Planning in Blooms

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Collecting Water Samples from the Chicago River

"And sometimes you catch the full spectrum of the human experience while collecting water samples, and realize you must fall somewhere between 'Be Happy' and 'Fuck Her Right in the Pussy.'"

Incredible Hulk and the Green Thumb

Some Green Inspiration!

**DISHWASHER DETERGENT UPDATE #3**

With or Without Borax

Apparently there is concern about the toxicity of Borax, particularly with dish detergent due to  the residual ingestion that comes from any leftover film on dishes. A quick compilation of concerns was compiled by Crunchy Betty: 

• The EWG’s Skin Deep Database lists it as a 5-6 (or moderate hazard), but trying to find the studies they used for their rating proved difficult, and the ones I did find were the nebulous “borax or boric acid” test studies.
• Looking through the ToxNet studies on the NIH website, I see very few that are concerning for any major danger (unless ingested in high quantities). In addition, the Material Safety Data Sheet lists borax as a health hazard of 1, the same as baking soda and salt.
• However, the FDA banned borax as a food additive, and the European Chemicals Agency added it to their “list of substances of very high concern” a few years ago. From what I could find, that had much to do with the ongoing debate as to whether excess boron in the soil harms crops.
• Borax is classified as non-carcinogenic and a mild skin irritant. The high alkalinity of borax is likely what causes skin irritation (just as excessive use of baking soda would cause irritation). There are also several studies in the ToxNet database that show its only a very mild lung irritant and causes no lasting damage. In addition, it does not penetrate the skin well, and is not considered to be bio-accumulative. (Meaning, repetitive use over time does not mean it builds up in your system.)
• The one concern is with its potential to disrupt the reproductive system. Studies have not been done in humans regarding this; however, potential reproductive issues in mice are suspected from high levels of (ingested) borax.
• Borax is acutely toxic in the same manner that salt is (in rats, it’s 4500-5000 mg/kg of body weight, which is A LOT). Ingested in moderate quantities, it causes gastrointestinal upset and nausea. Bottom line: While it may be listed as “poison” on the box, it’s only toxic at very, very high levels. (Like salt, baking soda, and even water is.)

Borax also has some critics citing high residue left on dishes when used in DIY detergents and the recipes I've attempted have definitely struggled with residue and lots of film left on the dishes, so I was game to try something new.

I took a cue from some discussions online ultimately tried a recipe without Borax and featuring a product called Lemi Shine detergent booster. 

The company (Envirocon Technologies based in Texas) could be a little less vague, but the made with label lists only real fruit acids and natural citrus oils. The bottle also advertises being manufactured domestically and no phosphates, 

I tried the Lemi Shine formula and had really good success. Dishes are clean, no film, and the glassware is clear. 

I did cheat a little though because the film and cloudiness created from past DIY detergents has had a severe legacy. After months of using vinegar as a rinse aid, I jumped at the Lemi Shine Shine + Dry when I saw on the shelf next to the detergent booster. Sorry to have confounded variables, but I was desperate to get rid of that film on my dishes. 

The rinse aid boasts similar pro and cons as the booster: 

Made with Cutting Edge Ingredients: Surfactant: innovative, biodegradable formula that fights spots and film. Fruit acids: specifically formulated to boost! and eliminate hard water minerals. Contains no dyes or preservatives.

Garden Gang Goodbye Dinner

My Admiral at the Lake Garden Gang treated to me dinner. We did it up in spirit of Mardi Gras!

Winter's Brief Reposes

Saying goodbye to gardening locations is hard. I find it harder than saying goodbye to people because with people you can stay in touch, but to leave a garden means you stop acting as a steward of some space on the landscape. It's also difficult to really know a person well the way one can come to know a piece of land - a relationship with land becomes really intimate as you invest energy into wanting and needing things from it.

This weekend I said goodbye to my Dubkin Park community garden spot, knowing I won't return to it this spring after I set out on my Ohio adventure to build Urban Arbors as a brick & mortar garden center.

I've loved gardening in this space.

What an urban garden challenge it's been, including a disgruntled former gardener who kept returning to the space with his little red wagon and digging out landscaping plants to take with him (his disgruntling left him feeling entitle to any pants he had donated to the park's perimeters). And the constant challenges of negotiating use with the dog owners, homeless population, and some transient folks who make their living selling illicit substances and sex work. Add the police and their patterns of law enforcement into the mix and you have a real interesting gardening experience.

It might sound like more than you would want to deal with, but I've found the Dubkin Park community to be really wonderful working with all these different park users and the police. I've learned a lot about how to deal with these conflicts with respect for all parties and to go through the city's new resources for community policing (CAP). I've also learned that staying open and friendly (however detached) has allowed me to educate the dog owners and transient groups about what grows in the garden, what a passer-by can respectfully help themselves to (e.g. handful of basil leaves and flowers, all the mint you can grab, a few chive stalks, etc.).

My new chapter wasn't planned at the close of the gardening season so I left a lot un-tidied when growing season ended.

Even though I'm off the cages technique I thought
I should grab the ones I purchased last year,
maybe only because the ground still being frozen
told me this warm weekend was probably be
my last chance to get them out of the garden.

With two weekend days above freezing, I thought I'd better make use of the softened ground and clean my plot for the next gardener. If you're in the Rogers Park area and are looking for a garden space, this is a reasonably priced ($25) one with a good community behind it. Much less formal compared to garden groups like Peterson Garden Project - here you can grow what you what, edible or not, and at Dubkin there are compost bins as well for your garden and kitchen waste!

Those composters were another reason I wanted to take advantage of the mild weather - I had plenty of compost materials to take over form my kitchen after cleaning the fridge this week, as well as several plant containers filled with potting soil that was never dumped before the first freeze. I thought that potting soil would be good to get the compost rolling for when Spring arrives full time.

Erasing the evidence of my living here!
This won't be the building with all the flower pots anymore...

This group has had some trouble with their composting efforts, which includes a more successful earth machine and 2 tumblers.  I think the trouble comes mostly from the rolling drum tumblers because in my 11 years of composting, it seems to me the tumbler styles are only so useful.

compost not connected directly to the landscape is really only useful
to accelerate breakdown of organic material,
 eventually though it seems like the tumblers
need to be dumped regularly and at that point
 you need a pile on the ground anyway

I thought recycling the potting soil would help in two ways:

1. Recharge the potting soil and add organic matter to transform it from a potting mix to more of a topsoil.

2. Compliment the kitchen waste, which makes up the majority of the bin's current contents.

I feel like working on the compost for the next 5 weeks before I move will help ease the sadness of leaving this space and my gardening neighbors. This was a funky group of people and I really enjoyed them. If you live in the area and would like a zany community of growing friends, think about gardening or even volunteering with Dubkin.

I also said goodbye to the composting bucket I've been using for 2 years. It was such a perfect compost tote until one day our bathroom ceiling collapsed due to a leak, the repair man worked for 3 days and did a perfect job replacing our ceiling, but inexplicably left this bucket smashed. He never said a word about it and I've never seen him again to ask. I've still been using it for a few months, but in this time of saying goodbyes I think I'm ready to leave it behind in the recycling bin; more weird shit about life in Rogers Park I'm happy to walk away from...

Extracts Stack!

Working on some homemade extract experiments:

From top to bottom: horehounds, cinnamon, chocolate, vanilla, vanilla, pineapple, lime, lemon

I'm Mailbox Ready!

I Got The Lease Deal!

It's a simple celebration here all by myself in Chicago, buuuut Urban Arbors got the property lease papers today!!! 

It's official: 1104-6 W. Gambier St. is our playground starting March 1! Wish I could be in town tonight, but this will have to do for now. Thanks for all your support and cheerleading