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f you’re one of those people cooped up safely at home, with creative energy and free time to spare—count yourself lucky. Here, we’ve rounded up a list of two dozen environmental projects that can make your time indoors, or right outside, a little brighter. Whether you’re ready to start rescuing more of your kitchen scraps, sewing your own cloth napkins, or documenting those backyard butterflies, we hope these simple green ideas will provide a calming means of coping during these unprecedented times. Have fun and stay safe.
Experiment in the Kitchen
Spice up mealtime with recipes from Save the Food that will also help prevent your food from going to waste. Make a fromage fort to spread on your crackers, or “scraps falafel” to use up wrinkly onions and wilted herbs. And for dessert, how about some leftover mashed potato apple cider donuts?
Rescue wilting herbs. Make herb oil ice cubes by packing diced herbs into an ice cube tray, covering with olive oil, and freezing. Thaw for ready-made flavor in your next dish. You can also transform less-than-fresh herbs into sauces, like chimichurri or pesto, or roast them and mix with salt to create longer-lasting seasonings.
Start a windowsill herb garden. You’ll need some seeds or a small plant, an upcycled container like a coffee canister that leaves room for growth and drainage, and a sunny ledge. (The Herb Society of America can help you determine the right dose of light and water for each species.) In a few weeks’ time, you’ll be ready to add a sprig of fresh basil to your bowl of pasta or diced cilantro to your batch of guac.
Arrange a plant-based recipe swap with friends and family, which will reduce your diet’s climate impacts while creating some virtual community. (Remember: If every American cut just one hamburger or about a quarter pound of beef out of their diet each week, we could reduce emissions by as much as taking about 10 million cars off the road each year.)
Simmer your veggie scraps into a flavorful stock, the foundation of your next meal. To get started, keep a clean, half-gallon carton in the freezer, and add trimmings as you prep meals. When you have enough, put the veggies in a pot, cover with water, and crank up the heat.
Plan a dough swap by freezing half of the dough from your latest baked good and suggesting friends, family, and coworkers do the same. When you’re reunited, you can organize a trade and enjoy someone else’s baking for a change.
Start an indoor compost bin. It shouldn’t smell when you follow this list of what is and isn’t compost-friendly. To build your worm bin, find two plastic tubs and drill holes in one of them to provide proper aeration. Layer in moist bedding—made of things like shredded newspaper, leaves, or coconut husk—and then add some red wigglers, which you can order online. Kept well fed with scraps, your worms will soon be producing “black gold” compost to use in your garden and helping you curb greenhouse gases.
Enjoy a Dose of Nature
Make your own basic bird feeder using pine cones, twine, nut butter, and birdseed. This video from the Feminist Bird Club shows you one way to do it. Hang it on a nearby tree you can spot through your window, then grab a pair of binoculars and do some armchair birding!
Create an herbarium—a scrapbook of pressed, dried flowers or other plants. To prepare your samples, press the plant matter in a large book or between sheets of newspaper and place a weight on top. When the leaves are dry, mount them on acid-free paper to preserve them, and label each specimen on the page. You can also include illustrations, photographs, seed packets, and notes.
Sharpen your naturalist ID skills. Try to identify every species of plant in your backyard or on a neighborhood walk. You can do the same for wildlife—and share your findings through Project Noah, a citizen science platform to discover, share, and identify wildlife.
Grow new indoor plants with the use of stems and leaves, rather than seeds. Though it depends on your individual plant species, propagating houseplants is often as easy as cutting off a stem or leaf from an existing plant and sticking it in soil or fresh water. If it takes, a new root system should form within a few weeks—leaving you with a hearty second plant within a few more months. (Pro tip: This works for green onions too! Nearly submerge their sliced-off roots, end down, into a glass of water that you change every few days. Voilà: a nearly endless supply of scallions.)
f you’re one of those people cooped up safely at home, with creative energy and free time to spare—count yourself lucky. Here, we’ve rounded up a list of two dozen environmental projects that can make your time indoors, or right outside, a little brighter. Whether you’re ready to start rescuing more of your kitchen scraps, sewing your own cloth napkins, or documenting those backyard butterflies, we hope these simple green ideas will provide a calming means of coping during these unprecedented times. Have fun and stay safe.
Experiment in the Kitchen
Spice up mealtime with recipes from Save the Food that will also help prevent your food from going to waste. Make a fromage fort to spread on your crackers, or “scraps falafel” to use up wrinkly onions and wilted herbs. And for dessert, how about some leftover mashed potato apple cider donuts?
Rescue wilting herbs. Make herb oil ice cubes by packing diced herbs into an ice cube tray, covering with olive oil, and freezing. Thaw for ready-made flavor in your next dish. You can also transform less-than-fresh herbs into sauces, like chimichurri or pesto, or roast them and mix with salt to create longer-lasting seasonings.
Start a windowsill herb garden. You’ll need some seeds or a small plant, an upcycled container like a coffee canister that leaves room for growth and drainage, and a sunny ledge. (The Herb Society of America can help you determine the right dose of light and water for each species.) In a few weeks’ time, you’ll be ready to add a sprig of fresh basil to your bowl of pasta or diced cilantro to your batch of guac.
Arrange a plant-based recipe swap with friends and family, which will reduce your diet’s climate impacts while creating some virtual community. (Remember: If every American cut just one hamburger or about a quarter pound of beef out of their diet each week, we could reduce emissions by as much as taking about 10 million cars off the road each year.)
Simmer your veggie scraps into a flavorful stock, the foundation of your next meal. To get started, keep a clean, half-gallon carton in the freezer, and add trimmings as you prep meals. When you have enough, put the veggies in a pot, cover with water, and crank up the heat.
Plan a dough swap by freezing half of the dough from your latest baked good and suggesting friends, family, and coworkers do the same. When you’re reunited, you can organize a trade and enjoy someone else’s baking for a change.
Start an indoor compost bin. It shouldn’t smell when you follow this list of what is and isn’t compost-friendly. To build your worm bin, find two plastic tubs and drill holes in one of them to provide proper aeration. Layer in moist bedding—made of things like shredded newspaper, leaves, or coconut husk—and then add some red wigglers, which you can order online. Kept well fed with scraps, your worms will soon be producing “black gold” compost to use in your garden and helping you curb greenhouse gases.
Enjoy a Dose of Nature
Make your own basic bird feeder using pine cones, twine, nut butter, and birdseed. This video from the Feminist Bird Club shows you one way to do it. Hang it on a nearby tree you can spot through your window, then grab a pair of binoculars and do some armchair birding!
Create an herbarium—a scrapbook of pressed, dried flowers or other plants. To prepare your samples, press the plant matter in a large book or between sheets of newspaper and place a weight on top. When the leaves are dry, mount them on acid-free paper to preserve them, and label each specimen on the page. You can also include illustrations, photographs, seed packets, and notes.
Sharpen your naturalist ID skills. Try to identify every species of plant in your backyard or on a neighborhood walk. You can do the same for wildlife—and share your findings through Project Noah, a citizen science platform to discover, share, and identify wildlife.
Grow new indoor plants with the use of stems and leaves, rather than seeds. Though it depends on your individual plant species, propagating houseplants is often as easy as cutting off a stem or leaf from an existing plant and sticking it in soil or fresh water. If it takes, a new root system should form within a few weeks—leaving you with a hearty second plant within a few more months. (Pro tip: This works for green onions too! Nearly submerge their sliced-off roots, end down, into a glass of water that you change every few days. Voilà: a nearly endless supply of scallions.)