Is beauty really only Skin Deep?

Many of you know or should know that you are what you eat. That's a no brainer, well how many of you consider what you put on your body too? The way a birth control or nicotine patch delivers its medicine transdermally should give you an indication that yes, your skin (the largest organ on the human body) has the ability to absorb what is put on it. While your epidermis does provide some sort of barrier you can't really be sure that some of the ingredients in the skin care products you are using aren't being somehow absorbed, especially if you are using a product every day for many years.

Luckily the EWG has a fantastic web site that gives you a rating on a huge listing of beauty products including facial, body, hair, make-up, nail, oral hygiene and even baby products.


Before you slather on another lotion or put on sunscreen make sure you check out your product's ingredients, you may be surprised to see that you are getting a bit more than you bargained for...

OH YEAH!! And to check out the movie: The Story of Cosmetics, the Ugly Truth of "Toxics in. Toxics out" click HERE

Search Amazon.com for 100 pure organic coffee bean caffeine eye cream 

Recipe of the Week - Salad

OK so this may look like a cop out but this salad was really good. We used purple carrots and a ginourmous cucumber from the CSA and a Roma and Lemon Boy tomato from the garden.


Chop everything up and place in a bowl.


For the dressing I made a tahini inspired one. I added apple cider vinegar, tahini, lime juice, cumin, garlic, tiny leeks, pumpkin seed oil and some cilantro. As far as the measurements for all well, I used about a 1/4 cup vinegar with 1.5 limes and had to add a little water because it was too sour so I would say just use one lime and a little less vinegar. I added about 2 -3 tablespoons of tahini a tablespoon of the pumpkin oil and a small bunch of cilantro.


 

I've got a rotty bottom!

Yikes! looks like one of our tomatoes has bottom rot - I have no idea what kind of tomato it is since it was labeled "Acid-Free Yellow" and by looking at this photo it is *clearly* not yellow


If anyone out there knows what I can do to keep this contained please feel free to chime in.

Oh this wilting heat...

Oh boy the last two weeks have been rough. Everything is very thirsty. We have had many 90+ degree days over the last two weeks. We even hit over 100 degrees the other day!!



So this meant a trip to the local big box hardware store for a garden hose. I have been having a great time watering the veggies and cooling off my feets and the kitties.

I try to water when I get home. I know, best to water first thing but there's no way I am getting up early. There you have it. Never water during the peak heat as the water evaporates and I was also told that it burns the plants. I haven't checked on that one yet so if it's not true let us know.

Stay cool y'all

OH! And here's a photo of our first tomato

Recipe of the Week - Ice Cream!

Well it's been tipping 90 here the last few days so what better way to beat the heat than to have a nice bowl of ice cream. And while this won't have the same amount of calcium you will be getting 30% of your iron for the day.

Ingredients

Raw Cashews 1 cup
Banana, fresh, 1 medium
Organic Blueberries, fresh, 1 cup
Organic Strawberries, fresh, 1 cup, whole
Chocolate Chips Semi-Sweet Tropical Source, 2 tbsp

Directions

So this recipe really starts the day before.

Soak the cashews overnight and put the fruits (preferably organic berries, see the post from April 27th) in the freezer.

When ready place all ingredients in a blender until desired consistency.

Viola!

Number of Servings: 2

We are getting results!

We are finally seeing some of the fruits of our labor - yippee!! And discovering the Macro setting on my camera I am also able to document our beauties a lot better, double yippee!!!


Last night we tried a couple of radishes, yow-we they were spicy!


Unfortunately, I don't remember what variety they were as we have two in the garden. Note for next year, keep a better garden plan...



We also are starting to see some of our round zucchini. Speaking of squashes we got a beautifull array from yesterday's CSA pick-up




Our squash patch is looking pretty good too.



We also have a variety of tomatoes coming in, considering we have about 12 tomato plants I'm looking forward to the end of the summer when we won't have to buy them, local and organic can get pricey! Hmmmm I wonder of the CSA will have tomatoes...




Here are the Brandywines, they are still tiny.








When I bought the 3 Lemon Boys one plants already had a tomato, this is it I haven't noticed any more, but the plants are a bit of a jumble...











Our Patio Tomato, while still tiny has a nice piece of fruit on it's way.






We also have 3 Romas that are doing pretty well. It looks like all of them are starting to bear fruit,




and our Acid Free Yellow is also starting to bear fruit






We also have peas that are podding, now I don't like peas but tasting these I may have to change my mind. Our Spinach never does well, grows too fast and flowers to quickly on us. I think next year I will be planting a few rows of peas instead of spinach


The rest of the garden is doing well, our herbs are looking good:

Cilantro

Basil

Mint

Parsley

and Oregano

We have green beans that I think are going to be really nice

We also have a few rogues!

Butternuts in the compost


Tomatoes in the greens



A Zinnia in the tomatoes




and a Sunflower between the asparagus and zucchini


Speaking of Sunflowers, some of my more established ones are starting to bloom, shame they didn't make it to 7 - 8 feet like last year, however, it's nice to see the flowers and their friends

Filling it in

So I decided to add a few more seeds today. The beans are growing quickly so I filled in the open spaces with more, I used the square foot method, however, they can be 3 inches apart. I started seeds indoors and for shits and giggles planted a seed at the same time, well that one is now the biggest bean I have!









I also planted some more beets since what came up was a bit sparse. The radishes (behind the beets) are doing well as are the turnips.


My favorite - sunflowers - are also doing well. I have to figure out how to get them to not break. These seeds were propagated from the wonderful sunflowers we had last year.







I also went a little crazy and planted a whole back row of sunflowers!








Our collards and chard are still doing well, the spinach is not looking so pretty though...