How To Grow Your Own Radishes

The radish is a misunderstood and under-appreciated vegetable. Often thought of as being merely a bland salad add-on, the radish is anything but boring. Spicy and peppery when eaten raw, the flavor of radish totally changes when roasted or sauteed, becoming earthy and subtly piquant — a fantastic and unexpected addition to stir-fries and braised vegetables.

One of the best things about radishes however, is that they are remarkably easy to grow. Seriously. And better yet,  they are a rotating crop, so in theory you can have a constant supply of radishes throughout the season. Radishes, because they are a rotating crop, and because they have a fairly shallow root system, can even be grown in a planter box — no digging required. Radishes also require far less sunlight than other vegetables, so they may be a great option for you if you have a small yard that doesn’t get a whole lot of sunlight. Growing seasons do vary according to region, but generally you can plant throughout both the spring and the fall — until it gets too cold (regularly below freezing) or too hot (regularly above 90F).

What You Will Need:

– An area to plant in, or a planter box

– Enriched gardening soil — the quantity will depend on the size of your plot, whether or not you are using planters, etc. (If you are sowing directly into the earth this is optional, but recommended)

– Radish seeds

– A regular source of water

Directions:

1. Prepare your growing space. If you are sowing directly into the earth, you will first need to use a pick and shovel to remove any grass and weeds. Once only dirt remains use a pick or a tiller to loosen soil and make arable. Enriched soil can be worked into the earth here to make it more fertile.

If you are using a planter box, simply add a planting soil recommended for vegetables (it usually will say on the bag) to the planter.

2. Sow thinly in a straight row, one seed at a time, approximately every inch or so.* Cover with 1/2 inch loose soil, firm soil lightly with hands.

* As a rule, when gardening you should over-plant as many seeds do not germinate. Once things get going you can thin out your plants, if need be.

3. Plant rows about six inches apart, keep evenly moist

4. Seedlings emerge in 4-6 days. Here is our garden after 8 days:

5. Once seedlings emerge you will want to thin your plants to stand about 2” apart. To do this, simply start at one end, measure 2”, pull out by the root anything in between, and continue down the line.

Our garden after two weeks:

6. Check your radishes occasionally for weeds, and remove as necessary. Keep soil fairly moist.

7. Most varieties of radish are ready to be harvested in 3-5 weeks. Check your seed packet for harvest time for the variety you decide to plant. If you are unsure whether your radishes are ready or not, you can always pull a couple to see.

8. Harvest a radish, plant a radish. Each time you pull one, put a couple more seeds in the soil in that place to have a constant harvest of radishes throughout the season.

One of my favorite things to do with radishes is to put them on toasted, buttered baguette, with fresh herbs like chervil, parsley, and basil and lots of black pepper and sea salt. They are also fantastic on a spinach salad with avocado, red onion, and honey-mustard dressing. Yum.

How To Make Your Own Yogurt

Making your own yogurt is easy, fun, better for you and better for the environment. Plus, if you’re like us and eat a lot of yogurt, it better for your bank account too! And, after you make yogurt once, you can continue to make yogurt from your existing batch because you have the live cultures you need — all you’ll need to buy is fresh milk after the initial batch.

Yogurt makes a delicious and healthy breakfast or snack, especially topped with some fresh fruit and granola, but it can also be used to add tangy creaminess to soups, as a healthy alternative to sour cream, or as the base for marinades and salad dressings. Many yogurts you buy in the grocery store contain funky chemicals and additives, and even many of the organic brands contain things like pectin and other thickening agents, plus are usually loaded with a ton of sugar. If you make your own you are totally in control of what goes into your yogurt, and thus, what goes into your body.

Since homemade yogurt does tend to be less thick than the store-bought kind, I do add milk powder to thicken it, but this is solely a matter of preference. Similarly, you can use whole, raw, pasteurized, low-fat, or skim milk for this recipe, but I like the results of raw whole milk the best. As for your starter yogurt, any high-quality plain yogurt will work, just make sure that it contains live, active cultures. Some health food stores even carry yogurt starter cultures if you really want to go from scratch, but these can be hard to find and using a ready-made yogurt yields equally pleasing results.

What you’ll need:

– A large pot

– A clean container in which to store your yogurt — I used glass mason jars but you can certainly use a plastic container, just make sure that it is super-clean — you don’t want any bad bacteria growing in there with the good yogurt bacteria

– A meat or candy thermometer

– 1 quart of milk, preferably organic

– 1-2 Tbsp. organic, plain yogurt containing active cultures

– 1/4 c. powdered milk (optional)

Directions:

1. Place the milk into a large pot over medium heat. Stir often.

2. Without boiling milk, bring temperature up to 180F. (This is achieved by heating milk slowly over a longer period of time — to get refrigerated milk up to 180 it should take you 25-35 minutes)

3. Remove milk from heat

4. In a separate bowl combine your yogurt with your powdered milk, if you are using it. Mix well.

5. When milk has cooled to 115F pour off about 1 cup of it and add to your yogurt. Stir until an even consistency is achieved

6. Add yogurt/milk mixture back into pot with the remaining 115F milk

7. Transfer your mixture into your clean container(s)

8. Turn your oven to the “Warm” setting, or so that pilot light alone is on — the ideal temperature for making yogurt is 95-105F

9. Place your container(s) into a tray with an inch or two of water in it and place in your warmed oven

10. Let yogurt develop in a warm place for 4-7 hours, checking occasionally to make sure environment has maintained the proper temperature. For milder flavored yogurt develop less (4-5 hours), for tangier, and thicker, yogurt, develop longer.

11. Cover securely and refrigerate. Will keep 1-2 weeks.

*If you’d like to make flavored yogurt, simply combine 1 c. fresh fruit with 1/4 c. honey and bring to a boil on the stove, cook until fruit softens and begins to break down. Stir well. Once cool stir into your yogurt.

How To Grow Your Own Sprouts

This is to be the first entry in the “Grow Your Own Food” series I’m working on. Amongst the foods I plan to include for the Autumn/Winter series are sprouts, radish, spinach, cabbage, beets, rutabaga, kohlrabi, fennel, carrots, and potatoes. Sprouts without a doubt are the easiest, and quickest, of these foods to grow — they take such little effort; the hardest thing about growing them is remembering to rinse them twice a day!

The goal of this series, or one of the goals anyway, is to demonstrate how easy it is to grow your own food. I think that we tend to have this notion that gardening/growing our food is super difficult, tedious, and time-consuming, but it’s not. Really, I promise, it’s not. The hardest part is digging your garden and preparing your soil, but you can just set aside one afternoon and it’s done in a few hours. After that it’s just planting the seeds, watering, and a little other occasional maintenance. Or, there are many foods that can be grown in a simple planter box — radish, spinach, arugula, anything with a shallow root system — all you need is a planter, a bag of soil, some seeds, and voila — you’re done! I plan to demonstrate this technique when I grow spinach in a few weeks…

Our winter garden — look how big the radishes are already just a couple of weeks after planting:

Sprouts however, require very little, and can easily and quickly be grown in your kitchen. I must credit my wonderful mother-in-law, Sue, for giving me the idea to grow them — I would have surely overlooked them otherwise.

Sprouts are an excellent source of vitamins and minerals, many of them containing large quantities of vitamin A especially. A number of seeds, pulses, legumes, and grains can be sprouted, such as mung beans, quinoa, alfalfa, radish, cabbage, mustard, adzuki, fenugreek, lentils, chickpeas, soy beans, wheat, rye, sunflower, and green peas. Experiment! For this entry I used alfalfa and mung beans.

What You Will Need:

– Seeds, beans, whatever you want to sprout — about 2 Tbsp. usually yields around 4 cups of sprouts, but this varies according to what you are using*

– A clean mason jar, or other glass quart container

– Cheesecloth

– Rubberbands

– A source of clean water

– A strainer

*Most health food stores will have the seeds to start sprouts, and you can also cheaply purchase pulses and other legumes from the dry bulk section of these stores. For instance, I think that mung beans generally run about $2-3 per lb. and 1/4 c. of these will produce about 3 quarts of sprouts….Or you can simply buy lentils or quinoa, or even cheaper and easier; buy packets of radish, celery, or cabbage seeds from your local nursery or hardware store.

    

Directions:

1. Place the seeds into your container and cover with warm water. Soak overnight (6-8 hours)

    

2. Rinse the seeds with lukewarm water, then return to cleaned containers

3. Cover jars with cheesecloth secured well with a rubberband

4. Seeds will need to be rinsed 2-3 times a day. I did this once in the morning while I was making my coffee, and once just before going to bed. Simply fill your jars with lukewarm water, let sit for a minute or two, lightly shake your jars, and turn upside-down to drain

*I found it helpful to leave jars over drinking glasses to allow them to drain completely, and then once drained, left them on their sides so as to not become waterlogged

Mung beans on Morning # 1 — already starting to sprout!

Morning #4:

5. Most sprouts take 3-7 days to mature. Sprouts are best grown in a warm (70-80 degrees F) place with little light. On the third day, however, you will want to expose most varieties of sprout to some natural light, so that they can increase their chlorophyll content.

6. Place mature sprouts in a water-filled container and rinse to remove hulls (seed coverings) and fibrous roots. The hulls will float to the top — skim them off, then strain sprouts and allow to drain dry.

7. Sprouts are best used immediately upon maturation, but will keep in a covered glass or plastic container in the refrigerator for 3-4 days.

Black bean and red wheatberry burger with tomato and alfalfa sprouts. Oh yeah.

“Sprouts are very nutritious because they contain all elements a plant needs for life and growth. The endosperm of the seed is the storehouse of carbohydrates, protein, and oil. When the seed germinates, these become predigested amino acids and natural sugars upon which the plant embryo feeds as it grows to maturity. When used as food, the life force is released and supplies the energy which is capable of generating healthy cells in the body and supplying us with new vigor and life. Used as an adjunct to the diet, sprouts can retard the aging process, since they contain ample amounts of male and female hormones, available in their most assimilable form. Processed foods often lack the vitamins and minerals necessary to a balanced diet. Research shows that, in sprouts, one finds one of the foods highest in vitamin and mineral content. Sprouts should, therefore, occupy a prominent place in the diet. Among their other virtues is the fact that the seeds are low in cost, can be stored indefinitely, and are easy to grow, and, when sprouted, increase their nutritional value many times.” — from http://www.rosicrucian.com

Hanging Letter and Key Organizer – No Woodworking Experience Required!

A few years ago I was in a home design store in Baltimore called Red Tree with my wonderful friend, Bronwyn (belated birthday shout out!), and while trying to talk myself out of buying half of the store, I saw some very clever and artsy key organizers. A simple concept really: a painted board with hooks in the bottom of it to ensure that you never again arrive 30 minutes late to an appointment because you were turning your home inside-out searching for a misplaced key ring that turned out to be (duh) in the freezer, or under a cereal box, or whatever other bizarre place you may have absent-mindedly placed them. I am famous for this by the way — I have had to replace my entire set of keys four, yes, four times because I misplaced them and was never able to find them again. For serious. In a stormdrain somewhere, or in a landfill, or in the lair of the evil elf that steals half of my socks from the dryer, are four sets of my keys, to this day, still waiting to be discovered….

How was that for a tangent?! Jeez, anyway, back to Red Tree. So I stood for a while, inspecting the key organizers, turning them over in my hands, and hemming and hawing over whether or not my broke-ass could justify spending X-number of dollars on something that, despite my track record with lost keys, I deemed to be a non-essential item, when suddenly it occurred to me that I could make my own key organizer.

Well, it only took me about three years, but I’ve finally gotten around to doing it. I decided to add a letter compartment to the organizer, because in addition to being the master of misplaced keys, I am also the queen of unsent letters. I’m pretty sure that I still have thank you notes and birthday cards that I wrote back in 2003 being used for bookmarks or breeding mold in boxes in the attic…

Anyway, this is a fun little creative project, and is really quite easy, and would be great to do with kids.

What You Will Need:

– A scrap of plywood or piece of board — I used a leftover piece of plywood from an ill-fated attempt to build a bookshelf but if you don’t have any pieces of wood laying around, the folks over at your local hardware store would probably be happy to cut a piece for you. Also, if you are not going to be making a letter holder in addition to the key organizer you can use a much narrower piece of wood than I did.

– Sand Paper – 3M makes an assorted grit combo-pack that is awesome

– Paint

– Whatever image(s) you’d like to use. These can be cut from books or magazines, or any other paper source. Old botanical drawings would be really cool, or you could draw your own image. I cut some of my images from an old poster I had and the rest from a beat up Alphonse Mucha book. The letter box is covered in a sheet of Art Nouveau wrapping paper.

– Scissors and/or X-acto/utility knife

– Super glue or wood glue

– Polyurethane

– Screw Hooks

– Cardboard (only if you are doing the letter box as well as the key organizer – an old shoe box will work just fine)

– Thumbtacks  (smooth head or quilting)

– A thin chain or sturdy twine to hang your organizer — I used a broken necklace!

Directions:

1. Sand your board. Start with an abrasive paper and finish with a fine or superfine to create a perfectly smooth and splinter-free surface.

2. Paint your board. Apply multiple coats if desired. Allow to dry.

Steps 3 and 4 only applicable if making a letter holder. If you are only making a key organizer, without the letter holder, skip ahead to step #5

3. Cut your cardboard into the shape pictured below. Fold over flaps and fit to the bottom of your piece of wood. You may have to trim the cardboard again to ensure a good fit.

4. Cover cardboard with decorative paper, wrapping paper ends over the edges and securing with super glue. Or, you can just paint your cardboard. Or do a collage over it…

*Be sure to fold your cardboard before gluing on the paper to ensure the proper fit

5. Select the images you wish to use and cut out with scissors or utility knife

6. Do the layout with the images you are using

7. Once you are certain of your layout use super glue or wood glue to adhere them to your board

8. Cover your board with the glued image(s) with several coats of polyurethane, allowing each coat to dry before applying the next

9. Fit your letter holder to your board

10. Use thumbtacks to secure the perimeter of the letter holder, spacing them evenly every 2-3 inches

11. Screw hooks into the bottom of the letter holder/board, making sure that they go into the direct center of the board’s width so that the wood doesn’t splinter

* If you are using plywood you should be able to screw in the hooks directly. If however you are using a denser type of wood you may need to drill holes into your board before being able to screw in the hooks

12. Screw in the rest of the hooks, spacing evenly

13. Admire your work — you’re almost done!

14. Secure your chain, twine, or string to the back of your board with thumbtacks. Use at least two tacks per side.*

*If you are using twine or string be sure to tie a knot in each end so that the tacks don’t pull through

15. Decide where you want your new, nifty, handmade key and letter organizer! It can be hung using a single nail.

How to Make Your Own Shampoo

I’ve been wanting to try making my own shampoo for a while now: finally the monster pump bottle we had been using for what seems like the past year ran out! As much as I like to try to make everything from scratch, with an increasingly mobile almost-one-year-old wobbling every which way around the house, I was definitely not going to be messing around with lye. That’s just me though, if you want to mess around with the hard stuff, I commend you, and here’s a link to get you started. So, I guess you could say this is the cheater’s version of homemade shampoo….

Cheater’s version or not, making shampoo this way is not only better for you (no chemicals), and better for the environment, but it’s fun too! Plus, you can customize your shampoo to make your very own scent — at the end of this post I’ll include some information on aromatherapy, but you can use anything from cooking extracts, to tea bags, to citrus peels and slices of fruit, to dried herbs and spices. Or, you can get creative combining essential oils — health food stores usually have a wide variety to choose from. I made one bottle of peppermint shampoo for daytime use, and one bottle of calming, nighttime shampoo with lavender, chamomile, and rose oil. (Both are baby-friendly too!)

As far as cost goes, you’re probably not saving that much money in all honesty, depending on which shampoo you usually buy. I mean, you can’t really beat a bottle of VO5 for $0.99 price-wise….But I’m going to assume that you’re reading this page because, like me, you don’t want to be lathering your hair with chemicals, and maybe also enjoy the process of making things yourself and breaking dependence on large corporations…. In that case, here’s the cost breakdown: I purchased one 32 ounce bottle of unscented liquid castile soap (this can also be used for making laundry detergent, by the way…) for $10, which seems to be about average price-wise.

If I use this castile soap exclusively to make shampoo, using this recipe, I will be able to make eight 8oz bottles of  shampoo. So, that’s $1.25 per bottle of organic, custom-made shampoo. As a point of reference, one 8oz. bottle of Rainforest Shine Shampoo from The Body Shop costs $4.00 (but The Body Shop’s Ginger Shampoo costs $10.00 per 8oz), an 8oz. bottle of Organics Shampoos cost $5.50 on average (as do the confusingly similar Organix shampoos), and Burt’s Bees averages about $8.00. And 80z of homemade shampoo can easily be found for upwards of $15.00 on etsy.com and from other smaller purveyors. So, yeah, if you want the organic, good-for-you, good-for-the-planet stuff, you will definitely save money making your own…And it’s super easy!

What You Will Need:

Yields one 8oz bottle, but recipe can be multiplied for larger batches

– 4 ounces of unscented liquid castile soap, such as Dr. Bronner’s, Desert Essence, or Dr. Woods

– 4 ounces distilled water

– 1 teaspoon of coconut, jojoba, avocado, grapeseed, or other light natural oil

– essential oil, herbs, tea bags, extract, or whatever you want to scent your shampoo with!

Directions for Shampoo Using Essential Oils or Extracts Only:

1. Mix together castile soap, water, and oil

2. Funnel mixture into an 8oz plastic container

3. Add 15-20 drops of extract or oil into bottle

4. Shake well

Yup, it’s that easy.  Homemade shampoo is a thinner consistency than store-bought however. You need to tilt the bottle directly over your head, but it lathers nicely, cleans well, and will leave your hair light and shiny. I used peppermint extract when I made shampoo with the above recipe. It is a great energizing scent, perfect if you prefer to bathe in the morning. My husband loves this one…

Directions for Shampoo Using Herbs:

Though slightly more complicated than the above recipe, this one’s still pretty foolproof…

1. Boil water

2. Add herbs, flowers, tea bags, leaves, or spices. I used about 1/3 lavender per 1/2 c. water plus two bags of chamomile tea here, but you can use whichever herbs you like. See section below for some notes on aromatherapy and suggested scent combinations

3. Turn heat to low and let just barely simmer for 20 minutes

4. Strain

5. Allow to cool completely

6. Combine herb water with castile soap and oil. Add additional essential oil if desired (I added about 10 drops of rose oil to mine).

7. Funnel into a plastic container and shake well.

As you can see, the lavender imparted a very dark hue to the shampoo — not to worry — it will not effect your hair color. I have very light blond hair, and have seen absolutely no change in my hair color since I started using this shampoo. Your shampoo may come out green, purple, yellow, or brown, depending on which herbs you choose. While chamomile does have a very slight bleaching quality, and hibiscus may augment reds, most herbs will not alter your hair color at all.

Different scents effect us in different ways. Below I have categorized some common scents into some basic categories that I thought may be helpful in determining which ingredients to select for your shampoo:

If you want an energizing shampoo select:

– Peppermint, Ginger, Citrus, Pine, Thyme, Sweet Basil, Eucalyptus, Nutmeg, Rosemary, Tea Tree, Green Tea or Thyme

If you prefer a relaxing scent, to help reduce anxiety and promote sleep select:

– Cedarwood, Chamomile, Sandalwood, Cinnamon, Sage, Bergamot, Rose, Neroli, Myrhh, or Marjoram

If you something mood-lifting try:

– Geranium, Ginger, Juniper, Citrus, Mandarin, Nutmeg, Oregano, Rose, Tangerine, Sage

Something comforting:

– Vanilla, Allspice, Cardamom, Cinnamon, Clove, Fennel, Marjoram

Or for something sensual try:

– Ylang-ylang, Jasmine, Sage, Neroli, Patchouli, Rose, Sweet Orange, Vanilla, Cinnamon, Gardenia

Some awesome scent combinations:

Sensual/Exotic: Vanilla + Rose + Cardamom

Relaxing/Comforting: Lavender + Coriander + Rose + Patchouli

Stress banishing: Lavender + Juniper + Orange

Relaxing: Lavender + Rose + Cedarwood

Sensual/Comforting: Rose + Patchouli + Jasmine

Sexytime: Ylang-ylang + Sandalwood + Vanilla

Anti-depression: Lemon + Sweet Orange + Ylang-ylang

Energizing: Rosemary + Peppermint + Holy Basil

Calming/Exotic: Vanilla + Cinnamon + Clove + Cardamom

Make your own shampoo for healthy, chemical-free, shiny, scent-sational hair! If I do say so myself….

Homemade Laundry Detergent

In my attempt to buy less and to use as few chemicals as possible in our home, I thought I would try making my own laundry detergent. I was really surprised by just how easy it is to make, and by how well it works. Plus, all of my ingredients only cost around $8 dollars and I will have enough supplies to make at least five more batches after this! Not that I will need to make more any time in the near future — after spilling about a quart of it and giving half of a gallon to my sister, I still have over two gallons left! At $15 per gallon (on average) for store bought detergent I am going to save a ton of money making my own!

What You Will Need:

– 1 cup of soap flakes or 1 bar of regular (any kind) soap
– 1 cup of washing soda
– 1/2 cup of borax
– A large pot
– A measuring cup
– A 4-5 gallon bucket
– A box grater if using bar soap
– Essential oil (optional)
*You can find both borax and washing soda with the laundry detergents in most grocery stores

Directions:

1. Put 4 cups of water into a large pot and set to boil.

2. Reduce heat to simmer and begin grating your soap into the water, stirring occasionally:

3. Once soap has melted and dissolved completely into the water remove from heat

4. Pour 3 gallons of warm tap water into your bucket

5. Add the hot soapy water from the stove to the bucket

6. Add washing soda, borax powder, and essential oil if you are using it. Mix well:

7. Cover and let sit somewhere overnight — I put mine out on my porch just covered with a dish towel and it was fine….This is what I found in the morning:

It had a thick gelatinous film over the top of it, and, as you can see, also had many white splotches. I was dubious…but, after mixing it up this is what it looked like:

It was pretty similar in consistency to the detergent I usually buy, though it did have some lumps, and it smells amazing! (I used cedarwood oil in it.)

You can leave it in your bucket and just scoop it out as you need it or use a funnel to transfer it to smaller containers. I spilled about a quart of it, gave away a 1/2 gallon, and still had all of this left over:

I won’t have to make any more for quite a while! I wanted to test it out to see how well it worked and also to make sure that it was gentle enough to use on my infant daughter’s clothing and bedding. I decided to really put it to the test on my husband’s nasty carbon and grease stained work pants:

I did not foresee these stains budging, but the homemade detergent actually did pretty well, made even these smell great, and is definitely gentle enough for baby’s skin.

Not bad!