RagBags - Reuse, Repurpose.

A new twist on an old fashion. But now you can go back in time without compromising the environment. Many brands have what you want to go eco and retro at the same time. We’re excited to see all these sustainable options…

This Pure Hemp fanny pack is made with 100% hemp and cotton, handmade in Nepal. You can find them online at Hemppacks.

Matt & Nat Aki fanny pack is vegan and cruelty free. It fits an iPhone 6 and is made with recycled materials like cork tag and 100% recycled nylon. You can find it at Unicorn Goods:

If you want to go global, you can support artists and causes by buying a Serengetee fanny pack made with a variety of fabrics from around the world.

For a mere $14.99 you can get a limited edition fanny pack from Terrapax that is made out of hemp and organic cotton.

And if you can’t bring yourself to buy a fanny pack, then call it a wallet belt or a belt handbag or a fanny purse. Hipsters for Sisters designed a stylish and eco-friendly vegan alternative to the fanny pack.

This summer, put your worries behind you, and your fanny pack in front of you.

The current trend is to buy local produce to cut down on gas emission and carbon footprints and go up on freshness and flavor. I decided to go local, very local. Like, my own yard local. I noticed all my neighbors had raised bed gardens and thought, “I can do that!”

You can do it, too. Below are simple easy steps for making a raised bed garden for vegetables, herbs or fruit.

How to Make a Totally Rad Vegetable Garden

First you need to either buy or build a raised bed. I built mine out of cedar. Wait a minute, did you just yawn? I mean, gardening is cool, right? I can talk about, no?

Gardeners don’t get the respect they deserve. You have to be tough to garden. It’s not for sissies. You need rugged gloves like motorcycle riders have and a good hat like a trucker. You have to be prepared for earth worms (eeeeekkkk!), root rot, blight, mold, anthracnose, fungal diseases, smuts, rusts, sweat and accidentally rubbing dirt on your face. This year I had to fight off the Japanese… beetles.  I had a turf war with a mint plant. That’s right, I waged a war. A war! Ok, so the mint won, but I put up a ridiculously good fight*. I might not have any street cred, but I’ve got yard cred.

* Ridiculously Good Fight – Apparently mint is a container based plant. Everyone told me “mint is really invasive” when I planted it. At the time I thought, “who wouldn’t want to be invaded by mint?” It’s pretty, it smells great, what’s the problem? Fast forward two years. The last mint pulling session had me out in the yard engaged in a tug-of-war game making noises like a sumo wrestler. It took 4 giant trash bags, 37 curse words and 3 hours, but I I got it. I won. Then a week later, I saw a little sprig of mint. The worst part is that I could audibly hear it laughing at me.

So I’ll try this gardening tutorial again, but keep it real.

Tips for Freestyle Gardening

1. Don’t waste money buying a simple, easy to assemble, affordable raised bed to plunk down in your yard in 15 minutes or less. No, no, no. Build your own. From complete scratch. What do professionals know about building a raised bed in YOUR yard? Build the specs based on what aesthetically looks best to you.

2. Buy cedar to build up your bed. Why? It’s harder to find, more expensive, and it weighs a lot more. When it’s strapped to the roof of a Mini Cooper, people excitedly yell, “Oh my GOD! Can that roof support the weight of that?”

3. Don’t have tools? No problem. Make friends with your neighbors, surely one of them can cut your wood and will let you borrow a hole digger and power drill. (I call my yard a community garden, because it took the entire community to build it.)

4. When planting seeds, don’t write down anywhere what you are planting, just leave the bags of seed in the back of the bed. It will completely fade and you won’t be able to read it at all, but if it’s all food, just eat whatever grows.

5. Plant lots of mammoth sunflower seeds in direct sunlight. So if nothing edible grows, you can still be impressed by the 8 foot flowers towering above you.

6. Totally own your mistakes. When someone points out that the tomato plants need to be two feet apart but are in a one foot wide bed, respond with, “Oh, you must do traditional gardening. That’s cool. I’m using new contemporary gardening techniques developed for small spaces.”

7. Plant a few plants that were never meant to grow on your continent because, well, you never know.

8. Create a severe drought by not knowing how to work your irrigation system. Then follow that up by over compensating with overwatering your plants. Then go out of town for a few weeks and leave your plants on their own. At this point they will flourish and thrive while not being tended by an oppressive regime.

9. Buy a miniature colander so when you take photos to show your friends, your produce looks massive!

10.   After you have already built your oddly-sized garden bed and planted the wrong seeds, go and talk to employees at a local nursery so you know how to do it better next season. Ask what kind of soil you should use, how often you should water and for how long, ask what plants grow well in your region, ask what kinds of plants could be planted nearby to fend off bugs or to absorb excess water, ask the best local place to buy compost (apparently my local landfill has award winning compost), ask what grows best seasonally, and ask what you can use preventatively to ward off insects.

All the hard work is worth it because veggies are cool. And I’ve experience first hand the fact that children who grow their own vegetables are more excited about eating them. My seven year-old has already started talking up the soups we can make with the vegetables.

And vegetable gardens smell great and earthy. Produce is the foundation for life. The garden makes me feel like I am one with the planet. When I check on my crops, I feel like the scene from the movie Avatar when the people find the tree of life and can hear it talking. Sure, I mostly hear my mint mocking me, but there are other happy voices in there, too. Little cherry tomatoes yelling, “pick me! pick me!!!”

So here’s my advice. Don’t garden like a pro. Garden with reckless abandon. Grow your own way. Sow your own row.  It’s a rad ride. Nothing tastes as good as food you grew yourself. And don’t forget to gather up your harvest in your ragbags and share with it the community of people that helped you along the way.

Spend your July 4th partying like a Revolutionary. That’s right, rock it 1776 style. Independence Day means abolish traditions. You don’t have to celebrate like you did last year. Instead exert your independence, change things up, party like John Hancock, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Roger Sherman. You can march to the beat of your own drum. 

1776 Party Check List:

Eat local fruits and vegetables.

Travel by foot, paddle boat or horse.

Visit your local village bake house.

Begin your day with a bowl of porridge or a bowl of cornmeal pudding called mush…or a beer.

Use only reusable bowls, cups and utensils. (In Colonial Times, people often travelled with their own untisils because they were hard to come by.)

Keep a bag of parched corn beaten into a powder with you in case you get hungry. I mean, you’d have to be REALLY hungry, but apparently it will fill you up fast. It was the Colonial power bar.

Read the Declaration of Independence.

Put down all digital devices & play a few (odd) colonial games. Or some more common colonial games, like hopscotch.

Wait a minute, it’s starting to sound like a lot of work to party like it’s 1776. I don’t even have time to plant and harvest my grain so I can make my breakfast beer before July 4th –  an aMAZEing amount of work! Ba dum chh.

Ok, how about just a 1776 commemorative party?  With a few of these practical things to do:

Ditch disposables – You can take your own plate and utensils to a party that might have disposables, or if you are planning a party, make sure there aren’t disposable items. Sure, it might be more cleaning later, but be glad you’re not cleaning your dish in a creek in the dark.

Buy Local – No matter where you are, there is local food, local crops, local beers, local coffee, etc. And they are probably fresher and better than the ones trucked in.

A/C – In Colonial times there was no air conditioning. A/C is a huge power hog. Dial it back to use less energy when you’re not in your home or business. To remember, you can pretend A/C stands for Always Colonial.

Carpool – Wherever you’re going, try to carpool… and be glad you’re not all packed in the back of a hot and stuffy horse drawn carriage. Unless you actually have a sweet horse drawn carriage, then definitely drive that on the 4th! That would be a rad ride.

UNPLUG! – This will make you so much happier for the 4th, and will also save electricity. Unplug. All of your devices. Do you really need to look at a screen all day? Nope. Turn it off. You don’t need it. For one day you can enjoy the great outdoors, the company of friends or a good book. Seriously, turn off all your devices, go ahead and do it now. Right now. Actually, check out this Historic Foodie Blog, THEN turn it off.

Happy 4th of July from RagBags.

May your day be happy and revolutionary.

(Now you can turn it off.)

The holidays can be overwhelming, and post holidays are no exception. Every year we all experience the burden of recovering from the holidays, and honestly, the guilt of throwing out all that wrapping paper or expensive tissue paper friends and family bought.

 

 

 

Full guide here