Wait. What did this have to do with being a hippie.

…

I don’t remember. Anyway. So I’m looking for your best hippie-dippy cleaning and recycling and composting tips. Tips for normal people, y’know; I’m not an urban gardener, and I’m really not ready to start vermiposting yet. I reused the dishwater and my coffee grounds for my azaleas today; that’s the kind of thing I’m looking for.

Also. Anybody have a good recommendation for a countertop composting container? Much as I’d like a klassy Williams-Sonoma hand-contoured porcelain one, I’m looking for something more along the lines of “I made this out things I found in the recycling bin.”

Lastly. Anybody have some good tips or stories on starting flower seeds? Iain is kind of in charge of the vegetables; he’s already sown our cold-weather stuff in the ground and has peppers thriving on the radiator. I’m in charge of foundation planting and flower gardens. I collected some impatiens and coleus seeds from last year, and I’m trying to get my geranium cuttings to root … anything else I could be doing for free baby plants? Particularly ones that are pretty? I sowed flower seeds last year but between the crap soil and my inattentiveness to weeds during July the only thing that thrived was the zinnias, and they eventually succumbed to powdery mildew.

ANYWAY. Basically I just want you guys to talk to me and tell me your wisdom and your stories. I’ll be here, popping the last of the Easter candy and wondering if I can move that filing cabinet on the porch by myself.*

Thank you, Supa friends!

*Things have a habit of being put someplace “just for right now” and then living there indefinitely. Mostly because I do not have the upper body strength to make them go away.

Legos everywhere, crumbs on the coffee table, marker on the couch*, small bits of paper under the dining room table, a discarded Pull-Up in the hallway, mountains of laundry, handprints coating every surface to a height of three feet, train tracks wending between chair legs, pieces of cheese in between sofa cushions, books covering the beds, a sticky layer on the floor under the legs of Mackie’s dining chair, dishes in the sink and the drying rack and on the counter, towels on the bathroom floor, woodchips on the stairs, leaves on the rug, spilled orange juice, dismantled homemade Christmas decorations whose separate pieces lie in different rooms, dirty socks whose numbers increase with each passing hour, pirate hats, knight shields, hooks, crooks, cars, capes, mittens on strings (but not inside coats), pencils, game pieces, boxes to board games, chewed-upon straws, flung-aside pillows, doffed pajamas, a sippy cup and two toothbrushes on the coffee table, an open jug of milk on the kitchen radiator, a used Kleenex  and a wrinkled Playmobil catalog on the floor … I could go on. Please don’t make me go on. I haven’t gotten to the dust bunnies who are starting to unionize.

I usually just stand in the middle of the room, slowly circling around, counting to 200.

I know this is supposed to be a part of life with small children, but dang, you guys. I need a shovel just to get from one room to the next. It takes me an hour and a half to cook, serve, eat, and clean up after each meal (and these kids eat like 6 times a day and somehow manage to get food on the walls from six feet away) and the potty training accidents and the baths and the toys and um, Jesus, how do you do this with PETS in the mix? At least houseplants don’t move.

Or talk.

Not that I’m complaining? OK, I’m complaining. But if I vent here then next time I’ll only have to count to 150.

*Title of my next book: Substances On My Couch.  It’ll be 1,000 pages long. I just edited my manuscript to include Highlighter From Daddy’s Work Bag and Halloween Face Paint That Was Not As Well-Hidden As I’d Thought.

We moved in to our new house the week of Halloween 2008, which means we’ve now been here a whole year. We’ve seen all four seasons and every major holiday, memorized the quickest routes to school and work and grocery store, met a bunch of super people and started our own traditions.

It makes me a little verklempt to think of my kids growing up in this house; to picture my sons as teenagers and the inevitable scars and scrapes this house will endure under their huge feet. I always knew the Baltimore house was not a forever house, and I’m pretty sure this one is. Oh, the plans I have for this house and this family.

Here’re the boys on October 30 last year:

Ach! Cormac was still a baby. He had just learned to walk when we came to Pittsburgh last summer and now these days he is doing C3PO impressions.

Owen has matured even more, from a very grown-up Three to a positively adult Four. He still explains things to us with one hand on his hip and the other gesticulating in the air, like a three-foot-tall university professor. Which reminds me I need to show you his corduroy blazer with the elbow patches. Seriously. You can imagine how well it suits him.

We’ve lucked into wonderful neighbors (whose children play with our children and who hand down corduroy blazers that suit them perfectly) and even the trash barge on the river at the end of our street has a certain beauty at dusk.

I’m still self-conscious about the exterior of our house, to be sure. It still needs to be re-sided, storm-proofed, extended, re-landscaped and generally improved. But in the last year we’ve filled it with books and pillows and music and plants and toy pirates and shortbread, so at least we have everything we need.

Can you believe people leave beauties like this by the side of the road?

Tomorrow is Clean Up Day in our borough, so today is the day the creepy people like me drive around r e e e e a l   s l o o o o ow, looking for treasures left out on the curb. I found this mint-condition painting, a TV stand, and a wicker chair that now resides on our porch. I found more stuff, too, but there’s only so much trash-picking a kid like me can do before she starts to feel, y’know, weird.

I’m so excited to show you guys: The fabulous Sheri Reed interviewed me for a home tour on Cafe Mom! Check it out! I am honored that she chose me and my home to feature on such a great web site — I’m now in such estimable company as Soule Mama, Buttons Magee, and Stephanie Congdon Barnes, among others, all of whom inspire me to no end.

Sheri and I used to float in the same mommyblogging circle a few years ago when Owen was wee and Mamazine was active, and now we’ve rediscovered each other again — which is one of my favorite happy-accident aspects of the modern Internet, the finding and re-finding of your simpaticos.

So check out the interview: I give some hints about decorating on a budget and decorating around children and share some never before seen pictures of my house. Go give Sheri a high five for having such great taste in blog friends. And come back later today — I will be posting  shop updates and giving the scoop on Supafab. (Finally.)

I am sparing you a picture today.

So. Bugs. Gross, huh?  This link from the Colorado State extension is a pretty good primer on everything that could freak you out about your houseplants. You’re welcome. But basically there are many gross bugs ready to infest your precious green pets, and three easy household weapons: Your shower sprayer, rubbing alchohol, and a solution of Dawn suspended in water.

Here’s what you do. Pick off any obvious bugs. Then give the plant, pot and all, a good thorough shower. That knocks a lot of little guys loose.

Even mouthwash sprayed or daubed will eliminate bugs. And half a teaspoon of old-fashioned Dawn or Ivory dishwashing liquid in a gallon of water makes a satisfactory insecticidal soap.

Keep your plants far enough away from each other that they’re not passing bugs like a high school case of mono and isolate any infested plants. A good dose of shame never hurt ‘em, either. (HOW DARE YOU BRING THAT FILTH INTO MY HOUSE, et cetera).

In sum: with constant vigilance, good hygiene, and some bathroom accoutrements, you too can keep some of the bugs off some of your plants, some of the time. For the rest of you pansies, there’s pesticides.

Two other gross but helpful tips today:

1. Miracle Gro Organic Potting mix has a strong tendency to arrive absolutely infested with fungus gnats. FYI. I did not realize this until (of course, Supa’s Law) I had repotted several of my most fawned-over specimens. Luckily there’s tip number two:
2. In which I say, you can sterilize potting soil in the microwave. It’s gross but possible. In small amounts, in a freezer bag with the top open or a plastic pot, put the potting mix in and nuke it for 15 minutes on 50% power. Some people do 2 and a half minutes on high. It’s your call. Either way, take it out and let it alone for 20 minutes to finish working and to cool down before handling or dumping it on your plants. It’s going to be hot.

I did this for a few pints of potting mix and it worked just fine for killing off those stupid annoying gnats. Just be warned that your microwave (and kitchen, too, probably) is going to smell a bit on the earthy side for about two days.

Last night I was panicking about the cold nights and wondering how to save some of my porch plants. I have two Boston ferns and two geraniums that I really want to hang on to for next spring, which would save me about $100 in porch decorating costs if I could put them up in my house during the upcoming Pittsburgh winter. (“Pittsburgh Winter” sounds like code for “Weather That Will Rob You Of Your Will To Live Plus OMG, Cold” which, for my purposes, is pretty accurate.)

I also think they would make fine houseplants, regardless. The ferns are especially ridiculously, comically huge (for my house, anyway), but I have a good corner for one of them in my living room and I’d like to have my hunky handyman (aka Iain) install a hanging hook for the other one. Ideally I’d learn to macrame a hanging plant holder out of all natural cotton cording, but it has been IMPOSSIBLE to find new and modern and not barfy macrame patterns.

(Hmm. Do I smell a book idea? Do for macrame what people have done for knitting and sewing and quilting and crochet and crewel? STUART TABORI AND CHANG ARE YOU LISTENING?)

(Oops! Sorry, that has nothing to do with houseplants) (But seriously, TBC, Macrame. Call me. I’m on it.)

ANYWAY. So my long and laboriously belabored point being that I want to bring these little green dudes inside but didn’t know if that was like, kosher, so I consulted the following web sites. Short story: Sure is! Bring ‘em in, give them bright light and a little bit of water and clean up after the ferns. For the geraniums, you can bring the whole pot in, divide them, and/or take cuttings. I’m on it, little green dudes!

And for locals, the last frost date for Da Burgh is 9/20, f.y.i. Only three weeks left to get crackalackin’.

Here are links that helped me:

• Overwintered Zonal Geraniums - Geranium Forum - GardenWeb
• Overwintering Geraniums …
• successful overwintering of Boston Fern - House Plants Forum …
• Fall Care and Clean-up of the Garden and Landscape

A special note: GardenWeb is pretty much indispensible in my book for houseplant help. Those dudes and dudettes know their business.

Oh my God. I just wrote and deleted a weirdly detailed post about repotting my plants. Let me sum it up for you: As other people treat their dogs like children, I treat my plants like pets.

Like you didn’t know I was a weirdo.

Anyway, here they are, getting a sun bath. (WEIRDO.) If I start knitting them sweaters you have my permission (nay, my instructions!) to slap me upside the head.

(Gardening is still kind of weird to me. It feels like … like I’m just taking handfuls of my yard and calling it food. But oh, when those peppers and tomatoes finally come in? CAN’T WAIT.)

This is so weird to me, to be into plants. I’ve only ever owned two plants before: an air plant and a cactus, in college. I don’t know how I came to own them but I do know that I killed them. But I suppose I’ve read 700% more gardening books since college, so, let’s see how this experiment goes.

p.s. I’m rooting ivy cuttings too. Cross your fingers. If I can propagate this shit, Game Over.