Posts from — April 2010

We are so excited to be featured in today’s Seattle Times- NW Source.  Check it out to get the exclusive behind our company!

Every day is Earth Day with Tread Light’s chic eco-conscious gifts

Just in time for Mother’s Day, the arrival of UrthBags at Tread Light Gifts. These  stylish bags are hand-crafted from recycled and biodegradable materials by Fair Trade Women’s Organizations & Artisans. What’s extraordinary about these bags is the recycled materials they are made with are everyday items in your house: juice boxes, magazines, telephone books.

Take a sneak peak:

This bag is made from the inner-silver insulation lining of a juice box.

Old magazines are used to create this fashion forward bag.

Can you guess what materials this one is made from?

Photo by Megan Sukys

We have spring fever!! All the new blooms outside are making us anxious to get out and start our vegetable garden.  Earlier this week, we had the opportunity to talk with Josh Kirschenbaum from Territorial Seeds about starting a garden.  He shared some encouraging advice and suggestions for gardeners of all levels.   Josh inspired us to get out this weekend and put those first seeds in the ground.

Are you starting a garden this spring?  Want some FREE supplies? Enter our Eco-Chic Gardening Giveaway.  One lucky winner will receive an array of gardening supplies to get you on your way to gardening success. Nothing is more eco-chic than serving fresh veggies from your own garden.

The Eco-Chic Gardening Giveaway includes:

• 6 packets of seeds from Territorial Seed Company -1 packet each of Superslicer Bean, Lime Crisp Cucumber, Gourmet Salad Blend Lettuce Mix, Cherry Belle Radish, Black Beauty Zucchini, and  a Plant A Row For the Hungry Carrot package.

• A bag of Peruvian Seabird Guano fertilizer – This organic fertilizer will get all your vegetables off to a great start.
• Territorial Seed company catalog packed with tons of growing information.
• 2 boxes of Garden Bons-Bons by Moulton. – This line of garden truffles is for planting, not for eating. Handcrafted bon bon balls of clay, organic compost and seed wrapped in a lovely presentation package.  The winner will receive a box of Herbal Tea Selections and a box of Italian Herb Selections.

• Reusable Produce Bags – This set of 5 reusable produce bags has everything you need to reign in those awesome artichokes, tangy tangerines, perfect peaches, and more.You’ll find a ton of uses for them outside the market as well. They make the perfect little stashing place for travel toiletries, shoes, or other little odds and ends.

All of these fabulous gardening supplies comes in our exclusive Tread Light Gifts 100% Organic Cotton Bag and completed with a no-waste, plantable gift tag.  Ready for Mother’s Day or a special gift for yourself.

How to Enter:

Visit Territorial Seed Company and tell us in the comment area which vegetable, herb, flower, or fruit you would most like to grow in your garden .

Additional Entries :                                                                                        Please leave a separate comment for each that you do.

• Tweet about the giveaway
• Follow Tread Light Gifts on Twitter
• Become a fan of Tread Light Gifts on Facebook
• Post on Facebook

Deadline to enter giveaway is April 22nd, 2010 @ 6pm P.S.T

The weather is warming up, birds are chirping, and days are getting longer.  Nothing says Spring like new little seedlings popping out of the ground.  Over at Tread Light Gifts, we can’t get gardening out of our minds.  It’s so much fun to put something in the grow and watch it develop into our dinner.  We are not expert gardeners, so when we need advice on what to plant and how to get those nasty slugs out of the garden, we turn to Josh Kirschenbaum, Product Development Director, at Territorial Seed Company . We recently had the chance to talk with Josh about some of our burning questions about seed selection and more.

There are so many places and choices for buying seeds.  How do we know who or what seeds to buy? Are all seeds equal?

All seeds are not created equally! There are several factors to look at when deciding whom to purchase seeds from. First of all, Territorial Seed Company does extensive trialing each year to make sure that the varieties offered in our catalog are the best varieties for home gardeners. Other seed companies might be geared more to commercial growers and the varieties that they offer might not be the best for the home gardener. When we look at varieties in our trials, we look at such characteristics as flavor, ease of growing, disease resistance, and whether the variety can mature in a timely fashion. One of the other things that makes Territorial unique is that we do a lot of our own seed production. In other words, we grow the plants that we harvest seed from, clean the seed, and then offer in packets in sequential years. All of the varieties that we produce ourselves is done on certified organic land. Currently, about 25% of the vegetable varieties that we offer in our catalog are produced at our farm. That is something that we take great pride in.

What are some of the best choices of vegetables to grow for novice gardeners?

When considering the best types of vegetables to grow for the novice, you first want to decide if you will start them from seed or from plant. I think that some beginners are turned off from starting vegetables from seed because they think that there is a great deal of knowledge and specialized equipment/tools needed. The fact of the matter is that starting veggies from seed does require a little bit of know-how but there are so many different resources for people that want to learn. There are a few inexpensive tools that will be helpful but by starting from seed a gardener has so much more choice as far as different varieties go, not to mention how much money that you can save in the long run by growing from seed instead of purchasing plants.

With that being said, a novice gardener might want to start out with seeds that do well being planted directly into the garden rather than needing to be started indoors or in agreenhouse. These include vegetables such as: Root crops-beets, carrots, parsnips, radishes. Legumes-peas and beans. Cucurbits-squash, cucumbers, melon. Greens-lettuce, spinach, arugula, mesclun mixes, etc…

What are some of your new favorites?

This is a really tough question because being a vegetable fanatic means that I have so many new varieties that I love. I will, however, try to whittle it down to my top 3 for the year.

1) Superslicer Bean-this is a romano type of green bean which means that it has a flattened, green pod that is absolutely delicious when eaten raw, steamed or sautéed. These should be planted next to a trellis or fence as the vigorous vines can climb 6-8 feet. The other nice thing about this variety is that typically, when a bean gets large, it will get tough and stringy. Superslicer stays nice and tender even when the pods get large.

2) Cucumber-Lime Crisp-a wonderfully sweet, crunchy slicing cucumber with a very pale, light green skin. Plants are quite productive and disease resistant. I also think that the lighter colored skin may help folks combat certain indigestion issues that can be common on darker colored fruit.

3) Of course I have to include a tomato which is America’s favorite garden vegetable (and one of mine, too). This is a tough decision but my favorite new tomato for the year is San Marzano Gigante 3 . This is a roma type tomato, which means that it has very thick, meaty flesh with not a lot of liquid. These are perfect for using in salsa, tomato sauces, or any other canning recipe that includes tomatoes. San Marzano Gigante 3 is actually a selection from one of our Italian suppliers that truly bears enormous fruits that can get 2 ½ inches wide and 7 inches long. The larger the fruit, the more you can have to use for the above mentioned projects. What’s more, is that typically, roma type tomatoes aren’t the most flavorful (in my opinion) when eaten raw. This variety, however, has a nice balanced flavor of sweet and tangy.

What gardening project in the world most inspires you?

Honestly, any gardening project that involves someone trying to grow vegetables for the first time is what really inspires me. Over the years, I have found so much joy and benefit to growing vegetables (as well as other plants, too) and trying to pass my enthusiasm onto others is one of my personal goals. It sometimes surprises me how few of my peers are interested in gardening thinking that they don’t have the time, space, or energy. The truth is that with just a little bit of know how, anyone can grow fresh produce whether it be in your back yard, patio, or windowsill.

At Tread Light Gift, we are committed to giving back to the environment.  We understand Territorial has a new effort underway to give back to the community and environment. Can you tell us more about Plant a Row for the Hungry?

Plant A Row For the Hungry is a wonderful project started by Jeff Lowenfels and the Garden Writers Association as a way for gardeners to give back to those in need. The idea is to devote some of your garden space specifically for produce that can be donated to your local food bank. This year, Territorial Seed Company is including a free “Plant A Row For the Hungry” package of carrot seed with every order. These packages will contain about 150 carrot seeds, enough to plant a 25 foot row. A 25 foot row of carrots should yield about 25 pounds of fresh, nutritious carrots. If all of the packets that we expect to give away are planted and harvested for this purpose, Territorial gardeners will have donated 2.5 million pounds of vitamin-rich carrots to food banks, soup kitchens, or neighbors by the end of the year!