Exciting shoots 'n' fruits...

My garlic is growing, my garlic is growing!!!!!!

Only two of them so far, but I'm still extremely excited! My mum wrapped some bubble wrap round them to help them keep warm and germinate (?) quicker, so the rest of them are still in their bubble wrap bed getting ready to grow! I've also lost the recycled cardboard plant labels - they went mouldy!!! Lesson learned!

I also planted some organic radish seeds, about a week ago, and they've all come up! Eeeeeeeee!!

They were really easy to plant, crocks and compost in a plant pot, then I planted 6 seeds half an inch under the soil (you're supposed to plant them in rows in the garden, each seed 9 inches apart from the next, but I'm not allowed to dig up the garden, so a pot it is, they don't have anything near 9 inches between them, but I'm hoping it'll work!) Mum gave them the bubble wrap treatment again, and within 2 days they'd begun to grow! I made my plant label out of the lid of a plastic takeaway container I found in the recycling, and so far it hasn't gone mouldy!

We also have a mammoth cucumber plant (mum's growing it not me), I think most of the cucumbers are destined for Fluffy's (my giant African land snail) tummy!

Books...

I have too many books!!

This is because I studied English Literature all the way through school and at uni and have a problem throwing books out.

But, I have got rid of some, mostly to charity shops and sold some on Ebay.

The books that really meant something to me I set free with book crossing stickers on. If you haven't heard of it, book crossing is a website where you get a registration number for your books, then put them somewhere someone will find them, like a shopping centre, park bench or train station. You can let other people know where you've hidden your book on the site, but really it's up to fate who finds your book! The person who finds it enters the book crossing number into the website and registers that they found it. Once they've read it they can release it again and write on the site where they've left it, and so on, so you get a record of where your book has been and who's read it. And it's recycling! And you get free books! I once found a copy of 'The Buddha of Suburbia' in Sainsburys - extremely exciting!

http://www.bookcrossing.com/

I'm trying not to buy any new books...especially not when you can get second hand books from charity shops and book shops, library books and, if you're lucky, books for free!!

Junk mail...

I was inspired by this post on the Eco Etsy blog...
http://ecoetsy.blogspot.com/2009/07/eco-tip-of-week-stop-junk-mail.html

...to reduce the amount of junk mail that's delivered to my house - but the site suggested on Eco Etsy is for the US.

A quick google search later, I found this UK website, where you can register up to 5 people from the same address to stop receiving junk mail for 5 years...amd it's freeee!
http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/mpsr/

In 2007 4.54 billion pieces of addressed junk mail were delivered in the UK!!!

http://www.stopjunkmail.org.uk/facts/volume.php

Garlic growing...

My life is a bit strange at the moment, I was supposed to finish uni, find a job, find somewhere to rent and have a lovely eco-friendly vegan hippy-fied house. I have not found a job and I'm back living with my mum. Sigh. So...I'm not allowed to dig up her garden to make a veggie plot. Instead I've turned to a garlic growing empire. I'm not sure where the garlic we buy is from - China produces the most in the world, not sure if it's grown in England much, but growing my own would mean no food miles at all, and has the added excitement factor to fill my unemployed days! (has it grown yet? Has it grown yet? Has it grown YET?!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garlic

I read online that garlic LOVES growing in pots so I got some old pots from my mum (thanks mum!). In the UK we use 500 million plastic plant pots a year!!!!!!!! So if there weren't millions of spare plant pots in the greenhouse I would have used jam jars or cut down plastic bottles or made some out of papermache or something, but as they were there I've made use of them. I also made plant labels with what they are and the date they were planted, out of some cardboard I found in the recycling bin - which will probably go soggy when I move the garlic empire outside!

www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/today_in_your_garden/ethical/

Then I did this (based on many garlic how-to's I found by googling)...
1. Get a bulb of garlic (mine was organic - yey! but from a supermarket - boo!).
2. Separate as many cloves of garlic as you want plants to grow.
3. Fill a plant pot, or container you want to grow a plant in, with crocks (I'm not really sure how crocks work, mum says something to do with draining water, but you need some smashed up terracotta plant pot, or pebbles or bit of polystyrene in the bottom of your pot anyway!) then fill up to the top with compost or soil.
4. Poke a hole an inch deep into your pot.
5. Put the garlic flat end down, pointy end up into the hole and cover back over with soil.
6. Water, I used some nice rain water from mums water butt (thanks mum!). This proved my crocks were really good and drainy - lots of water drained out of my pots!

I have no idea if this will work, I really hope so - I have (hopefully) 6 garlic plants growing, when they're ready I'm going to eat 5 of them and plant the cloves from the other again, so hopefully I'm at the start of a self-perpetuating garlic growing empire!

Spotify...

Free music

I'm trying to buy less stuff. Which doesn't mean I'm neverever going to buy anything again, but I could definately do with thinning out my CD mountain. My friend reccommended Spotify to me, which is a downloadable free programme that lets you search for and play pretty much any music you can think of, for FREE :D

http://www.spotify.com/en/

Cotton Wool...How to Make Make Up Removal Pads...

On to the very glamourous topic of cotton wool.

This is something I didn't really think about very much before, but now I'm thinking about how to stop buying stuff and how to stop throwing stuff away I've become fixated on it! How many cotton wool pads do I throw away a year (352!!!) and the same amount of cotton baby ear bud thingys! Thats 704 bits of rubbish into landfill every year. Just from me!
Boots botanicals range, the CO-OP and Marks and Spencers both sell fairtrade cotton wool products. Boots and Marks and Spencers also sell cotton wool buds with paper stems, which will biodegrade.



I still need some 'real' cotton wool occasionally, but for taking make up off and things like that I made these
Really easy,

• Take something made of towelling (I reused some old face flannels). Or any other fabric you think would be nice for make-up removal pads.
• Cut them into the shape/size you want (the ones I made are a bit too small, but they still work fine...I drew round a glass)
• Place two of your towelling bits together, right sides (sides you want showing on the outside) facing out, wrong sides together.
• Using a zigzag stitch on a sewing machine sew all the way around the outside of the towelling shapes, I went round several times so it was nearly all covered in sewing to stop it fraying.
• Tada! They are made! Woohooo! :D

Use them with water or make up remover (I use almond oil to take off my make up) just like cotton wool.
Before washing, soak them in some warm water for a while, then put them in with your normal wash.
You can also buy them online too, search something like 'reusable make up remover pads' on google.

Strawberries...

I can't take credit for these...

My Mum grew them, but they have no packaging no food miles and taste better than anything you can buy in a plastic box from the supermarket....

YUM!!

Grow your own pet food...

This is Fluffy.

He is a Giant African Land Snail.

He's quite easy to grow pet food for actually...

Also makes great peoples food :D (the lettuce not the snail!!)

The seeds were really cheap and we didn't have to sow many of them to grow loads of lettuce, which was fun and no plastic packaging and it tastes SO MUCH NICER than shop lettuce...mmm! I think I'm going to try to grow it all year long!

Fail!

I bought something new :(

Part of my whole less-consumption thing was that I wasn't going to buy any new clothes, cos I have about 3 wardrobes full (seriously! I have a problem!) and those that I did buy would be second hand or fair trade and organic....I had a farewell meal to go to with the people from my course and had 2 days to find something to wear, there was nothing in the charity shops so I went into town and bought a dress from H&M and some flip flops from Primark (argh!) and a necklace that I ended up not wearing - oh dear! I haven't been high-street shopping for months and it made me remember why I hate shopping - especially when it's so hot and busy.

Here is the demon new dress

At least it's not to dressy, so I can wear it all summer and to the festival I'm going to next week and I'll probably never get rid of it (I really do have a problem!), but I'm not buying anything else new-new ever! It made me feel sick!! And it cost £13!! Nothing I own costs £13! Deary me!