Products

Grow your own gourmet oyster mushrooms with the Back to the Roots mushroom kit

April 3, 2012 by Ro Kumar

Back to the Roots is a young and innovative company that offers a grow-at-home oyster mushroom kit. The mushrooms grow on a base of old coffee grounds – a byproduct of the coffee-making process which is normally discarded. This part of Back to the Root’s closed loop business model – they are turning what was once a waste product, into delicious and nutritious gourmet food. The mushroom kit is great for kids, foodies, and aspiring urban farmers. It yields about 1 to 1.5 lbs of mushrooms in as little as 10 days.

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How to grow food and plants inside your apartment using Windowfarms

October 27, 2011 by Ro Kumar

Being a suburban gardener myself, I have plenty of land and soil available for growing my plants. The most frequent complain I hear from urban gardeners is that they don’t have the space to grow anything. Enter Windowfarms. This innovative hydroponic system was created by Britta Riley, who wanted to figure out a way to grow plants in her low-light Brooklyn apartment.

Want one in your apartment? You can build one yourself (instructions are on the website) or buy one. A Windowfarm is a vertical, hydroponic growing system that allows for year-round growing in almost any window. It lets plants use natural window light, the climate control of your living space, and organic “liquid soil.” In this hydroponic system, nutrient-spiked water is pumped up from a reservoir at the base of the system and trickles down from bottle to bottle, bathing the roots along the way. Water and nutrients that are not absorbed collect in the reservoir and will be pumped through again at the next interval.

I first learned about this system yesterday morning and immediately decided to try to build one. I didn’t follow their directions exactly and tried to use materials I had available around the house. It doesn’t look pretty – but hey, it works! If you want any tips on building it, feel free to reach out to me. I’ll post up more photos as my plants grow and we’ll see how it works out.

L.A.-based Sheswai Lacquer makes chemical-free nail polish and uses locally-sourced materials

October 12, 2011 by Tracy Horwath

Ever wonder how to be green and glam at the same time? Debbie Leavitt, founder of Sheswai Lacquer (pronounced SHE-SWAY), is a vegetarian, humanitarian, and eco-enthusiast. She knows how to walk the walk – with a sassy strut and a perfect pedicure, of course!

While building her career as an in-demand celebrity nail stylist at salons and spas in Los Angeles, Debbie developed a line of nail polishes that are not only beautiful to look at, but are also free of formaldehyde, toluene, and DBP (those nasty chemicals that not only hurt the enviroment but can cause death in humans and animals as well). The sustainable caps are made from locally harvested wood from family owned tree farms in Maine, and are glued on by Willing Workers, an organization providing jobs for mentally disabled men and women. Of course, the glue used in this process is non-toxic as well. And if that’s not enough to make you feel like you’re contributing to the conservation of our planet, Sheswai also donates a portion of its proceeds to non-profits such as Heal the Bay, World Wildlife Foundation, and the Sierra Club, among others.

The collection of eleven polishes come in an array of irresistably dazzling colors – perfect hues for the party girl with a conscience, as most of us L.A. gals are known to be. The polishes all have cool California-chic names: ”Totally” is a bright, beautiful fuschia, “Fersure” a dark, sexy red, and “Stoned” is a nuetral beige-violet (and my current favorite!). Check out these gorgeous shades and more, including organic DIY beauty tips on their website.