Seed paper is more than just fun to make: It's eco-friendly. It's a great way to give back to the earth. After all, paper is made from trees. It seems only right to return paper to the earth so it can grow new life again. The best part about making seed paper? It's relatively easy.
Thirty years ago and about eighteen miles from Aspen, Colorado, Jerome Osentowski built a “hoop house,” a tunnel made of polyethylene that heats up due to solar radiation. He had in mind a greenhouse and kept adding to it with recycled steel and other materials. Over the years, his original hoop house design expanded into five greenhouses that now produce food via climates ranging from Zones 6 through 12.
The first time I saw a seed bomb it was in a Facebook video. Literally, I’ve been obsessed ever since. They are just the cutest things, so easy to make, and the best way to safely refurbish vacant lots. You can make a bunch of them and toss them in areas that really need more plants without having to worry about someone seeing. Since they decompose on their own, nature will take care of the rest. Unfortunately, you never know what is or isn't private property, so seed bombs are the ultimate discreet way of planting something (without spending much money or leaving any evidence).
The idea of consuming spirulina, let alone growing your own, might be off-putting. But hear me out: spirulina is widely considered the most nutrient dense food on the planet. With high levels of protein, B-vitamins, antioxidants and other nutrients like copper and iron, spirulina is like the whole foods version of your daily multi-vitamin.
But, at close to 50 cents per serving, it’s certainly not what you might consider economical.
So what can you do instead?
Ever wonder what you can do with some of those old items you no longer use? Use them as new homes for your plants! Plant containers can be made from all sorts of things, so there’s really no need to spend your hard-earned money on boring, conventional planters. To give you a little inspiration, here are 13 reusable items that make unique plant containers.
For clever farmers, alfalfa is a nitrogen-fixer, but for those of us who aren’t quite on that scale yet, alfalfa sprouts add a fabulously light, crunchy, young-green flavor to any meal. And they taste even better when you grow them yourself…in your kitchen…with materials you (probably, hopefully) already have on hand!
You might not think highly of algae–that’s right, the green scum that floats on pond surfaces–but reconsider your opinion. Algae – in both chlorella and spirulina form – has recently dominated the health food world with its impressive nutrient profile. Boasting high levels of B-vitamins, iron, copper, and a slew of other micronutrients, it’s widely considered the most perfect food. It’s so powerful, that algae may be coming to space.
Why?
There truly is an art to creating a fine tasting bottle of wine. Wine is the art of fermenting fruits and berries in water with sugars and yeasts.
Winter can be a beautiful time to connect with nature and watch birds forage for food. Something that has become particularly popular nowadays is using bird feeders to help give birds access to food through the winter. There are studies still being conducted on the effects that personal feeders have on the bird population, so it has not been fully concluded in research whether they are harmful or not. With that being said, the more sustainable route seems to always be the best way to go. This can be accomplished by growing plants that produce bird-food during the cold season.
In 2011, I moved from the lush greenery of Olympia, an hour south of Seattle, to Philadelphia, one of the densest cities in America. Never in my life had I seen so much brick, so much pavement, and so little green space. I loved the city—I moved there to pursue opportunities that weren’t available in a smaller town. But I missed the green. And something about that made me suddenly interested in healthy eating. If I couldn’t have much green foliage around me, at least I could have some on my plate.