Yesterday, I went over to a coworker's cube to chat. Upon seeing my coffee "cup," she tells me, "you know, I've started saving my glass jars too." This is the first positive remark I've heard since I started taking my reused glass jars to work. I get the strangest look walking in to meetings. Some guy usually smirks, "What is thaaaaat?" pointing at my coffee in a reused spaghetti jar. If the jar is filled with water, I get, "is that moonshine?" I'm not sure how to respond, but I silently judge them with their dented plastic/disposable water bottles with the label slightly peeling and the coffee stained styrofoam cups. My coworker continues, "Since I've seen you carry that jar around, I realized I've been wasting my money buying cups. My household can't keep drinking glasses, we seem to always break them. These jars are so sturdy, I'm more worried it'll chip the tile floor." YESS!!! That was my problem when first deciding to keep glass jars. Not to sound like an infomercial, but not only is it hard to break, you can also use them to save your leftovers if you keep the lid. Wait, there's more! Dinner guests will immediately be taken back to their childhood when you hand them a drink in a glass jar.
I realized I'm not the only one to rediscover the benefits when I noticed a peanut butter jar in my sister's cupboards. I've even started sending people home with water or coffee in glass jars. Sort of a way to campaign the trend (and to get rid of ours). And now, my other sister tells me she and her roommate fight over the one glass jar in her house. Look, I know some of you are already saving your chinese takeout containers, and others are proudly reusing their canvas bags for grocery shopping. I'm just suggesting another alternative.
Cheers!
My poor snowman I so carefully and painfullly (for 2 days after) scultped is now reduced to a stump. Which means spring is right around the corner, which also means, time to get gardening. Now, most gardening sites/magazines will tell you, you should be germinating your seeds at this time to ensure it's survival once you commit them to the ground. I always intend on doing this, but sometimes work schedules get in the way, or that darn procratination bug rears it's ugly head that by the time I actually get to it, it's full blown spring or even beginning Summer. This time however, I'm really going to do it. I will get my garden started before spring. But before I get on about which vegetables I'll be planting this year, and showing you adorable baby photos of light green stems curling out of its seed in a wet paper towel, I wanted to catch you up on my life as a gardener so far.
The first year I had a garden (2009), all I did was commit a patch of land and turned the soil and pulled some cable wire roots (see previous blog). That's it! I didn't do anything - too busy to remember to stop by Home Depot to pick up seeds, too tired at the end of the day to garden, but mostly, too confused on what to do next. I recall thinking to myself as I was digging out the lovely patch of green, "I'm really going to do this? Every painsaking task will be done by ME? EEEeeps!" For some reason, I thought planting involved more than putting seeds in the ground. All my research talked of soil testing, arranging, planning, rows and columns. The only thing that grew in my patch of dirt I indignanlty called a garden were the dandylions and other weeds taking advantage of the real estate I carved out. Until one (June) weekend, my parents came by with a small tomato plant and eggplant (uhh) plant and stuck it in my designated patch of dirt. For a while, it didn't do much: no flowers, no buds, no obvious growth, nothing. And so I left it alone, sure that it would eventually wither away and die before bearing any fruit. At some point during the summer, my husband and I went out on vacation for a week. and when we returned, our designated garden area blew up in to a mini-amazon forest. Motivated by the site, I got in there the following weekend and diligently weeded our garden. Fortunately, my parents happen to visit again that weekend and stopped me from killing the plants. Apparently, the tomato had taken to the soil and multiplied. I probably pulled out about 5-8 large healthy tomato plants - oops! Still, by the end of the summer and early fall, we enjoyed some hearty tomatoes and eggplants. And it yielded so much that I had to give some away.
Last year, I was late again on getting a garden going. Fortunately, a friend was staying with us for the summer and asked if he could plant some vegetables for an experiment. This mad scientist friend decided to mix up a bunch of different seeds and sprinkle over the garden patch - in hopes to get some sort of hybrid vegetable (scratching head). He watered it daily and doted on it - much to my delight (better him than me) and doubt ("nothing's gonna grow" I said to myself). A few weeks later, waddayaknow???? some seedlings came up. Though we didn't see any tomato-squash, or cucum-peppers, a variety of plants did grow. Throughout the summer, the weaker plants gave way to the more resilient types namely: squash, tomatoes, and cucumbers all tangled up in a lovely heap I proudly called a garden. At some point, I had bought one of those pre-grown Basil with roots at our local grocery store and bravely stuck them in, and it GREW much to my surprise. It wasn't pretty, but at least we were able to harvest throughout the summer and the early parts of Fall. AND more importantly - I learned it is as easy as literally throwing seeds in to the ground.
So ok, I've never been the originator of the garden, but at least I've maintained them. Despite my haphazard approach to gardening, it's become an important part of my yearly/seasonal (dare I say) hobby. Not only is it cheaper ($3/seed pack will yield a season's worth of food - can't beat that - unless you save your seeds from last season's harvest), I've also noticed the vegetables I conveniently pick right out of my backyard are heavier, juicier and flavorful than the store bought variety. Afterall, "Despite the gardener's best intentions, Nature will improvise" -Michael P. Garafalo.
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