Since the container gardening doesn’t seem to have a high yield, and since our local organic market has expensive produce and the nearest real farmer’s market is in the next town over, we’ve opted to become subscribers in community supported agriculture (CSA), a relatively new business model for farms that should keep us in locally produced, seasonal, organic produce for months.

CSA can be very cost-effective and convenient, but many people don’t feel comfortable with the idea of cooking whatever it is the farm is growing. So, we’ve brought along Ilona, our friend, local foodie, and fellow CSA subscriber. Rhett and Ilona go to town dissecting the first shipment from Redland Organics and discussing ways to make quick, simple, satisfying meals without bending over backwards.

Interested in trying out CSA for yourself? Just check out Local Harvest to see if there’s a farm near you!

Show credits:

• The music in the montages is “Earthen Fire” and “Dreams Away” by Zen Debris.
• Foley effects for the wine pouring came from Percy Duke, stjin, and luffy, all courtesy of the FreeSound Project

Formats available: MPEG-4 Video (.m4v), Quicktime (.mov)

Tags: green, greentime, green lifestyle, food, agriculture, cooking, community supported agriculture, organic

We’re back from the impromptu hiatus causeed by all our friends deciding to get married at the same time. We’d like to extend our fondest congratulations to Cat and James as well as to ChrisAnn and Mark. We’ve got a lovely montage of wedding pictures for Cat and James (set to the music of their band, the musical voice of Greentime, Zen Debris), and we hope we can show you some of ChrisAnn and Mark when they get back from their honeymoon!

Amy’s in front of the camera this week, opening the viewer mailbag. Then she dives into our most recent project, reducing the water use in our shower. We’ve replaced the hilariously surreal showerhead with a more practical one that offers two kinds of low-flow options as well as a “pause” setting. Ever heard of a “navy shower”? Check out this episode and find out how to get in your daily bathing without wasting 20-50 gallons of water.

Formats available: MPEG-4 Video (.m4v), Quicktime (.mov)

Tags: green, green lifestyle, bath and shower, water, water conservation

Amy returns to Sustainability Test Kitchen to show off some of the homemade beauty products we’re dedicated to using. Remember, doing it yourself is a surefire way to ensure to reduce packaging and use raw ingredients that you’ve selected for their sustainability. Amy shows how she makes body scrub from old coffee grounds, facial scrub from cornmeal and orange juice, and a mask from banana and honey.

We’re always looking for more green recipes, whether they be for food, beauty supplies, or virtually anything else. If you have a good recipe you use, don’t forget to email us. We love to learn and share your tricks and hints with others!

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov), MPEG-4 Video (.m4v)

Tags: green, green living, environmentalism, beauty products, reduce, diy

We’ve been featured in Riptide, the blog of New Times Miami, a newspaper dedicated to local culture!  Thanks go out to Tamara Lush for making this possible. You can see the article about us here.

Rhett shows you how to use a brewing technique similar to methode champagne to put bubbles in flavored sugar water and make your own soda.  This is the traditional technique for making soft drinks such as ginger beer and sasparilla, and it makes for something sweet to serve with dinner or at parties.

Rhett’s ginger beer recipe: place 1/2 cup sugar, 1/8 tsp yeast, 1 tbsp (to taste) ground ginger root, juice of 1/2 lemon, and water to fill to 1″ head room in a 1L bottle. Cap, shake, and let the yeast do the hard work for 24-48 hours at room temperature.

This easy recipe came to us via this WikiHow article.  This technique can be adapted to any number of flavorings and levels of sweetness.  The only limit is your imagination! If you’d like to make cola, a good recipe can be found in OpenCola.  WikiHow provides a simple-to-follow recipe.

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov), MPEG-4 Video (protected) (.m4v)

Tags: soda, homebrew, diy, diet, do it yourself, reduce, green lifestyle, green, environmentalism