Plastic Free July Coupon Code

We are participating in Plastic Free July again. The goal is to refuse all forms of single use plastic. It is not too late to join if you haven't signed up already. If you can't participate for the whole month, just try for a week or two. You can shop Aquarian Bath for lots of plastic free hair and body products with the coupon code 'plasticfreejuly' for 15% off through July 24th.

Echo Moth Caterpillar Sighting

My daughters and I saw this beautiful Echo Moth caterpillar after swimming lessons last week in Daytona Beach. The girls moved him from the hot patio outside the pool onto the ground. Tessa picked an oval leaf for the caterpillar, and he went to work on it right away. You can see the nibble marks in these photos that Moira took. Hope you like them.  

Four New Organic Cotton Flaxseed Pillows and Pillow Giveaway

We had a rush on our Organic cotton Flaxseed neck pillows for Mother's Day. Some of our fabrics sold out, so we have added four new types and will be adding one or two more soon. The first two are sheep (top) and penguin (below) Organic cotton flannels. These are single layer pillows. I usually don't go for cartoon animals, but I found these irresistible. I thought the sheep would be fun for people who like to take their pillows to bed or who have trouble sleeping. We are partial to penguins, they being the Linux operating system mascot, so this fabric was a must have also.

The two pillows below are also new, they are part of our pillow line which has removable washable Organic cotton covers. 

The floral print is also available with pink instead of turquoise flowers.

US residents, 18 and up, you can enter to win a Lavender-Rose scented sheep pillow with the rafflecopter form below. Raffle ends May 31, 2016

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Zerowaste Gardening Tip for Salvaging Bitter Lettuce

If you have planted your lettuce to close together, if the lettuce has dried out a lot during the growing season, or if the weather is hot, you could easily end up with dreadfully bitter lettuce. It may look beautiful and lush like mine in the above photo, but it tastes just terrible. I couldn't stand the thought of composting the lettuce, so I went searching for a recipe. Even better than a recipe for bitter lettuce, I received a tip from @tryplasticfree on twitter.  They suggested that I cut up the lettuce and soak it in cold water for 10 minutes. Luckily, I forgot and left the lettuce in the water for around 30 minutes. After 30 minutes the lettuce tasted much better, but a day or two later I tried with for only 10 minutes and it was still really very bitter. 

Feel free to leave a comment if you have any lettuce growing tips or lettuce recipes.

Three Easy Methods to Kill Leaf Miners with Neem Oil and Soap

The most consistent pests we have in our garden are leaf miners, the larvae of moths that lay their eggs on the underside of leaves. Every few weeks, we treat the plants with neem oil in a couple different ways to eliminate leaf miners. You can choose the way that is most convenient to you. The first method is to put some castile soap shreds into a spray bottle and add neem oil to make a thick bi-layer. Then shake up the solution and spray. The neem spray method is also a good way to deter Tomato Horn Worms. The second method is to put one of our neem-olive oil soaps in a soap saver bag and gently wash the leaves with the soap saver.

The third way is to put a layer of neem oil in a jar with castile soap and water and us a paint brush to apply the solution. Stir up the neem well so that the soap disperses the neem bilayer into the solution. This is a good method for kids who want to help out in the garden, because it trains them to look carefully at the plants and conserves the neem solution. It takes a few days of regular treatment to eliminate the leaf miners. You know you can stop when the infested area turns brown and dries to a crisp. The plants below were treated by my kids with the paint brush method.

Leaf miner infested Tomato leaf before and after Neem- Soap treatment.

Leaf miner in Holy Basil leaf before treatment and after treatment.

Neem oil is one of the components of our Gardner's Gift Set. Be sure to check it out here.