Sustainable Thursday

For a while, Sustainable Idyllwild had a contest going with Fairway Foods that people who brought their own bags for their groceries could enter for a $25 gift certificate.  But like most things, interest fades and I don't know if people are still bringing their own bags or not when they go shopping.  I am pretty good about that when I grocery shop, but the other day it dawned on me that I am not doing it when I run errands and pick up things here and there while out doing other types of shopping. 

So today I was pleasantly surprised to find a gift on my desk when I came in to work this morning.   Thanks to Holly over at the Earth Fair, I now have a nice, new canvas tote bag that isn't all stained with meat juice or other unidentifiable stains.  It even has the Earth Fair logo on it and it is beautiful.   I am going to put it in my car and use my new Earth Fair tote bag for all my other shopping.  Thanks for the bag Holly.  It made me re-commit to not using plastic bags unnecessarily.

Sometimes living sustainably seems overwhelming and hard to do, but I  want to remind everyone that if we all do a few simple things, like using canvas or re-usable bags,  it does make a big difference. 

Olla Project

At the Earth Fair last Saturday, I introduced a new way of watering.  Unglazed pots buried in the garden are called ollas and are an ancient way of irrigating.  However, they are very efficient and so I felt they would be worth a try. 

You can purchase ollas ready made and they run between $20 and $30 depending on the size.  Or you can make your own by using unglazed clay pots that you can pick up at the nursery or craft store.  They come in a variety of sizes and are very inexpensive to make.  I will do a separate post on how to make one and include pictures.

Jerry and Jeremy were good enough to make me a couple of acrylic boxes so that I can see how the olla is working.

While I will be putting ollas in my own vegetable garden, I thought it would be fun to see how the plants in this container do.  Obviously it is not an idea container since it has no drainage holes, but it is for studying purposes, so we will just do the best we can with it.

I will post pictures of the ollas I put in my garden as well, but that is a few days off.  In the meantime, we will follow my planter here at the water district.  I will be keeping track of how often I have to fill the olla and how well the plants seem to do.



Acrylic planter box with two marigold plants and one olla made from two unglazed clay pots.



Close up of olla in the ground and filled with water.

You can see where the dirt is moist.

Monday Musings

PCWD's booth at the Earth Fair on May 21, 2011



A view of a compost bin made we made out of old pallets.

What a wonderful weekend it was!  The weather was just beautiful.  We had a booth at the Earth Fair and it was great to see so many of our customers there.  Many people stopped by to see our ollas and to learn a little about composting.  We had a fabulous spot in the shade and couldn't have been happier with how our booth looked.  We are very grateful to Holly Owens who was so very helpful and worked with us very closely in order for us to have this wonderful exhibit.

I think the Earth Fair was a great success.  Our neighbor booth happened to be Wild California.  For those of you not familiar with them, they sell California native plants.  You can check out their website at http://www.wildcalifornia.co/.

Wild California had a wide variety of plants available for sale and I have put their website in the links bar on the left side of this blog.  Check them out if you are looking for natives that are available close by.

Earth Fair 2011

The Earth Fair will be held on Saturday, May 21, 2011.  The Pine Cove Water District will have a booth there this year with lots of information and some demonstrations.  We hope you will stop by and say hi to us.  We will be there all day long and Vicki will be manning the booth.  We hope to provide a lot of helpful information, not only on water conservation, but on some other subjects as well.  Please drop by the Earth Fair and say hi.  See you there.

Frugal Friday!

It's time for Frugal Friday again folks.  I wanted to share a little story with everyone today.  I admit, I am a lazy composter.  I read and read and read about it, I know it is good to do and I know how to do it.  However, I find at my home it is easier to just pile it up and let nature take it's course regardless of how long it takes.  So my pile has been sitting there for a couple of years now.  I just keep piling stuff in on top and it seemed to be just sitting there doing nothing. 

So last week my daughter decided she wanted to add some new soil to her pot of chives.  Well, I didn't have any bags of top soil around, so she went out to the compost pile, dug around and low and behold, what did she find?  Black Gold!  That's right, the whole bottom half of my compost pile has now turned to black gold, or compost.  She was so excited as she was in the same camp as my husband as far as my so called compost pile, aka, garbage pile goes.  I kept telling them it would turn to compost, but I think they were skeptical as nothing much seemed to be happening.

So this weekend I will be removing all the compost from my pile and turning what is left and adding more to it!  It is so exciting to have free compost to use.  The best thing about making your own compost is that it comes from stuff you were going to throw out anyway.  So why not put it to good use?

Speaking of composting, I have mentioned this before, but I think it bears repeating.  If you aren't into having a compost pile and don't want to buy a composter, you can use what is called the trench method.  Simply go out into your yard or garden, dig a hole or a trench, what ever you have room for, and bury your kitchen scraps in the dirt.  Just be sure to dig down deep enough that it isn't easily dug up by the critters.  Your done.  It will decompose and turn to compost and enrich the soil right where you buried it.  You don't have to do anything.  This is an excellent way to provide extra nutrients to your existing plants and trees. 

I would like to encourage everyone to try composting.  It doesn't matter if you do it actively or passively, just do it!  It keeps a lot of waste out of the landfills and is good the the soil and the vegetation growing there.  Plus, soil that is amended with compost retains moisture much better than uncomposted soil.  So there is no down side to being a composter.  Stop by our booth at the Earth Fair on May 21st to find out more about composting.

Monday Musings a day late!

Well I didn't get to post yesterday, so here I am today.  Hope you all had a wonderful weekend and enjoyed the holiday, if you celebrate.  The weather was not so good, but at least there was no snow!  For some reason, snow just seems really wrong at Easter time.  But the rest of the week looks pretty good.  Hopefully it won't be long until spring is here in full swing.

Next month will bring the Earth Fair and Pine Cove Water District will again have a booth there.  I would encourage you to stop by and say hi and see what we have to show you.  As you all know already, we are leaving Stage I, however, that doesn't mean you should stop conserving water.  So part of our focus at the Earth Fair will be on how to conserve water in the garden.  If we get into good habits of conserving water, then even when we have dry years, we will be able to still enjoy our gardens. 

There are a few tricks we can all do to help make our gardens retain water throughout the summer months.  We will be demonstrating examples of how to do this at the Earth Fair.  We hope you can stop buy and say hi.

Great News!

We will be participating in the Idyllwild Earth Fair again this year.  It is free for information on booths such as ours and it is a great way to get out there and mix and mingle with everyone.  Hopefully we are providing some useful information to the community.  We are planning some nifty demos and will have lots of information available.   You can check out more on the Earth Fair by going to their website at http://www.earthfair.com/.  This is a one day event held each May and we hope to see you there.