Ecofrugality is now called "underconsumption core"

Once again, I find myself riding the wave of a trend I didn't know existed. A week or so ago, I read an article in Grist about how many TikTokers are now fighting back against the consumption culture popularized by many influencers with videos about a lifestyle they call "underconsumption core." This aesthetic, according to the article, is "generally about reducing and reusing." In their videos, creators show off their reusable bags, thrift-shop visits, minimalist skincare routines, and possessions they've bought cheap and kept for decades. Doesn't this sound a lot like the sort of thing I've been posting about for the last 15 years?

Of course, when I first started this blog, there was no TikTok and "influencer" wasn't a recognized profession. So I figured, if this new platform is now providing a forum for a lifestyle I've been promoting for years, why not jump on that bandwagon? Why not whip up my own little one-minute video, set to "soothing background music," about my ecofrugal—excuse me, "underconsumption core"—habits and contribute it to the conversation? And, seeing as it's December, why not make it all about the ways we practice underconsumption during the holidays, which are normally the spendiest time of the year?

So I filmed a few little clips with my phone, edited them together in the free ClipChamp program, found a public-domain musical track on Pixabay, and posted it on both TikTok and YouTube. If you have an account on either platform, I'd appreciate your popping by there and giving it a like. If enough people seem to enjoy this first video, perhaps I'll make some more in the same vein. I've got the software more or less figured out now, and it's not like I have any shortage of material to work with.

Happy holidays to all, and to all an ecofrugal new year!

Meet the new toothpaste, not the same as the old toothpaste

Brian and I have a few very specific requirements for toothpaste. I insist on a brand that's cruelty-free (not tested on animals). Brian needs one that's free of sodium lauryl sulfate, which seems to give him canker sores. And we both want a toothpaste with fluoride, which, until recently, was the only chemical available that could actually prevent tooth decay. (Nowadays, there's an alternative called hydroxyapatite, which appears to be equally effective. But it's also more expensive, so most fluoride-free toothpastes don't contain it.)

None of the leading toothpaste brands (Crest, Colgate, Tom's of Maine, Sensodyne) meets all these requirements. So, for the past several years, we've relied on Trader Joe's toothpaste. Not only did it tick all the boxes, it was also much cheaper than the major brands at $3.50 for a 6-ounce tube. But last summer, we learned that Trader Joe's had discontinued its store brand on account of problems with its supplier. Our man on the inside (a friend who works there) told us the store was working with a new supplier and expected to get its product on the shelves by the end of November, but our one remaining tube wasn't going to last us that long.

So, after squeezing every drop out of that tube and exhausting all the sample tubes we'd received from our dentist, we went looking for a new toothpaste that met our stringent requirements. After a bit of online research, I determined that the best alternative was a brand called hello (without an initial capital letter). We picked up a tube of that for $5 at Target and, on the whole, liked it very much. The flavor was pleasantly minty, and being greeted by the cheerful "hello" on the tube made a pleasant start to the day. 

There were only two things we didn't like about it. The first was the price: $1.06 per ounce, nearly twice as much as our old Trader Joe's toothpaste. The other was the tube it came in. Our old toothpaste came in the traditional squeezable tube we'd both grown up with, which we could flatten and roll as we worked our way down the tube to squeeze out the paste more effectively. This new tube was made of a springier plastic and would reinflate itself after being squeezed, making it more or less impossible to squish every last bit of the paste out of the tube.

So, as November drew to an end, we kept an anxious eye on the toiletries shelf at Trader Joe's, hoping the new store-brand toothpaste would show up before our first tube of hello ran out. But November ran into December with no sign of one, and it got harder and harder to squeeze anything out of the hello tube. Finally, we gave in and bought a second tube—which, of course, was the cue for the new Trader Joe's product to show up at last. In fact, not one but two new toothpastes appeared: a "sensitivity" toothpaste with fluoride and a fluoride-free whitening toothpaste with hydroxyapatite. Both were the same price, $4 for 6 ounces—more than the old store brand, but considerably less than hello. Although we already had a full tube in reserve, we decided to spring for a tube of the new TJ's toothpaste anyway and open it first. That way, if we didn't like it, we'd have the other tube to fall back on. We hesitated over which of the new toothpastes to try but eventually settled on the one with fluoride, since it was more familiar.

After one brushing with the new toothpaste, we realized this might have been the wrong choice. It had a sort of weird taste that we could only guess was due to the desensitizing ingredient, potassium nitrate. (We'd tried sample tubes of Sensodyne before, and it also had a hint of that odd flavor, but with stronger mint and sweetener flavors to cover it up.) So now we face a bit of an ecofrugal dilemma. Do we (1) try to use up this whole tube of weird-tasting toothpaste, (2) go back to the pricier hello toothpaste that we know we like, or (3) try the other Trader Joe's toothpaste, which may or may not have the same peculiar taste?

No matter which we choose, there's one downside we'll definitely have to live with: those pesky, self-inflating tubes. The new Trader Joe's toothpaste comes in the same kind of stand-up plastic tube as the hello toothpaste. If we go for option 1, we probably won't be all that bothered about being unable to use up all the toothpaste from this tube, since we don't really like it anyway. But with option 2 or 3, we may have to resort to buying (or making) one of those special tube-squeezing tools or even cutting open the tube to scoop out the last few drips.

What we'd like best, of course, is to have our old toothpaste back, in the same old tube. But since that's not an option, we'll have to figure out which choice is next best. C'est la vie ecofrugale.

Our first big-venue experience (and why we won't repeat it)

This weekend, Brian and I did something a bit out of step with our usual ecofrugal spending habits. As regular readers know, we're both big fans of the show Critical Role (in which "a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons"). So when we learned that the Critical Role cast would be running a live "Critmas" event at the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden, New Jersey—their first ever show in our state—we decided to spring for tickets. We'd already been to see a live show in Brooklyn featuring a subset of the cast and had a lot of fun, so we figured this event would probably be worth the cost of admission.

From the moment we first started planning the trip, though, the venue seemed determined to convince us we were wrong. First, there was the cost and hassle of ordering the tickets. They were only available through Live Nation, so I had to set up an account with that site—which turned out to be a subsidiary of Ticketmaster—in order to place the order. The process of setting up the account, linking it to my PayPal account, and placing my order took well over an hour, requiring several attempts before the transaction would go through. And by the time Ticketmaster had finished piling on taxes and fees, our two "Standard Tier" tickets, allegedly priced at $75 each, came to a total of $226.88.

This already high price, as we quickly learned, did not include parking. The Freedom Mortgage Pavilion's website informed us that while parking was "available" at various nearby lots, we would have to find and pay for it ourselves—unless, of course, we wanted to shell out an additional $50 for "premier" parking. We couldn't bring ourselves to swallow that additional expense, especially since it would most likely mean fighting our way through a massive traffic jam at the end of what was already likely to be a very late night. So we spent several more stressful hours poring over maps of the area trying to find other parking options. Our best bet seemed to be the Rutgers Camden campus, especially since Brian has a Rutgers parking permit that would allow him access to lots that might not be open to the general public. A campus map showed several parking lots, but it didn't explain who was allowed to use them. Some were clearly labeled as resident parking, but others were unmarked. We ended up planning out a route that would take us past several different lots so that if one was full, we could move on to the next.

Then there was the matter of food. The venue's website clearly stated that we could not bring in any outside food or drink except for one sealed bottle of water. However, we would be allowed to bring in an empty bottle and fill it up at one of the water fountains. So that would take care of basic hydration, but nourishment was another matter. The show was scheduled to start at 7pm, and it would take us about an hour and a half to drive there, so we wouldn't be able to eat dinner beforehand. We couldn't tell from the website what food options would be available, but we could be pretty sure they would all be expensive and would involve waiting in long lines. So we planned to pack a picnic supper—peanut butter sandwiches, fruit, baby carrots, and a couple of cookies—that we could nosh on before and after the show.

A final source of stress was the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion's bag policy. It was clear from the venue's website that my purse, which is practically a part of my body, would not be able to come to the show with me. The venue allowed only clear plastic bags no larger than 12 inches square and 6 inches deep and "small clutches, wristlets, or fanny packs" no bigger than 6 inches by 9. I had a zipper bag that was just within those limits, so I figured I could squeeze the essentials—my large phone wallet, a pillbox, and maybe a couple of small toiletries like a nail clipper and lip balm—into that. But then, less than a week before the show, I received an email from the venue reminding me about its policies, and the size limit it gave for clutch bags was only 4.5 by 6.5 inches—roughly half the size stated on the venue's own website. Confused by these conflicting rules, I consulted Reddit and found that the venue had adopted these smaller size limits two years ago and somehow never bothered to update its website to reflect them.

With only a few days until the show, I posted a couple of frantic messages on Facebook (one in our local Buy Nothing Group and one in our board-gaming group) asking if anyone could loan me a plastic stadium bag that fit the venue's limits. I ended up getting not one but two offers and, just to be on the safe side, accepted them both. However, that didn't solve the problem of what to do with my phone. I had to bring it with me, because our tickets were on it; they contained a digital code that changed regularly, so I couldn't just print them out ahead of time. But I couldn't bring the wallet that normally holds the phone because it was over the size limit. It was possible they'd allow the wallet if it was inside a clear bag, but it was also possible they wouldn't, and we didn't want to take the chance. And carrying the phone around naked would have put it at risk of damage.

Rather than run out and buy a case for it, Brian decided to try making me one. He borrowed the phone and basically built the case around it, cutting two panels out of corrugated cardboard and wrapping them in fabric cut from an old pair of fleece tights. Then he wrapped the whole thing in thinner, more flexible cardboard cut from a cereal box and secured it with a rubber band. The finished case was right on the edge of the 6.5-inch limit, so there was always a chance some zealous security guard would seize it, but losing it wouldn't cost us anything.

The last thing we had to worry about was getting to the venue. Google Maps offered multiple routes, but the most straightforward one appeared to be the NJ Turnpike. We carefully reviewed the steps to get from the Turnpike to the parking lot, going over each turn in street view so we'd know what to expect, and also how to get from the parking lot to the venue on foot. Google said the journey could take anywhere from 60 to 110 minutes, and the show was scheduled to start at 7:30 pm, with the doors opening to regular ticket holders (as opposed to those who had paid $250 a seat for VIP tickets) at 6pm. We decided to leave at 4:30 pm to give ourselves plenty of leeway in case we got lost, ran into traffic, or had some other sort of mishap.

As it turned out, none of the things we'd worried about came to pass. We made it to Camden in about an hour, and the first parking lot we looked at had plenty of available spaces. We made the chilly one-mile walk through the streets of Camden without difficulty and arrived at the venue right as the doors were opening. The guard took only a cursory look at my borrowed stadium bag before waving us through, raising no objection to Brian's homemade phone case. We made our way through the crowd, found our seats, filled our water bottle, and still had over an hour to spare before showtime. 

We did make one deviation from our careful plan; despite having partaken of sandwiches and carrots in the car, I realized soon after we seated ourselves that I wasn't going to make it through the whole show without something to munch on. Luckily, we didn't have to stand in the long concession lines, as there was a vendor passing through the aisles selling big boxes of popcorn for $10. Normally, I would balk at paying this much for a snack I can make at home for pennies, but under the circumstances, it seemed like the best deal we were likely to get. So I shelled out an extra $10 for a box and nursed it through the entire four-and-a-half hour show.

The Critical Role cast, as always, put on a great show. From where we were seated, far back in the huge auditorium, they were only tiny figures on the stage, but the venue had large screens set up that allowed us to see their facial expressions in close-up. This meant that most of the time, we were looking at the screens, rather than the live actors on the stage, so visually, it wasn't all that different from watching on our own small screen at home. But being part of the crowd, laughing and shouting and cheering when the characters did something awesome, definitely added to the experience.

Still, as we walked back to our car through the cold December night, we found ourselves asking: Did it really add that much? Yes, being in the room where it happens was a lot more fun than watching at home. But everything we had to do in order to be in that room was a lot less fun. In fact, everything other than the show itself—ordering the tickets, planning our route, searching for parking, packing sandwiches in lieu of a proper dinner, driving to and from Camden, walking from the parking lot to the venue and back on a cold December night, and arriving home exhausted at 2 am—was extremely stressful. Neither of us could say with confidence that the experience, taken as a whole, was better than staying at home and watching the show curled up on the couch in our jammies with some hot cocoa. And we certainly couldn't say that it was so much better as to be worth the roughly $241 we spent in total for the tickets, gas, tolls, and vastly overpriced popcorn.

So, while this was a worthwhile experience, it isn't one we're eager to repeat. The joy of watching the show in a room full of fellow Critters (fans of the show) just wasn't enough to balance out all the cost and hassle. I kind of feel like if Critical Role ever returns to New Jersey, rather than pay over $200 to see them live in a huge arena, we should try to find a group of local Critters and have an at-home watch party. We can share a potluck dinner, sit on comfy chairs to enjoy the show together, use the bathrooms during the break without having to wait in a long line, and still get to bed before 1 am.

Is thrifting really thrifty?

For the past eight years, my aunt and I have had an arrangement about holiday gifts: When she comes to visit over Thanksgiving weekend, we hit the local thrift shops together and buy each other's presents there. This year, I invited my youngest nibling to join in the exchange as well. I had perused their wish list on Gift Hero (our more socially responsible alternative to the Amazon Wishlist) and noticed that a lot of their picks were clothing items, so I suggested we look for them the ecofrugal way.

Well, this was a semi-success. As usual, I couldn't find anything I particularly liked at the thrift stores, so my aunt wasn't able to get a gift for me there. But both she and my nibling found items for themselves: a cute little fuzzy jacket and a colorful striped sweater, respectively. And Brian, who joined us on the trip, also found a nice green sweater for himself. That's the good news. The bad news is that the three items together cost $87. 

Mind you, I'm not objecting to what I paid for my relatives' gifts; there are definitely other items on our gift list that cost about the same (though there are also some that cost less). But it seems a trifle high for secondhand clothing. Consider that last year, Brian and I spent only $52 at Goodwill for six pieces (two pairs of shorts, one pair of jeans, one pair of sneakers, one pullover, and one turtleneck)—an average of $8.67 per garment. These three items averaged $29 per garment—more than three times as much.

This leads me to an uncomfortable but inescapable conclusion: thrifting isn't always a thrifty choice. That's not to say it never is; at a store like Goodwill, where most garments are under $10, you'll certainly pay less than you would buying fast fashion, and you'll probably be able to find better-made garments too (though it may take a bit of Goodwill hunting to find them). But at consignment shops like Greene Street, you're likely to pay more than you would shopping the Black Friday sales at Target or Old Navy.

Of course, secondhand shopping still has other advantages over fast fashion. It doesn't require the massive amounts of water, energy, and other resources that go into new garments, and it doesn't produce the massive amounts of waste and emissions that come out of the process. It's unquestionably the more eco-friendly choice. But it's not the ecofrugal no-brainer I thought it was. Instead, it's one of those awkward cases in which the best choice for society and the best choice for your bottom line are often in conflict, and you have to figure out which matters more to you.

Thrifting can still be an ecofrugal choice if you stick to the nonprofit stores, such as Goodwill and local church basement shops. But unfortunately, there aren't very many of those around here, and the ones we do have are a bit of a mess. Our one local thrift shop at the Reformed Church is small, cluttered, and hardly ever open; the nearest Goodwill store, while bigger, is poorly organized, making it hard to unearth the few pearls hidden in the massive dunghill. So if we want to visit a thrift store with real bargains, we have to go some distance out of our way. We still go once in a while, but we can't drop in on a regular basis to find the good stuff before it's snatched up.

Consequently, we tend to have our best luck visiting thrift shops away from home. When we go to visit my in-laws for Christmas, we make a point of stopping by at least one of the three Goodwill stores in their area, all of which are much better than ours. And when we saw my sister's family for Thanksgiving this past weekend, they invited us to come visit them in Boston next year and check out a chain called Savers, which they visit regularly. It's a for-profit chain, but apparently it's a big enough one to boast a substantial selection of decent stuff at reasonable prices. We can usually find enough during these out-of-town thrift-shop visits to fill the gaps in our wardrobe and tide us over until next year. It's not ideal, but if we want to shop ecofrugally, it's our best option.

Is there an app for ecofrugality?

There are all kinds of useful tools to support an ecofrugal lifestyle. In some of my Thrift Week series, for instance, I've discussed my favorite ecofrugal books, websites, and recipes. Now that I've finally entered the 21st century and acquired a smartphone, I've realized I should add apps to the list as well. 

Over the past year, I've tested out several apps that looked like they could be handy for ecofrugal folks. As it turned out, most of them weren't all that useful for me, but that doesn't necessarily mean they wouldn't be for you. It all depends on where you live and what you want your ecofrugal life to look like—something that, as I've noted before, will vary from person to person.

Ecofrugal App #1: Buy Nothing

For over 15 years, Brian and I have been avid users of Freecycle. We use it mostly to get rid of stuff we no longer need, but we've also acquired a variety of useful items through the site, from a bicycle to, literally, the kitchen sink. So when I started hearing about another giveaway network called the Buy Nothing Project, I figured it would be worthwhile to check it out. 

When I first learned about the Buy Nothing Project, around 2021, it existed mostly on Facebook. There were thousands of local Buy Nothing groups across the country and around the world where people could offer or request items from each other, just as they do on Freecycle. However, the organization had recently developed its own app and was encouraging people to migrate their groups onto that platform. So when I decided to give Buy Nothing a shot, I downloaded the app and signed up for the nearest group in my area. 

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a bit of a wasteland. Practically no one ever posted anything on the site, and only a few people seemed to be using it at all. Eventually, I figured out that most people in my area were ignoring the app and continuing to post on the local Facebook group. So I joined the group, which I now check whenever I happen to be on Facebook, and deleted the app. 

Verdict: For me, the Buy Nothing app was not at all useful. The Facebook group is somewhat more so; it gets a lot more traffic, and I occasionally see an offer for something that I might be able to use or a request for something I might be able to provide. But so far, I have never actually obtained or donated anything via the group. The local Freecycle group, which is considerably larger and busier, remains my go-to site for disposing of excess stuff. But your mileage, naturally, may vary. It's quite possible that your area has a bustling Buy Nothing community, either on Facebook or on the app, and nobody at all on Freecycle. So check out both to decide whether either one, or both, is worth your time.

Ecofrugal App #2: Faircado

I can't remember exactly where I first heard about the Faircado app and browser extension. I may have seen it mentioned in a newsletter or just happened to run across a mention of it online. In any case, the idea behind it struck me as a sound one: make it easier for people to find secondhand clothing by popping up listings for used versions of items they shop for online. Since I do most of my online shopping on my computer rather than my phone, I installed the Firefox browser extension rather than the app.

Over the next few months, the add-on appeared to be working as designed. That is, whenever I visited a clothing store online, it would dutifully pop up a list of suggestions for secondhand alternatives to whatever I was looking at. Unfortunately, these suggestions were generally not useful for me, and for a very specific reason: the company that runs Faircado is based in Germany. Consequently, most of the secondhand garments it found for me were listed on European sites. Shipping them to the U.S. would have more than doubled their price (not to mention their carbon footprint). The extension did pop up a few items from U.S. sellers, but there was no way to filter the list to see only those items. Eventually, I got frustrated and removed the browser extension.

Verdict: This app was not useful for me, and I don't think it would be for other U.S. shoppers. I'll keep an eye on the Faircado website to see if it ever rolls out a "search by location" feature, and if it does, perhaps I'll consider reinstalling it.

Ecofrugal App #3: Too Good to Go

I learned about the Too Good to Go app from the Washington Post's Climate Coach column. Its purpose is to help grocery stores and eateries dispose of perishable food they have left at the end of the day, rather than sending it to the landfill to produce methane. You can use the app to purchase a "surprise bag" of leftovers from a nearby establishment. The prices are fairly low—in my area, they typically range from $4 to $6—but you never know exactly what you're going to get for that amount. Consequently, it's hard to evaluate whether you're getting a good deal or not. Ya pays yer money, ya takes yer chances.

Columnist Michael Coren says he "fed [his] family for days" using food salvaged from the trash with the help of this and a similar app called Flashfood. The business model for Flashfood sounded a bit more useful to me: Coren called it "a discount grocery shelf" from which you can select fresh produce and other perishables at up to 50 percent off the original price. But unfortunately, when I consulted the Flashfood website, it said it didn't have any participating stores in my area. So I decided to give To Good to Go a try instead. 

I downloaded the free app and found that there were several local establishments signed up on it, but they were mostly bakeries and pizza places. That didn't look too useful for us, since Brian makes all our pizza and baked goods from scratch—probably for less than it would cost to buy from the app. There was only one nearby grocery store signed up on the app: the George Street Co-Op in New Brunswick, which offers up bags of its worse-for-wear organic produce for $4 at the end of each day. The problem is that you have to order your bag after 5pm and come to pick it up between 7pm and 8pm. That's not a very convenient hour for us to head out for a walk of around 45 minutes each way, particularly in the wintertime. So to take advantage of these produce deals, we'd have to make a special trip by car to pick them up—not exactly an eco-friendly way to acquire groceries.

Still, I felt like I shouldn't give up on the To Good to Go app without trying it at least once. So one Monday evening, when we were planning to go play board games at a local bar called Pino's, I ordered a surprise bag from Salonika, a Greek deli and grocery just a short distance from our house. We'd be passing right by it on our way to Pino's, just at the designated hour for pickups, and we could share whatever goodies the bag contained with our gaming buddies, thus reducing the hazard to our own waistlines of coming home with a whole bag crammed with rich pastries.

As it turned out, our surprise bag wasn't quite so naughty as all that. For $6, I got just two pieces of savory pastry: one largish portion of spanakopita (spinach pie) and another of cheese pie. These proved a bit awkward to share with our fellow gamers; since we had just two large pieces rather than several small ones, I had to get out my little pocketknife so people could hack pieces off. But folks seemed to enjoy the cheese pie, and Brian and I enjoyed the spanakopita later at home. Still, I didn't feel like I'd gotten that much of a bargain for my $6, and I didn't feel all that inclined to repeat the experience.

Verdict: For us, this app isn't very useful. We'd probably use it more if we lived close enough to the  George Street Co-op to take advantage of its cheap produce deals, but in our location, there's just not enough of anything we can reasonably use. I haven't deleted the app yet, but I probably won't keep it much longer.

Ecofrugal App #4: Gem.app

I learned about Gem.app just within the past couple of weeks. My phone or my computer popped up some story about secondhand clothing, and along with all the references to specific secondhand marketplaces I was already familiar with (Poshmark, eBay, Mercari), it mentioned Gem.app as a tool for searching all those marketplaces. Unlike Faircado, Gem doesn't automatically pop up search results whenever you're shopping; you have to physically go to the app or the website and do a search. But with that one search, you can find clothes from all the secondhand sites at once, rather than laboriously searching one at a time.

As I mentioned, I tend to shop with my computer more than my phone, so I haven't installed the actual Gem app. But I have used the Gem.app website several times, and I must say, it makes shopping secondhand much, much easier. Not only can I find items from many stores at once, Gem's search algorithm gives me much more useful results than those on most individual sites. If I do a search on eBay or Etsy for "women's colorful sweater," I'll find some things that fit that description, but many more that aren't sweaters, aren't colorful, and/or aren't for women. On Gem.app, all the results are, in fact, colorful women's sweaters, and I can narrow those results based on size, price, brand, and other criteria.

Verdict: This one's a keeper. I've haven't actually found anything I want yet through the Gem app, but I now waste much less time scrolling through pictures of things I don't want. Instead of hunting fruitlessly through page after page on eBay and Mercari, I can do a quick search on Gem and, if I don't see anything I like, plan to try again another day. And I imagine anyone else of an ecofrugal bent would find it equally useful.

Recipe of the Month: Roasted Butternut Squash Curry

After slipping October's Recipe of the Month in just under the wire, Brian decided to get started early hunting down one for November. He did a general search for "hearty fall recipes" and came across a list that included an intriguing-looking recipe for butternut squash curry—a serendipitous find, since we happened to have all that butternut squash from our fall harvest. But we didn't have all the other ingredients required for that particular dish, so Brian did a second, more targeted search for similar recipes that we could make using only what we had on hand. And that's how he came across the Roasted Butternut Squash and Chickpea Curry at Cupful of Kale. The only thing it called for that we didn't already have was curry powder, and he could easily whip that up using another recipe he found on the site Feasting at Home. (It calls for 14 different spices and seasonings, but our well-stocked spice cabinet has all of them.)

As usual, Brian made a couple of minor modifications to the basic curry recipe. Following a tip at the bottom of the recipe, he added six ounces of frozen spinach to the dish to boost its veggie content. He also substituted home-cooked chick peas for the canned ones and changed the unspecified "salt and pepper" in the recipe to a teaspoon and a half of salt and no pepper. Also, since I'm a spice wimp, he replaced the quarter-teaspoon of "hot chilli powder" with a dash of our not-that-hot cayenne pepper. And, midway through the cooking process, he decided to omit the 200 ml of vegetable stock the recipe called for because the sauce seemed quite liquid enough without it.

The result was a mild but flavorsome curry that both of us enjoyed. Roasting the squash, rather than just cooking it on the stove, definitely seemed to add more depth and complexity to the flavor. Of course, it also added time to the cooking process. The squash had to roast for about 40 minutes to get tender enough to go into the dish, and while you spend part of that time preparing the rest of the sauce, it's still not exactly a quick weeknight dinner. So we probably won't make this as often as other squash favorites like our roasted vegetable medley (diced squash roasted with Brussels sprouts and potatoes, with scrambled egg added for protein) or butternuts squash souffle. But it can join our beloved butternut squash lasagna as a dish we trot out for relaxed weekend dinners.

Gardeners' Holidays 2024: (Belated) Late Harvest

This week's post is not going to be about the election. All I'm going to say about that right now is that it's not game over for the climate, because the clean energy transition is too far along for any one man to stop. Instead, this post is going to be the one I should have written last week instead of letting myself get distracted by heat pump shenanigans: my late-fall Gardener's Holiday. 

At this point, nearly all of our 2024 crops have been gathered in. We still have a few green tomatoes on the vines that we're hoping will start to blush before the frost hits; any that are still green at that point will go into a box to ripen indoors. (Our success rate with this is only about 50 percent, but it costs nothing to try.) Also, we missed our window for harvesting the Climbing French green beans before the seeds turned starchy, so all the remaining pods are staying on the vine to dry so we can save the seeds. There's a little square of lettuce that will remain in the garden to overwinter. And as always, the rhubarb can be expected to soldier bravely on until the first freeze. But for the most part, whatever we're going to pick this year has been picked already.

The biggest winner in this fall's garden is the butternut squash. After several years of getting disappointing harvests from a mix of Waltham plants and smaller varieties like Little Dipper and Honeynut, this year we decided to plant only the larger Walthams—and that strategy paid off big time. We harvested a total of 13 squash, totaling a whopping 42 pounds. It's probably our best butternut crop of all time—even better than the year a rogue vine took over our side yard and produced 11 totally unplanned squash.

One of the smallest squash went into last month's Recipe of the Month, a medley of roasted stuff that we've dubbed, appropriately enough, Roasted Stuff. And most of a second one went into a curry that will feature as this month's Recipe of the Month, which you'll hear more about next week. But we still have 11 large squash left to see us through the winter, which means we'll have plenty of chances to enjoy old favorites like butternut squash lasagna, butternut pizza with sage, butternut squash souffle, and butternut squash pasta with vegan brown butter. We might even be able to spare one to take the place of pumpkin in our Thanksgiving pie, so that both our pies (pumpkin and rhubarb) will feature home-grown produce.

But the squash is not the only crop from our garden featuring in this week's meals. Last night's dinner was fish tacos with cabbage-and-tomato slaw that included some of the last dregs of our tomato harvest. Tonight's is a mushroom tourtière made from store-bought mushrooms and onions, but enhanced with sage and thyme from our herb bed. And earlier in the week, we partook of a Pad Thai that used up the last of our home-grown green onions. So, even as fall winds down toward winter, we can continue to enjoy what remains of last summer's bounty. (And that's not even counting the dozen jars of jam that Brian put up from last summer's plums and raspberries.)

Testing the heat pump waters

Brian and I have known for a while that we want our next home heating system to be an electric heat pump. Last time we replaced our boiler, this wasn't really an option; the heat pumps available at that time were old-fashioned models that struggled to produce heat as the temperature dropped below freezing. But in the ten years since, the situation has changed dramatically. Modern cold-climate heat pumps can run at full strength in temperatures as low as -5F, a temperature that we seldom see here in New Jersey. And, on top of that, the Inflation Reduction Act now offers a 30% tax credit to help pay for them. So we've been assuming that we'd ditch our fossil-fuel boiler whenever it reached the end of its lifespan. However, since it's only ten years old, we figured it would be at least another ten years before we got to that point.

A couple of weeks ago, we got a hint that might not be the case. We'd hired a heating contractor to do a routine tune-up on our heating system, and he informed me that the boiler had some major problems. He showed me a photo he'd taken that appeared to show a significant amount of rust on the heat exchanger, which he said "means there has to be a leak somewhere." Also, he said, the pressure gauge was reading around 20 psi, even though the system was supposed to be at between 12 and 15. To fix this, he claimed, we'd need to replace not just the pressure valve but the entire "trim kit": basically, all the valves, pipes, and other parts that connect to the boiler itself. And then he quoted me a jaw-dropping price for this repair: $3,500.

Well, given that the boiler itself had only cost us less than twice that price in the first place, I started wondering if it would be a better idea to simply replace it. So I went onto HomeAdvisor and put in a request for several contractors to give us quotes on a heat pump system. Unfortunately, I didn't get them. All four of the contractors I spoke with said that it wasn't practical to heat a home with electricity in this area, at least not without a fossil fuel backup. Some claimed that it just couldn't be done—that a heat pump would never be able to keep a house sufficiently warm. Others said it was possible, but the cost would be unreasonably high—as much as double what we were currently paying with gas.

This was baffling to me. I'd done a lot of reading about this topic in the past couple of years, and tons of reliable sources—Consumer Reports, Wirecutter, Yale Climate Connections—had assured me that modern heat pumps could totally handle climates much colder than ours. I'd also crunched some numbers using the Electrification Planner at Rewiring America, and it had estimated that for a home like ours, the costs for heating with a heat pump would be pretty close to what they are with gas. It said we might pay anywhere from $170 more per year to $350 less, with the median household saving $75.

Seeking more data, I made a post in the heat pumps forum on Reddit to ask if anyone else had successfully used a heat pump in our area. I got tons of responses from people as far north as Canada assuring me that they used heat pumps with no backup, no problem. A few people said that I should expect to pay more heating with electricity as opposed to gas, but only one claimed the cost would be prohibitive.

Eventually, I did manage to get one contractor to give me a quote on a heat pump system. I'd done a little research ahead of time to figure out what a reasonable price would be and gotten back a fairly wide range of estimates, so I was prepared to hear anything from around $5,000 to $18,400. You can imagine my shock when I opened the contractor's estimate and saw that he would want over $23,000 to install a ducted system (including the cost of adding new ductwork). A mini-split system, which most sources had said was the cheapest option for homes that lack existing ductwork, was even worse: close to $29,000.

Fortunately, by the time we got this quote, we knew we wouldn't need it. Because we'd learned one other thing from the various contractors who'd come out to our house: the quote the first company gave us for repairs was way, way too high. (Several of them said the company in questions was notorious for this.) One of them, after taking a look at our system, said the only part we really needed to replace was the expansion tank, and that would cost less than $400. We eventually hired his company to fix it for a mere $355—about one-tenth of the price we were quoted for the initial repair.

So, the bad news is, we're not going to be ditching our old fossil-fuel boiler this year. The good news is, we don't have to make any decisions about replacing it under time pressure. We can afford to wait at least a few more years, and perhaps by the time we're ready, there will be more installers in New Jersey who are actually familiar with modern cold-climate heat pumps and can install one for a decent price. Or, who knows, by then there might actually be air-to-water heat pumps on the market that can work with our existing radiators, so we can simply swap one in for the old boiler with no need to alter the rest of the system.

Recipe of the Month: Roasted Stuff

As I noted last week, these past couple of weeks have been insanely busy for us. Between medical appointments, home maintenance, and special events like last weekend's game fest and this weekend's trip to the Renaissance Faire, I wasn't sure when we'd manage to squeeze in a Recipe of the Month for October. But as always, Brian came to the rescue. He looked at what we had on hand—some broccoli in the fridge, canned beans in the pantry, some leeks and butternut squash harvested from the garden—and decided to toss it all together and roast it. We'd already tried roasting all these ingredients separately and knew they cooked up well that way, so it was just a question of how well they worked together.

The answer turned out to be "pretty well." The sweet squash, starchy white beans, and crispy, flavorful leeks all complemented each other nicely, and the soy curl "bacon" Brian threw in added a salty note and made the dish more substantial. The only element that wasn't quite on pitch was the broccoli. Its flavor was okay, but its fibrous texture didn't mesh well with the other textures in the dish. We think it would probably work better with a different vegetable, such as Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, or even cabbage. All of these roast well and would probably play nicely with the other ingredients.

All in all, we considered this recipe good enough to write down, but we're treating it as a work in progress. For lack of a better idea, we're calling it:

ROASTED STUFF

Peel and dice 1 lb. butternut squash. Toss it with 1/4 tsp. salt and 2 Tbsp. canola oil. Roast at 400F for 15 minutes.

Chop up 5-6 oz. broccoli (one small head) and one medium leek. Drain and rinse two 15-ounce cans cannellini beans. Add these to the squash, along with 1/4 tsp. salt and 1 Tbsp. canola oil, and toss to combine. Roast another 15 minutes.

Prepare the Soy Curl bacon. In a medium bowl, combine 2 Tbsp. water, 2 Tbsp. soy sauce, 1 tsp. nutritional yeast, 1 tsp. Dijon mustard, 1 tsp. maple syrup, and 1/4 tsp. Liquid Smoke. Microwave the mixture 20 to 30 seconds. Soak 1 to 1.5 oz. Soy Curls in this mixture for 10 to 15 minutes, then toss with 1 tsp. canola oil to coat. Add the curls to the mixture in the roasting pan and roast another 20 minutes.

If you decide to try making this, consider replacing the broccoli with an equivalent amount of cauliflower or one of the other veggies I named. Then let me know how it turns out.

More kicks for free

It's been a very busy weekend for us. Luckily, it wasn't work or other obligations tying up our time, just a bunch of different for-fun activities that all happened to fall on the same couple of days. And, more luckily still, they were all free.

We started off the weekend with the International Games Day event at the Piscataway library, just a few miles up the road. Brian was quite familiar with this library, since it's within easy walking distance from  his office; he has often spent his lunch break strolling there, checking out the graphic novels, and walking back to work. He's also occasionally stopped by on his bike on the way to or from work. But he'd never driven there before, and the trip was complicated by the fact that there was a Rutgers football game scheduled for the same afternoon. Since this invariably snarls up traffic everywhere near the stadium for hours before and after the game, he planned an alternate route that skirted around the edges of campus rather than taking us right past the stadium. Even from this path, a mile or more from the stadium, all the campus parking lots we could see were packed with tailgaters, but luckily they hadn't discovered (or at least hadn't filled up) the library lot.

At the library, there was one large room devoted entirely to board games from around the world, each with one person in charge of teaching the game to newbies. The selections included kiddie games like Chutes and Ladders (India) and Candy Land (USA); board-game classics like Hanabi (France) and Wingspan (USA); and role-playing games like For the Queen (Canada) and Blood on the Clocktower (Australia). There were also separate areas devoted to traditional games, including chess (India), checkers (Iraq), and skittles (Ireland). We spent some time chatting with a pal from a local board-gaming group, who was there to teach Hanabi, and with the designers of a game called Shaolin, which is based entirely on the works of Wu-Tang Clan. Passing on this since we both know next to nothing about the group, Brian elected to play Wingspan instead, while I joined a game of For the Queen led by another board-gaming buddy of ours. I also tried Carom, an Indian game a bit like pool played with flat discs, and skittles, a pub game in which you try to knock down little bowling pins with a spinning wooden top. I never felt like I had much control over it, but when I showed it to Brian after he'd finished his Wingspan game, he recalled having played it years before, most likely at his grandparents' house. Apparently he hadn't lost his touch with it, since he gave it two attempts and scored over 600 both times.

In between games, I checked out the library's maker space, which features a variety of tools such as a 3D printer, thermal transfer machines, and sewing machines. The host there told me they sometimes have scheduled events, but you can also email them to schedule a one-on-one appointment for your own pet project. She offered me a choice of freebies from previous crafting events; I settled on a button reading, "So many books, so little time." I also spent a bit of time browsing the library's mini bookstore, which included a small selection of both kid and adult books for a dollar or less. Luckily, I didn't find any new books to add to our towering to-read piles, but I selected one item to add to our holiday gift exchange and a nice assortment of greeting cards to be deployed on future birthdays, all for just $1.20.

All that occupied a good chunk of the afternoon, so we headed home for an early dinner (taking an even more circuitous route on the way back to avoid the football crowds) before heading back out to check out R.O.T.-Tober Fest, a Halloween event being put on by the RAC-on-tour bookmobile. The owner of the RAC-on-Tour, Alex Dawson, is an English professor at Rutgers who believes in promoting weirdness of all kinds, and this event was no exception. We browsed the flea market and artists' booths, caught the end of a performance by "Bruce Frankensteen" (a local busker with multiple personas), watched a sideshow performer called The Reverend Thom Odd contort himself through a series of tennis rackets, and heard a reading of a spooky story by one of Dawson's students before heading home.

And that was just on Saturday. Today, after we had a late breakfast and Brian made a call to his parents, we headed out a third time to a native plant giveaway run by our local eco-group, Sustainable Highland Park. We've received free native plants from this organization before, including bee balm and hyssop, but this time we were looking specifically for something we could put in our new planters. We filled these in initially with a mixture of plants bought on clearance at the Belle Mead Co-Op: four salvias, two heucheras, two English ivies, and four begonias. Of these, we knew we'd need to replace at least the begonias in the spring, since they're annuals; as for the rest, we figured we'd see how they did and replace them if necessary.

The results were middling. The two salvias in the rear planter have absolutely thrived, but the two in the front planter—with identical soil and water levels—grew weak and spindly. Both heucheras are doing okay, but they look a bit dry and papery. The two ivy plants thrived initially, putting out long tendrils that hung over the backs of the planters, but just this past week something (presumably a deer) came along and ate a bunch of their leaves, making them look a bit lopsided. As for the begonias, they've all been repeatedly munched right down to the dirt line, and one of them has gone entirely missing.

After consulting with the folks from Sustainable Highland Park and debating the merits of the various native plants they had on offer, we settled on a narrowleaf mountainmint (Pycnanthemum tenuifolium). Being part of the mint family, it's a tough little plant that's hard to kill, and its shallow root system makes it suitable for container growing. Brian dug up the stubs of the begonias from the front planter and put the new mountainmint in their place, where it will have a month or so to get settled in before winter arrives. As for the remains of the begonias, he brought them in and put them in pots. If any of them manage to put out new growth, we can give them away or add them to Brian's workplace plant collection. (They shouldn't stay around our house, since they're toxic to cats.)

So that was our busy weekend, sandwiched in the middle of two equally busy weeks. Between volunteer activities, game nights, musical events, and other appointments, we've had something going on almost every day last week, and we'll have the same next week. After that we'll be able to slow down to maybe one thing every other day, and by mid-November we might actually get a few days in a row to catch our breath before plunging headlong into the holiday season.

A stitch in time

When Brian's jeans wear out, it's usually the knees that go first. This is a fairly easy area to repair: I simply sew on one of my pocket patches, salvaged from an older pair of jeans. This simple fix enables him to get another year or two of use out of them before they wear out completely.

With my own pants, however, it's a different story. The area most likely to get holes is the inside of the thighs, a much harder spot to repair. The best method I've come up with is to sew a patch over the inside, but it usually doesn't take too long before I wear through the patch as well. (Just this week, a patch I put in my black jeans last spring blew out completely, forcing me to consign the entire pair to the rag bin.)

Clearly, it would be much better if I could find some way to prevent, rather than repair, holes in this area. So when I noticed that my grey corduroys had developed two bald patches on the inner thighs where all the ribs had worn off, I wondered, could I reinforce the fabric there before holes developed? Would the same honeycomb darning technique I'd used on my old wool socks work over this much larger area?

I didn't know the answer, but I figured I didn't have much to lose by trying. If I did nothing, the pants surely wouldn't last the winter, so even if my attempt was a complete failure, I wouldn't be taking much off their lifetime. I went through my stash of embroidery floss, selected a nice bright turquoise that I thought would contrast well with the grey, and proceeded to stitch. 

Not surprisingly, repairing this large worn area was a much bigger job than darning the socks had been. The painted rock I use as a darning egg was much smaller than the area I needed to patch, so I slipped a hardcover book inside the leg of the pants and tucked the fabric under that. I threaded my needle with the longest length of floss I could manage, but it still was only enough to complete three rows of stitches, covering only a fraction of the bald patch. I had to thread it several more times before I was done, using up nearly an entire skein of floss.

I realized at this point that I'd made a tactical error in choosing the turquoise floss. I knew the assortment I'd bought at Michael's contained two skeins of every color, but apparently this was an extra I'd picked up somewhere else, and I didn't have an exact match for it. To do the other side, I had to choose another skein of a slightly different blue. I'll just have to hope that no one ever sees both repaired sides at once and notices the mismatch.

All told, the whole process took a couple of hours, spread out over two or three days. To most people, that may seem like an awfully big investment of time to save a pair of pants that cost me less than $10 at a thrift shop. But considering how hard it is for me to find new pants that fit, if this prolongs the cords' lifespan by at least a year, it will save me many frustrating hours of shopping to replace them. And if it doesn't, I'll know not to bother with it next time.

If at first you don't succeed, try something else

In the words of my favorite wizard, Harry Dresden, if you have one problem, all you have is a problem. But if you have two problems, you may also have an opportunity, because one problem can sometimes provide a solution to the other. A case in point: two failed crops in our garden.

I've already told you about how our attempt to grow potatoes in our old rain barrel was an abject failure, producing only a literal handful of potatoes. But that wasn't the only crop that gave us a very disappointing harvest this year. Of the 30 cloves of garlic we put in the ground last fall, only six grew into garlic heads—and pretty small ones at that, with only four to five good-sized cloves each. As with the potatoes, the total weight of the harvest was probably less than the amount we planted.

Frustrated by this failure, I checked out an article in Mother Earth News on garlic growing, looking for some pointers that might improve our results next year. And the one piece of advice that jumped out at me was, "Plant in crumbly, light soil that drains well and that is high in organic matter." Our rich, heavy clay soil does not, by any stretch of the imagination, fit that definition—which might explain why even in a good year, our garlic harvest comes to only around 25 small heads. 

However. we did happen to have some soil sitting around that fit the description perfectly: the mix of bagged topsoil and aged manure in which we'd attempted to grow the potatoes. Brian had originally intended to dump this out into the garden beds to add more organic matter to the soil, which has grown compacted over the years. But after reading the Mother Earth News article, we thought, well, why not try repurposing the potato barrel as a garlic barrel? Growing garlic in a container would also prevent groundhogs romping through the crop and crushing all the scapes, so it could remedy two problems at once.

The Mother Earth News article recommended planting garlic cloves 2 to 4 inches deep, 4 to 6 inches apart, in rows 12 inches apart. Trying to figure out how to adapt this spacing to a round barrel about two feet in diameter, I looked up "grow garlic in containers" and found an article in The Spruce that said putting them "at least 3 inches apart" would be sufficient. Working my way around the edge of the barrel and spiraling into the middle, I was able to fit in a total of 20 cloves. Since the soil was so light, I didn't bother digging holes for them; I just pushed them in with my fingers until they were about 2 inches deep.

The Mother Earth News article recommended mulching the garlic with "several inches of leaves or straw" to protect it from the winter cold. We don't have enough leaves in our yard yet to cover it that deep, but I added one layer, and I'll continue adding more as fall progresses. I left the lid off the barrel to let rain in; if we don't get much rain, I'll water by hand to "keep the soil moist but not soggy," as The Spruce recommends. In the spring, we'll pull the leaves off and give the barrel an extra top-dressing of compost. And in the fall, we'll see if this container-grown garlic yields a better crop than what we planted in the ground this year. One thing we know for sure: it can't be much worse.

Recipe of the Month: African Peanut Stew

All week, I've been nervously watching the last days of September running out without a single good idea for a new Recipe of the Month. Fortunately, Brian came to my rescue. After a quick search for "high protein vegan recipe," he tracked down something that didn't look (at first glance, at least) like anything we'd tried before: this African Peanut Stew from The Plant-Based School. He picked up most of the necessary ingredients (sweet potatoes, onion, crushed tomatoes) on our weekly Lidl run and grabbed a bunch of fresh spinach at the new SuperFresh in town, and he was ready to cook.

Brian made only a couple of minor modifications to this recipe. Knowing that I don't like things too spicy, he dialed back the red pepper flakes from 1/2 to 1/4 teaspoon and the 1/8 teaspoon of black pepper to just a pinch. He cooked everything else just as directed, and it was pretty straightforward. Not lightning-fast, since it takes half an hour on the stove (or in this case, the new induction burner) to get the sweet potatoes tender, but it didn't require a lot of baby-sitting. The only real work was the ten minutes of chopping, grating, and sauteing before tossing everything in the pot.

Then there was the matter of garnishes. The recipe recommended topping each bowl with "a small handful of crushed, toasted, unsalted peanuts, a generous squeeze of lime juice, and some pickled red onions." Brian wasn't entirely convinced the lime juice would work with the rest of the dish, so rather than waste a fresh lime on it, he just got out the bottle of lime juice and set that on the side. (As it turned out, his instincts were good: neither of us felt that the stew would benefit from this addition.) But he did chop and toast some peanuts and whip up a small batch of the Quick Pickled Red Onions from the same recipe site: sliced red onion steeped for half an hour in a mixture of vinegar, lemon juice, salt, sugar, and red pepper. Since I'm not a huge fan of onions (and they don't love me, either), I skipped this garnish, but Brian tried it and found that it did indeed go well with the stew. However, he didn't think it added so much that he would go to the effort of making it again.

The stew, on the other hand, was something we both deemed worthy of being added to our recipe rotation. It's healthy, vegan, and easy to make, and it doesn't call for any expensive or hard-to find ingredients. And it offers a complex, satisfying mixture of flavors and textures, with chick peas, tender chunks of sweet potato, and chewy strands of spinach in a flavorful broth blended from tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, cumin, pepper, and peanut butter. This combination sounds quite unusual, but I realized after a few mouthfuls that it wasn't so different from another dish Brian is very fond of: the tahini-spiked Garlic, Chick-pea and Spinach Soup from Linda Frazer's Vegetariana. However, that recipe isn't vegan (it calls for heavy cream), so this one fits better into our current diet.

The one thing we might do differently next time we make this dish is to plan ahead and make sure we have a suitable bread to serve with it. The recipe suggests either naan or pita bread, but all we had on hand was a loaf of Brian's sturdy whole-wheat bread and some whole-wheat tortillas. So instead, we accompanied the meal with some waffles left over from that morning's breakfast. They were made with whole-wheat flour too, but their lighter texture made them a closer approximation to what the Plant-Based Schoolteachers had in mind.

Gardeners' Holidays 2024: Harvest Home

Usually, the crop we're most excited about in September is the tomatoes. And they are doing pretty well this year; to date, we've harvested 9 big Pineapples, 61 Premios, 66 San Marzanos, and 490 little Sun Golds. But all summer rolled into fall, we found ourselves focusing more on a new crop: the potatoes Brian planted this spring in our old rain barrel. The plants, which were green and healthy at midsummer, began turning yellow and dry in August, and Brian figured he'd harvest them once the foliage was completely gone. But a little quick research showed that they're actually ready to harvest a couple of weeks after they start yellowing. In short, they were now as ready as they were going to get, and we might as well go for it.

After scooping all the mulch off the top of the plant and setting it aside, Brian began digging into the dirt itself, transferring it into an empty trash can as he went. And just a few inches in, he saw the first little tuber peeping out of the dirt. Unfortunately, it was green on top, meaning it probably wouldn't be safe to eat. (The green itself comes from chlorophyll, but it's a sign that the spud may also contain high levels of solanine, which is poisonous.) But we took it as a sign that there was probably plenty more where that came from.

Sadly, this was not the case. As he kept digging deeper and deeper into the barrel, he found almost no further spuds. Brian burrowed right down to the layer of rocks he'd put in the bottom of the barrel for drainage and unearthed only a scanty handful of potatoes—far less than we'd harvested from our 5-gallon buckets in 2020. The total weight of spuds we produced was probably less than that of the seed potatoes we put in.

So what had we done wrong? Why had such lush, healthy green potato vines produced so few usable tubers? We put this question to the Internet, which told us that the most likely culprit was over-fertilization—particularly the over-application of nitrogen at the time the potato vines were in flower. But that didn't make sense, since the only fertilizer we'd added to the potato barrel was a single bag of aged manure that we mixed in at planting time. Other possible explanations—poor soil, insufficient sunlight, too little water—also didn't fit the data. The plants had gone into rich, crumbly soil; we'd given them plenty of water; and their patio location provided a good 6 to 8 hours of daily sunlight. And the plants themselves looked healthy and vigorous, with no signs of disease or pest infestation.

But after a few dead ends like this, I hit on a site called Growing Produce. The author said her neighbor had a situation exactly like ours: his potato plants "looked great all summer, with vigorous and healthy tops," but produced "only a few small tubers." She immediately diagnosed the problem: His spuds were grown in containers, which "can yield poor results when high daytime temperatures warm the soil." The high temperatures "promote leaf growth at the expense of tubers," resulting in lush plants that are scarce o' tatties. According to the article, "The optimal temperature for tuber growth is said to be about 59°F, while for leaf it’s about 75°F." And according to my home energy use spreadsheet (yes, of course I track our home energy use on a spreadsheet. Are you really surprised?), the average daily temperature throughout June, July, and August of this year was consistently over 75—much more conducive to healthy leaves than abundant spuds.

In short, this potato-barrel experiment was probably doomed from the start. We might conceivably have better results growing potatoes in the ground where the soil would stay cooler, perhaps in the sloped part of the yard where they'd have a big thermal mass to protect them. But we'd have to plant them early, and there's still a chance that too much heat or too much rain would ruin the crop. We might give it one more try just for the hell of it, but we won't be getting our hopes up.

Fortunately, we have other crops in the garden that definitely won't be letting us down. Along with our trusty tomatoes, there are plenty of green beans, peppers, and, surprisingly, zucchini. Normally these summer plants are entirely played out by the time fall comes around, but this year they're still growing, spilling over the edges of the beds and into the paths, and producing healthy squash. And if we still want potatoes, our new local supermarket (which just opened this weekend, about 18 months after the old one shut down) has them on sale for just 30 cents a pound.

Yard-sale haul 2024

Most years, when we head out to shop Highland Park's annual yard-sale weekend, we aren't looking for anything specific. Our goal is simply to score the most interesting, fun, and/or useful items for the lowest total sum of money. These days we tend to pass over the sales that focus on kids' toys, since we no longer have any children under 10 in our lives, but we always brake for books, board games, adult clothing, or tools that we don't currently have.

This year, however, we did have a particular quarry in mind. Over the past two years, our Christmas gift exchanges have been such a big hit with the niblings on Brian's side of the family that we knew we wanted to do another one this year. But, since we've already done gift exchanges featuring books and board games, we didn't want to repeat either of those themes. So we decided that the theme for this year's exchange would be simply "interesting objects"—something we knew we had a good chance of finding during yard-sale weekend. So, along with seeking out items for ourselves, we were keeping our eyes peeled for any whimsical items that might show up on our neighbors' sale tables. And, as luck would have it, we found some, which is why I won't be too specific in describing or displaying all our finds in this blog entry.

We knew when we set out on Saturday morning that we wouldn't be able to shop for more than a couple of hours at a stretch. I had my monthly Citizens' Climate Lobby meeting at 11:45, and I had to be home by 11:30 to tune in over Zoom. (Normally I go in person, but I wasn't willing to sacrifice an additional hour out of my yard-sale time for the drive.) This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, since what seemed at first like perfect weather for a yard sale—bright, clear, and warm—became uncomfortably hot after two hours of traipsing around. 

But we couldn't bring ourselves to head home any earlier than we had to, because the sales were thick on the ground and we were finding lots of good stuff. As we worked our way westward along the south side of town, we accumulated three potential gift items, three books for ourselves, a pair of pants for Brian, a turtleneck for me, and a tall stack of plastic flowerpots, all for a total of just $10. By the time we headed home, all three of the shopping bags we'd brought with us were bulging.

After my meeting and a bite of lunch, we went once more into the breach. This time, we worked our way west along the north side before heading down to the farmers' market parking lot, where we knew there would be a large collection of sales, as well as entertainment from some local bands. Unfortunately, the music was turned up so loud that we couldn't stand to spend much time browsing. However, the thrift shop at the Reformed Church, which is normally open only until 1pm on Saturday, was open for the occasion, so we ventured in there and emerged with two board games and one jigsaw puzzle, all for $5. We also received two freebies at a booth run by Sustainable Highland Park: a packet of butterfly weed seeds (a native plant) and a small, decorative flowerpot much nicer than all the free ones we'd found earlier.

Next we made our way to Pino's bar, which was hosting a thrift market of its own, with both new and used clothing from a large number of sellers. Most of the customers were a lot younger and hipper than either of us, displaying tattoos, piercings, vivid hair colors, and outré outfits such as a black mini dress with a large spider embroidered on the butt. Yet somehow, we didn't look glaringly out of place; I even got compliments on my sun hat and my colorful patchwork skirt. Unfortunately, most of the clothing at the market was either too small, too fancy, or too rich for our blood, but I picked up a nice T-shirt for $2. By that point we were feeling pretty tired, so we plotted a course for home, stopping only at the sales that happened to be on our path. En route, Brian scored one additional item: a set of earphones to replace the unreliable pair he uses at work. (He wasn't sure the new ones would work either, but they seemed worth risking $1 on, and once we got home he confirmed that they were usable.)

On Sunday, as usual, we encountered far fewer sales. But, to compensate for that, we saw quite a lot of free piles full of rejects from the previous day's sales. In our first two hours of shopping, we picked up a hedge trimmer, four cool-looking glass bottles, two possible stocking stuffers, and one book, all without spending one red cent. We didn't so much as pull out our wallets until we reached the huge, chaotic sale at the synagogue on South First, and even there we spend only $1 on a little stuffed animal (possibly another stocking stuffer, or possibly too cute to give away). After that, we started wending our way home, peeking at other sales and free piles but not actually acquiring anything except for one small houseplant at a "Mama's Got Too Many Plants" sale. (It was perhaps a tad overpriced at $5, but Brian felt the need to help out a fellow gardener.)

Here you can see our complete haul for both days (strategically arranged to disguise the future gift items). Total money spent: $24. Total time spent: 7 hours. Being part of the joyful chaos that is the annual Highland Park sales: Priceless.

September discoveries

We're only a week into September, but we've already made several interesting discoveries this month—either by design, by happenstance, or by a combination of the two. Here, in order of occurrence, is a summary of our September adventures so far:

Discovery #1: A stealth melon

Most of the time, Brian and I make a point of uprooting any "volunteer" plants that pop up in or near our compost bin. We know from past experience that if we leave them be, they're liable to take over the side yard, making it difficult to navigate. Plus, they're usually the offspring of supermarket tomatoes that don't breed true, so any fruit we get off them won't be particularly tasty.

But this summer, we made an exception. A couple of what appeared to be squash vines sprouted directly out of the bin, which kept them mostly confined. Since they weren't really in the way, and since we would have had to open up the bin to remove them, we let them stay put. And this week, when Brian went to trim the weeds around the compost bin, he uncovered this underneath one of the vines.

As far as we can tell, this is the offspring of a Galia melon (a cantaloupe-honeydew hybrid) that we bought last April to put into a fruit salad for a May Day morning potluck breakfast with our Morris dance team. If that's correct, then we should be able to tell it's ripe when it turns from green to yellow-orange. The closer to orange it gets, the sweeter it's liable to be. Since the Galia melon is a hybrid, I'm not getting my hopes up too much that this fruit will be as sweet and juicy as its parent. But just in case, I've tucked a flowerpot underneath it to get it off the ground so it won't rot from excess moisture.

Discovery #2: A found puppy

After completing his planter project in July, Brian had a lot of little scraps of wood left over. Last Sunday, he came across them in the workshop and thought he really ought to get rid of them. But since they were pressure-treated, he didn't want to burn them the way he usually does with chunks of wood too small to be useful. So, rather than just toss them in the trash, he decided to play with them a little and see if he could make them into anything interesting. He also had a bunch of wood screws we'd saved after dismantling the old patio set we replaced in June, so he grabbed his drill and a screwdriver bit and started piecing them together. And when I came into the shop to ask him a question, I found him putting the finishing touches on this little guy. 

Brian and I both decided, independently, that the most appropriate name for this new addition to our family was Woody. I adorned him with an old collar we'd bought that turned out to be too big for either of our cats, and we set him outside underneath the planters that are sort of his parents. He's close enough to the street that passersby can spot him if they're paying attention, but close enough to the house that he won't be mistaken for trash being discarded. Since he's made out of pressure-treated wood, he should hold up as long as the planters do, provided no one decides to steal him.

Discovery #3: Tofu pepperoni

After his semi-successful attempt at creating a vegan pizza topping from Soy Curls, Brian decided to try the same thing with tofu. He cut half a pound of tofu into thin strips and soaked it in a mixture of canola oil, Dijon mustard, soy sauce, Liquid Smoke, paprika, garlic powder, and ground red pepper and fennel seeds. Then he baked it for about 20 minutes at 350F before adding it to the pie, which he'd already loaded with eggplant, bell peppers, and our vegan mozzarella.  

The resulting concoction looked more similar to pepperoni than his previous attempt, but the flavor and texture were wider of the mark. The tofu didn't soak up the spice mixture as well as the Soy Curls, so it tasted mostly like tofu with a dusting of spice. And despite the pre-baking, it never really browned. The texture remained soft and tofu-like, not meaty and chewy.

So, we probably won't be using this recipe again (which is why I didn't reproduce it in full). But that doesn't make this attempt a failure. It just means that, like Thomas Edison, we have succeeded in finding a method that doesn't work.

Discovery #4: An easier way to milk almonds

A second kitchen experiment was a bit more successful. A few years ago, in an attempt to cut down on packaging waste, we experimented with making our own almond milk. The first version we tried, made from almond butter, was easy but not that milk-like. And the second version, made from whole, blanched almonds, was so much hassle that we decided it wasn't worth the effort. 

But this week, I started reconsidering the issue while reading the comments on a YouTube video titled (rather prematurely, I thought) "The DOWNFALL of Plant-Based Milks." Several comments remarked on how much cheaper it is to make your own, and the thought suddenly popped into my head, "Why not try starting with almond flour?" Almond flour is basically ground blanched almonds, so using it would eliminate two of the steps involved in making it from scratch. 

A quick search revealed that I was not the first to come up with this idea. Most of the recipes I found online called for a ratio of 1 cup of almond flour to 4 cups of water. They generally included dates for sweetening as well, and sometimes vanilla, but I decided not to bother with any of that. I figured if I wanted it sweeter, I could always add sugar after the fact.

So, one morning this week, Brian obligingly loaded half a cup of almond flour and 2 cups of water into our blender and ran it on high for three minutes, the minimum time most recipes recommend. He tried straining it with a fine mesh strainer, but it just ran right through, so he poured it through an old nylon stocking and squeezed out as much liquid as possible. And the result was...okay. The flavor was very almond-forward, much more so than the stuff we'd made from whole almonds, and entirely devoid of sweetness. The texture was watery and, even after straining, faintly gritty—nothing at all like the creamy smoothness of the emulsifier-laden commercial product. And, nutrition-wise, it has nowhere near the protein content of my Lidl soymilk.

So, sadly, this homemade almond milk isn't the cheap, sustainable milk alternative that will finally get those cardboard cartons out of our lives once and for all. But it is less work than the whole-almond method, so we'll keep it in mind as an emergency backup. If we ever run out of soymilk and can't easily make it to the store, this stuff should see us through until our next visit.

Discovery #5: Decorative basil

Several of the new crop varieties we ordered this year from True Leaf Market, our new seed supplier, have been distinctly underwhelming. The biggest disappointment: a Thai basil variety we tried called Red Leaf Holy Basil. The plants were quite healthy, but the leaves were entirely flavorless. This is not an exaggeration. When Brian used the Thai basil in a dish, neither of us could detect it at all. Even when I tried putting a fresh leaf in my mouth and chewing it up, I got nothing. It was indistinguishable from chewing on a blade of plain grass.

So, when I noticed yesterday that the plants had gone to flower, I thought, well, they're not doing any good here in the garden; why not just cut them and put them in vases? Waste not, want not. And while they're useless as food, they work rather well as decoration, so at least we'll get some use out of them. (But certainly not enough to justify devoting any garden space to them next year.)