The average reusable bag has the lifespan of over seven hundred disposable plastic bags.

I love the fact they have lasted so long! Canvas shopping bags are the best; their durability is obvious. I’ve seen some reusable bags that were poorly made and had holes or broken handles within a year.

The red is even still bright!

Using canvas bags can save an average of 425 plastic bags per person, annually!

Our “vintage” bags (as the store clerk calls them) only recently broke a couple straps. We load them up pretty heavily and the stress started to show in two of the 8 bags’ handles.

Their canvas material makes them easy to repair: I just overlapped the two halfs of the broken handle by a few inches, and machine-sewed vertically and horizontally until it felt good and secure. Nothing fancy and it shortened the handles a bit but it extended their use at least another decade!

An estimated one million birds and 100,000 turtles and other sea animals die of starvation each year after ingesting discarded plastic bags which block their digestive tracks.

Other than some day owning family heirloom bags, want some more interesting reasons to switch to reusable bags? Click here:

This is one of my favorite crafts: using grocery bags to crochet new bags. I’ve been faithfully using my canvas bags for quite awhile, but every now and then I’ll forget or I’ll acquire plastic bags from friends or family who have forgotten their canvas bags. I can’t bring myself to throw them out. So I was saving an ever-growing pile of plastic bags with no idea how to use them other than occasionally as shipping material.

I was introduced to this technique by a once-local Life Learner, Miranda. She inspired nearly every mama in our group to begin crocheting with plastic bags (or “plarn” as it’s called). I tend to just make more reusuable bags but you can also make purses, rugs, backpacks, etc. I’m giving these explanations under the assumptions you already know how to crochet. If you don’t it’s a simple, fun technique to learn and there are plenty of online resources to teach you how to do it (although the best teacher tends to be a good friend).

Here’s how to crochet a bag out of plastic bags (plarn):

1) Take your plastic bag and flatten it out. Then fold it in half (bringing the two handles together and the two bottom corners together) at least two times keeping it as flat as possible. Here it is flattened and folded once:

2) Cut off the bottom edge, then begin cutting one inch strips all the way up to the handles (the handles and the bottom edge become your only waste). This creates a ring.

3) Knot two rings together. I only knot two or three at a time, crochet those, then add more using something similar to a reef knot. I have no idea how to explain it. Here’s a video to help you knot your plarn if you need better visuals.

4) Using a J/10 hook or something around that size, create your chain as long as you want the base of your bag to be. When I make a bag, I tend to make the base a bit smaller since it always seems to expand as I begin to make the sides of the bag. Once you have the chain to the length you want, turn and begin crocheting as normal.

5) The easiest way is to crochet your base as a square if you’re making a bag but you can also crochet a circle as well. I use a single, double or half double stitch depending on my mood but usually gravitate to a single for a tighter stitch. Once you have the base to the size you prefer, begin working around the base (instead of back and forth). I usually skip a stitch here or there along the length of bag to pull the sides up a bit. Here you can see my base and the beginning of the sides.

6) Continue working around until you reach the bag depth you prefer, then begin making your handles/strap(s). Some people create their handles seperately and sew them on with more plarn. I usually start it on the bag itself so that I’m only crocheting on one side of the handle. I’m not sure which is better. I make my handle about 8 stitches across, which comes out to be about 1.5-2 inches wide. You can make one or two handles/straps.

Here is the end of the bag and the beginning of the strap: I simply stopped, ch 2, turn and crocheted 8, ch 2, turn, crochet 8, etc:

Here is the end of the strap “sewn” into the other side with more plarn.

7) Viola! A new bag crocheted from plastic bags! This size is perfect for going to the beach or park.

Keep one thing in mind when making your bag: The plastic will stretch with anything too heavy in it, so making a bag that is very big then filling it with groceries may have you dragging it across the ground as you walk to the car. If you’re making grocery bags, make them smaller and crochet two handles for support.

I hope these directions are clear enough. Feel free to ask me any questions you have about the technique. The options are boundless, so this is only one way of creating one type of bag. I’m currently working on a yoga bag made only from solid yellow bags…not such a “bright” idea; solid yellow is hard to come by. But I may have it done by next year!

Have you made anything from plarn?

I ordered mine from Bountiful Gardens when I ordered my seeds. Check with your seed company to see if they also sell them or check online. (Peddler’s Wagon sells them!) Alternatively, you can also make one yourself out of a used can, jar or drinking glass.

Start off with the pot maker and a strip of newspaper (Recommended 3 inch by 10 inch newspaper strip but I’m never that precise. I just take one half sheet of newspaper and tear it into thirds.) Ideally you’re newspaper should be free from any color ink but I’m not sure that’s possible to find anymore (at least not in my newspaper it seems), so I usually ignore that.

Next, wrap the newspaper around your pot maker, leaving about an inch or so hanging off the bottom. Don’t wrap too tight or you’ll destroy the newspaper when taking it off the press thingy.

Like my Grandma says “squarsh” the newspaper down around the bottom (or fold if you’re not from Michigan and can’t “squarsh” with the best of ‘em). Place the pot maker onto its base and press down, twisting a few times for good measure.

Carefully pull the newly made pot off and Presto-chango! you have a pot. Fill it with your soil-less seed mix, plant a seed or three, germinate, etc etc. If you place the pot in a tray you can water the delicate seedlings from the bottom (the newspaper will soak up the water) – just be careful picking them up; they may fall apart. When the plant is ready for the great outdoors you can tear the bottom off the pot easily and plant the entire thing in the ground.

Cool huh?

Yessiree, I got my sweet hubby to do one task (and one task only, as per our agreement) while on vacation. And it was a biggie. A total of 12 hours, a rerouting of sprinklers, a bit of concrete, a whole lotta frustration. I learned I can’t hammer for sh*t but I love me a pin gun and chop saw. I learned it doesn’t matter how much you plan, you will make at least three trips to the hardware store before you’re done. We used the lattice for climbing melons or vegetables, and also for honeysuckle and jasmine to attract the butterflies, bees and hummingbirds. We even have a cute little gate up there near the house.

We had to dig many post holes and are excited about the healthy soil we found. I’ll have to post before and after photos of our “soil” soon for the full affect (and your condolences). Another fun find were all the worms. For every square foot we dug into we found dozens to hundreds of worms, some in huge clusters that looked to be a nest (do worms have nests?). I’m wondering if I need to thin the earthworm crop. Maybe I could have a little side business selling off their offspring – like a worm trafficker.

Justin calls it his “shoddiest, most ghetto work ever” with all the recycled and mismatched materials. I call it FINISHED. Well, sorta finished. I plan to head to Habitat for Humanity’s Restore to find some leftover paint. Dark green if I can find it. After that, we will wait for the leaves to fall to add another layer to the sheet mulching, then top that off with soil and let it sit until it’s time to plant. When are these leaves going to fall anyway?

I have so many half blogs in my head. Must find more time to type!

After five days and at least 5 attempts at fixing the broken sprinklers, Justin finally managed to put in one five-foot section of fence. And has not touched it since. Z wants to paint it red. We’re still discussing color palates. Considering Justin’s enthusiasm to get it done, I think we have time.

Our cucumbers are trying to climb. I’ve yet to find them something worth climbing on. On second thought, I think I’ll let it crawl.

We have a few promising tomatoes and our bell peppers are growing. Finally.

We’ve been plucking off a lot of these little boogers from our grapevine who is looking pretty stressed out about it all:

Potato plant is doing well. It’s leaves curl in the heat but relax in the evening again. I’m considering finding a less sunny spot.

Justin has just been put on massive overtime (84 hours a week!). Not so good for finishing off the big projects. But still good!

I stumbled across a fallen down fence on Freecycle. It was a 6 footer but with a handy husband, we converted it to a 3 ft fence. Our plan was to install a 3 ft fence around the front and trellis up the sides for our vine crops.

We’ve been stuck on the post digging aspect of fence installation for a couple of days. Why you ask?

Well, for one thing there is our rocky, impacted soil (the reason we are building up with our soil). And second is the absolutely illogical location of the sprinkler lines. In the first two holes we dug for the posts, we broke the sprinkler line in each.

Sure fire way to piss off a carpenter? Give him a sprinkler job.

We’re taking a break today. Because if Justin sees another PVC pipe anytime soon, I’ll be going it alone.

My ever-clever self called up a local golf course and finagled my way into their trash bins for truckloads of grass clippings and yard waste. These I mixed with shredded newspaper and spread 4-8 inches thick over the entire yard. Here’s a mid-way picture:

That’s about where it started. Attack of the Killer Flies. Giant Killer Flies. As big as my head.

I’m assuming it’s the grass clippings, since I’ve never used this much grass in a compost/mulch before and the flies don’t seem to be on the manure at all. But you know you have a fly problem when you hang fly tape in your garage (not the yard mind you, the garage) and within an hour the entire two and a half foot strip looks like this:

And it got worse. We tried adding micro-organisms, we tried adding lime. The pile wasn’t getting hot enough or staying moist enough (with our high temps) to start decomposing and the flies continued to proliferate. So we decided to solarize it. We laid plastic painters tarp over the entire yard in hopes of keeping the moisture in and the flies out. (Oh we also dug up some garden beams that were in our backyard and placed them in our front yard to terrace the slope…see?)

Except I managed to trap a few thousand flies under the tarps. I’m pretending the fly that had the audacity to land on my eyelash is under there. If you put your ear close to the plastic you can hear their little voices…”Heeellllppp meeee, heeeellllppp meeee.” And that my friend, is an immensely satisfying sound.

Another immensely satisfying sound is that of my son adding up the dimes he’s earned for each fly he’s managed to swat in the house. Unfortunately our fly swatter wore out before the flies did! So he got up to nearly $5.00 before he had to call it quits.

On the other hand, it’s been a learning experience. I’ve learned that flies have cannibalistic tendencies and will go after their dead brethren (or maybe that one was in mourning?). I also learned that water excites them. I don’t know if it’s a happy excitement or a infuriated excitement but whenever one of us would go out to water the lawn, we would get dive-bombed by hundreds of the little bastards. Dive-bombed I tell ya!! So they either didn’t like it, or they mistook us for a water park.

We plan to mix in more manure to the compost/mulching if we feel it needs more nitrogen in breaking down. We’re going to wait and see how the decomposition goes. We’re also going to avoid pulling up those tarps if there are still flies around. After the ants, I’m starting to feel like the Girl Who Fought Nature Without Pesticides and Lost. And my woes are not convincing my family members to go chem-free in their own homes.

Changing the subject before I yak…

Oh, remember that tree in my back yard that I thought was a cherry tree? It’s not. It’s a plum tree. A plum tree with plums the size of a cherry, with the sweetest innards you’ll ever taste but the skins more bitter than you can tolerate. I’m still working on that one.

And as for my tomatoes, some of them have blossom end rot which I found was from inconsistent watering. Hmph. So, we rigged a drip system for them over the weekend, because if it’s not working now, just wait until it gets to be 115 outside!

One of our neighbors approached Justin yesterday and said (rather triumphantly, like she’d be Googling for a solution and finally found it) “I know what you’re doing! You’re going to plant strawberries!” Uh, yeah…and pumpkins, watermelon, squash, zucchini, carrots, artichoke….Why she just thought “strawberries” was beyond me. Do strawberries like flies?

But at least the cat’s out of the bag with one of our neighbors and they no longer think we’re totally crazy. Can’t vouch for the rest of them. But the house next door and across the street both sold while we were in the midst of this smelly debacle, so we must not look too kooky.

Tomatoes doing great; still growing but no change in color yet.

Had a couple strawberries sprout. They looked yummy until you turn them over and find the critters burrowing into them. Plucked them all for the compost; will let them fruit next year.

A few tiny peppers have started after foliar feeding with sea kelp.

Was told my container just won’t do for heavy feeders like squash and zucchini. However, I mulched with some fresh compost on half of them and watched them grow 12 inches in about a week. Still none of the veggies will grow though, so it looks like I’ll be mulching those over until I can plant out front. (Oh I went and spread compost over everything else in the garden in hopes of seeing the same benefits! Sorry, no pic.)

Our cherry tree is fruiting…and dropping more than I wish it would. I’m told it’s normal but my frugality hates to see such waste. Every few days I go out with a bucket, scrounge them from the yard and throw them in the compost. We’ve tried a few that were ripe on one side but too tart on the other. Can’t wait til their ready for pickin’!

We had to pull up some of the sheet mulching in the front yard to install a drip hose for the tree beneath the cardboard layer. But at least we know the grass below is dying as planned!

We also scored some salvaged fencing from Freecycle! Justin plans to cut the 6 ft boards into 3 ft boards to frame our yard and give a place for vines to crawl. We’ll place trellis intermittently along the fence.

We pulled out the brambles rose bushes and hedges in the front yard and turned them to compost. This will give us more room to plant beneficials. Our goal is to make anything growing in our yard (with the exception of two large trees) either edible, herbal, medicinal or bee, hummingbird and butterfly attractors.

We’ve also redone some of the sheet mulching. This is still a work in progress but after talking with the landscaper at a local golf course, he agreed to allow us to pick up all their green waste. We’re mixing it with newspaper and putting it on top of the manure to give us more soil to work with when it comes time to plant. It still smells bad while I try to get the right mixture of greens and browns.