what do I discover a bunch of crazy looking yellow mushrooms.
I told him they were definitely not there earlier that day when I watered the mint and was contemplating the wee little gnomes potential new home. They just popped up.

So when Shabbat was over on Saturday night we as carefully as could be picked them out and then tried to do a little research on them on the internet. So it turns out they are called Leucocoprinus birnbaumii ofcourse named after a Jew. They apparently grow in house plants and are pretty common. They won't harm the plant or people, unless we eat them. I like mushrooms, but these ones, yuck! They might come back and I guess if they do I will definitley have to put my wee little gnome in with them!

Green Thumb

Recently I have been really working on growing plants around my house.

My neighbors have created a garden and a few weeks ago I went out with the wife to have a tour of their garden and she gave me a bunch of her plants to see if I can get them to grow in front of my house. I started with keeping them in water to get their roots to grown before planting them.


I really liked the way they looked so I started picking a bunch and putting them in various size and shaped vases and glasses. And they looked so great on my recylced plastic bottle green tablecoth and infront of our window covered in passion fruit vines.

I am also keeping fresh lavendar flowers in jars around the house. And am also attempting for the second time to grow my own lavendar. Along with the lavendar are tons of organic jalapeno sprouts that I really need to transplant into a bigger container, I can't wait for them to started growing peppers!!

I started giving them away I have so many seedlings. I am now searching for cute pots to put some of the seedlings in to give as gifts.

Lupin has her plants potted in great ways, if I could only find vintage pots like her.

This growing passion really started with the herbs from the centerpieces from our wedding. I have them growing above my sink in the kitchen: parsley, peppermint, nana (spearmint), zatar (hyssop). I've been loving pinching some off and putting it in my cooking.

A few weeks ago i added a few zatar leaves to my hummus I was making and it really added such a great taste!

Next I am hoping to start growing basil and cilantro, I tried cilantro but I think I used the leaves in cooking to soon after transplanting it so it didn't last.

The green around the house is so delightful that I even put plants in the bathroom, bamboo above the sink and 3 small succulents on a shelf in the shower.