Archive for the ‘Garden’ Category

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5 Ways to Make Back to School Fun

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Anticipation, fear, excitement, dread, relief, joy: There are few things in this world that can match the great mixture of feelings that are evoked with the time of year notoriously known as “back to school.” For parents, teachers, and students everywhere, the late summer season means shedding swim suits in favor of starched shirts, and sunglasses in favor of study time. But year after year, there is one aspect of back to school that makes it merry. That, of course, is back to school shopping! Here at aHa! Modern Living, we have a great selection of items to make back to school fun.

(1) The Popoutz Seed and Peanut Feeders

These eco-friendly and 100% recyclable bird feeders make a wonderful first day of school gift for any teacher. The Popoutz Seed Feeder holds small varieties of bird food such as sunflower seeds and dried mealworms, while the Popoutz Peanut Feeder holds larger types of feed such as suet pellets and peanuts. Both varieties come in an array of colors, so you can choose them to match your son or daughter’s school colors.  And at just $3.50 each, you can afford to select several! These fun little feeders are great for kids and adults alike, as well as a terrific way to keep hungry birds fed when food becomes more scarce in the fall and winter.

(2) The Plant Nanny and Petal Drops

If there is one thing we know for sure, it’s that back to school is a super busy time of year for every parent. It’s time for school open houses, PTA meetings, parent-teacher conferences, and the transformation of your Chevy to a kiddie shuttle bus. And because of this, we know that every little thing you can do to help simplify your hectic schedule is a good thing. Plant Nanny and Petal Drops make it a snap to ensure that your indoor and outdoor plants are adequately watered every day. Just allow the Petal Drops to collect rain water in your yard into a recycled water or soda bottle, then turn the plastic bottle onto your Plant Nanny. Simple.

(3) Cacao and Spice Hand Wash

Back to school time also means sniffle and cough time. What is the best line of defense against these late summer sniffles? Plenty of hand-washing, of course. Keep a bottle of Daub and Bauble Cacao and Spice Hand Wash by each sink in your home. The delicious chocolatey cinnamon scent guarantees that they won’t forget to lather up before their after-school snack. Plus, Vitamin E and Aloe will leave their hands feeling soft and luxurious, not stripped of moisture. Daub and Bauble Hand Washes also come in 3 other yummy scents too, so you can select different ones for each sink in your house.

(4) Felt Wine Sleeve and Roost Menagerie Bottle Openers

If you are a first year college student, stop and take a moment to think about all the things you have to thank mom and dad for right now. They helped you pack up your bedroom at home, and haul all your boxes up 3 flights of stairs into your new dorm room. Dad helped you figure out how to screw together your bunk beds, while mom organized your sock drawer and stretched your new extra-long twin sized sheets onto your mattress. This is all on top of the hefty check they wrote for your first year of tuition. Wow, mom and dad are major champs, and it’s time to pick out a nice thank you gift for them.

Check our Gifts by Recipient section, where you can choose the perfect thank you gift based on mom and dad’s interests, whether they are bird lovers, entertainers, or gardeners. Two of our favorites are the Felt Wine Sleeve and the Roost Menagerie Bottle Openers. You can slip a pretty bottle of sparkling french lemonade into the felt sleeve, and let them pop it open with a fun wooden sculptured bottle opener. (The apple shaped bottle opener is definitely appropriate for back to school.) What a sweet and refreshing way to say “thanks.”

(5) Sprouts

As a parent, of course you care deeply about making sure that your child receives adequate nutrition during the school year. Plenty of studies have shown that when kids eat well and avoid junky processed foods, it enables them to be attentive in class and do their best in school. Sprouts are a bonafide super food that will help to keep your kid fueled throughout the school day, as well as help boost his or her immune system.

Try mixing a little bit of alfalfa sprout juice in with your child’s apple or orange juice at breakfast. The sprout juice is mild and practically tasteless, so it mixes easily. Or, toss a few sprouts onto a ham and cheese sandwich and pack it up for lunch. Their unique crunchy texture makes them fun for kids to eat. For little kids, get them interested by giving the stringy strands a goofy name, like baby spaghetti.

Alfalfa sprouts are one of the highest sources of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals in nature. Plus, they, along with other types of sprouts, can easily be grown on a counter top at any time of year. Check out our Sprouting section for a selection of sprouts, including mungbean sprouts and broccoli sprouts. All of our Botanical Interests seeds are now 25% OFF, so it is a great time to start sprouting!

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Late Summer Planting Sale: 25% OFF All Botanical Interests Seeds!

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

Did you know that late summer, from mid to late August, is a terrific time to sow seeds in your garden?  It’s true!  Come fall, when most of your friends are turning to their stock of pickled and canned veggies in their basement, you can still be plucking fresh produce from your backyard. You can check out our Cool Season Starting from Seed selection for a whole variety of vegetables that can stand up to cooler fall temps.

Not just any vegetable will survive and thrive when planted in August. Planting during the late summer requires some strategic planning, since you must make sure to plant only crops that can handle the extreme heat of August afternoons, as well as the chillier temps of cool autumn evenings.

Save 25% OFF all Botanical Interests Seeds. Click to view all seed varieties.

Hardy Vegetables for Late Summer Planting

Carrots- Carrots may be sown from August through September in 10 day intervals for a steady supply.

Chard- You can plant chard in your garden up until mid-August. In milder areas, you can even overwinter your chard by covering it with a protective coat, such as fleece. Tender baby leaves are ready to be picked and consumed after just 4 weeks.

Peas- Peas can be sown up until mid-August. They are extremely tolerant plants, and are super versatile, since they are perfect for eating raw, canning, freezing, steaming, mashing, and more.

Coriander- You can sow coriander seeds up to the end of August, and if you repeat plantings every 2 weeks or so, you’ll have plenty of cilantro leaves to use in your cooking and cocktails.

Broccoli- Broccoli is one of the best and easiest crops to grow in the late summer. You can even plant broccoli seeds in your garden through early September.

Salad greens- Oriental greens, kale, arugula, spinach, mesclun, and a variety of lettuces all thrive in the late summer.

Radishes- Radishes, as well as other root crops such as potatoes and turnips, all thrive when planted in the late summer.

Snap beans- Late summer planted snap beans often thrive better than those planted in the spring. This is because snap beans benefit from cooler temps once the plants begin to produce. Plant them in August of late September to take advantage of this.

Tips for planting in the late summer:

  • Make sure to plant cool season crops, and plant them early enough that they can get a good head start on growing before there is any chance of frost in your area.
  • Plan not only what you plant, but where you plant. Your spring-planted garden may still be flourishing in August. Make sure you do not plant your late summer crops in a spot where the seedlings will be choked out by other plants.
  • Your veggies may take a couple weeks longer to mature than you would expect. This is simply a result of cooling temperatures.
  • Appropriately prepare your garden spot for new seedlings by clearing away any old, finished vegetable plants and weeds. Turn over your soil to a depth of at least 8 inches, and add a good layer of compost. This helps to re-nourish the soil where you have previously planted.
  • Whiteflies, stink bugs, aphids, and caterpillars are all commonly seen in late summer, so monitor your garden closely for pests.

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The Plant Nanny & Petal Drops Make Watering Fun and Easy

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Petal Drops

Every year when we plan our steamy-season summer vacation, we make a list of things that must be cared for in our absence. Take the dog to the kennel, contact the post office to stop our mail delivery, set a timer so the living room lights automatically go on and off, and ask the neighbor next door to water our plants. Yet every year when we return, our foxglove doesn’t look so foxy, our potted geraniums hang their red heads sadly, and our sweet basil looks more dried out and crusty than sweet. Drat!

Well, we recently discovered an easy way to insure that our plants are watered while we’re on vacation. No offense to our neighborhood kids, but we think that the Plant Nanny is a more sure-fire way to make sure our gardens are reliably watered in our absence!

Earn TRIPLE aHa! Rewards during the month of August when you buy Plant Nanny Singles & Petal Drops Rainwater Catchers.

Enjoy Peace of Mind with Plant Nanny Singles

All you need in order to use the Plant Nanny is a used plastic soda or water bottle. (So this is a cool way to recycle plastic, too.) The Plant Nanny consists of a special ceramic stake and a drip-free bottle adapter. All you have to do is place the ceramic stake in the soil, and overturn the filled plastic bottle, with the adapter attached, into the ceramic stake. As your soil dries out and becomes filled with air, the bottle releases just the right amount of water. Since the stake is in the soil, this is a super efficient way to water, wherein the water is delivered directly to the roots, allowing your plants to develop healthy, hardy roots.

Plant Nannies come in two different sizes to fit pretty much any need. Plant Nanny Singles are great for if you’re just going on an extended weekend trip, or if your container garden consists of smaller pots. The single size uses a plastic bottle up to one liter in size. For a longer vacation, or if you have a window box or larger pots, you should try the Plant Nanny Add-A-Bottles. These adapters can accommodate up to a 2 liter sized plastic bottle, so even if you’re gone for a week, your windowsill herb garden will still stay healthy and hydrated.

If you love the idea of recycling an old plastic bottle rather than letting it sit in a landfill, then you will love this second product that we just recently added to our gardens as well. We’ve recently begun using Petal Drops in our gardens, and we think they’re just adorable!

Price: $3.99
Buy Plant Nanny Singles Now!

Repurpose Rainwater in Style with Petal Drops

Petal Drops are just as simplistic and easy to use as the Plant Nanny. They are not only a useful way to recycle plastic water and soda bottles, but also a handy way to re-purpose rain water. All you need to do is attach Petal Drops, which are cute little flower-shaped funnels, to the tops of emptty plastic bottles, then place them outdoors. The Petal Drops utilize the same concept as a rain barrel, but are much more space efficient. You can use Petal Drops even if you just have a small cement porch or iron balcony.

Recently, after a glorious, heavy July thunderstorm, we found that all five of the Petal Drops bottles we had placed throughout our backyard were filled with water. So what did we do? We took the bottles and overturned them into our Plant Nannies. We are thrilled- watering our plants has definitely never been so easy, or so earth friendly!

Price: $6.00
Buy Petal Drops Rainwater Catchers Now!

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Successive Veggie Plantings for Prolific Harvest

Monday, July 5th, 2010

Planting SeedsFourth of July has come and gone, but it’s not too late to plant certain seeds directly into your garden. Additionally, there are some vegetables and herbs that need to be re-planted several times during the season in order to provide a continual harvest. Here’s the skinny on when to plant and when to re-plant certain vegetables for your garden.

Successive Plantings

These plants do well with plantings either throughout the growing season or in spring, and again in the fall.

Mid-Summer Plantings

Some seeds will give you more bang for your buck if you plant them later in June, rather than in early May. The ground is warmer, certain pests that like to munch are gone, and a later planting will give you more harvest after your neighbors plants have produced themselves into exhaustion. Here’s what to plant now:

  • Squash (summer and winter-if you have a long growing season)
  • Corn (if you have a long growing season)
  • Pumpkins

Check out all of our Botanical Interests Seed varieties, many heirloom and organic edible seed varieties. Enjoy a 20% discount on our bush bean and pole beans.

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Companion Planting for Pest Control & Fruit Production

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

There’s been some discussion among gardeners lately regarding the benefit of companion planting. That’s the idea of planting vegetables and flowers together, or radishes with cabbage, or carrots and tomatoes, for mutual benefit. Is there solid research to prove this? Not really. Is it a bad idea? Not really.

Why Good Radishes make Good Neighbors

Radishes, in particular, are frequently cited as good companion plants. Something about their scent deters pests. Their flowers—tiny, delicate, and open-faced—attract small insect pollinators. That’s something that every vegetable (or, botanically speaking), fruit, can benefit from. Tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, blueberries, apples, peaches—all require pollinators for maximum quantity of production. If you let your radishes bolt (go to seed), you have a built-in pollinator beacon.

Other Plant Combos that Work:

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Grilling Vegetables from Your Garden

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Right up there with apple pie and baseball, cookouts are definitely one of America’s favorite summer pastimes. We think it’s not just the scrumptious fare that makes cookouts so great; it’s the smell of lit charcoal and lighter fluid, the carefree attitude of cooking out in the open air, and the simple joy of washing your barbecue-sauce smeared hands in a hose rather than in a kitchen sink. All of these things make summer grilling, in a word, awesome.

Now despite all the many joys of outdoor grilling, of course we are not going to deny that devouring the food is the very best part. And grilling is a wonderful opportunity to use some of the fresh veggies and fruits from your garden. Fresh home-grown veggies are wonderful straight from the garden, but when you grill them over an open flame, their flavor is magnified, and suddenly some simple garden fresh produce becomes a true treat.

Basic guidelines for grilling vegetables from your garden

  • Onions- Cut them into 1/2 inch slices, and cook for 10-12 minutes.
  • Bell Peppers- Cut them into halves or quarters, and grill them for 6-8 minutes.
  • Eggplant- Cut them into 1/2 inch slices, and cook them for 8-10 minutes.
  • Asparagus- Leave them whole, and cook them for 6-8 minutes.
  • Corn-Peel back the husks to remove the corn silk, then replace the husks. Pre-soak them in water for one hour to prevent them from charring. Cook them for 20-25 minutes.
  • Summer Squash and Zucchini- Cut into 1/2 inch slices, and cook them for 6 to 8 minutes.
  • Cherry Tomatoes- Pierce the skins and cook them whole for 2-4 minutes.

We know what you’re thinking right now. Despite the fact that you have all of these wonderful grilled veggies straight from your home garden, you still have a friend/spouse/child who will insist on reaching for a brat or hamburger. You’ll need to entice this person a bit in order to get him or her to reach for something fresher and healthier instead. No problem! We’ve got a terrific marinade recipe that will pump up the flavor of your veggies and make anyone’s mouth water.

Lemon and Thyme Vegetable Grilling Sauce:

Whisk together 1/4 cup of melted margarine or butter, 1/4 cup of olive oil, 2 finely chopped shallots, 2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard, 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice, 1 tablespoon of grated lemon peel,  and 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh thyme. You can add salt and pepper to taste. Brush both sides of your veggies with this marinade before grilling them. Keep any of the remaining sauce warm in order to serve it with your veggies.  If you’d like, you can make this sauce ahead of time and store it in a sealed container in your fridge.

Hints for Grilling Veggies:

  • If you would like to try grilling vegetables that are too small to sit on your grill, try using either a grill basket, or a foil packet. For a simple foil packet recipe, try cutting up Brussels sprouts, pearl onions, carrots, green beans, snap peas, and cherry tomatoes. Place them all on a large piece of foil and season them with salt and pepper. Lift the edges and add one tablespoon of water, or one large ice cube. Bring the sides of the foil up so that they meet, and fold them over twice. (The sealed packet will look kind of like an envelope.) Grill this on the hottest part of the grill for about 10 minutes, flipping halfway through.
  • Full-size tomatoes are great for grilling, too. Just cut them in half and cook them directly on your grill.
  • Any time you place a fruit or veggie directly on your grill rack, first brush them with a little bit of olive oil or spray them with cooking spray to keep them from sticking.

Image source: Fresh From Florida

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Easy Flower Arranging for Outdoor Entertaining

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

When you’re throwing an outdoor garden party, create informal flower arrangements that compliment, rather than distract, from the surroundings. If you’re having a seated dinner, or small cocktail tables for guests to sit around, you also want to steer clear of towering (potentially unstable) arrangements. Bud vases provide easy floral design tools, and it’s quick and easy to create a pretty centerpiece.

We have a variety of bud vases in the aHa! Modern Living catalog, including our Glass Bird Vases, Cube Tube Vases, Jacks Vase, and the Windowsill Herb Holder. Here are a few ideas for each vase, and ideas for mixing these vases with other household containers.

Glass Bird Vases: These vases look best with delicate flowers and greens. Thin ornamental grass leaves, flax flowers, and other long-stemmed, delicate blooms look good in these birds.

Cube Tube Vases: You can display larger flowers in these sturdy vases. Their hard-edged lines are calling out for either 1) specimen flowers like a small sunflower on a short stem, a hydrangea, hybrid tea rose, or a large tuberous begonia or 2) wispy, floating ornamental grass stems, sprouting from the tubes in a cascading waterfall of greenery.

Windowsill Herb Holder: Use this vase to hold your edible centerpiece of garnishes. In each glass cup, place herbs that compliment the taste of your appetizers. Dill, basil and thyme are all different enough, and will highlight most savory dishes. Alternatively, you could place cut stems of mint, lavender, and pineapple sage as garnishes for sweet items and drinks. (See “Grow your own Garnishes,” below, for more garnish ideas.)

Mix and Match

The fun of flower arranging with bud vases is that you really can’t make a mistake. Go out to your garden and snip cuttings of anything that catches your eye. You could stick with a color theme (cool colors: blues, purples, greens or warm colors: reds, pinks, oranges, yellows), or a shape (spiky, round, daisy-shaped), or just cut a riot of colors and shapes.

Cut the flower stems at different lengths (though, none more than three times as tall as the container itself), and start putting them in vases and containers. Bud vases look best when mixed and matched together, along with other glasses, jars, and tumblers from around the house. Part of the fun is the mixing and matching. The space around the vases, once they are arranged in their final place before the party, is also part of the design. Draw attention to the group of vases by placing a large hosta leaf under several of the containers.

Most importantly, have fun with your arrangements. A grouping of bud vases is a chic and simple table arrangement, fitting for most garden parties.

Cultivate Your Style

So what’s your outdoor entertaining style?  Not sure?  For inspiration, check out these images of some of the best outdoor spaces. Notice the placement of flower arrangements and potted plants, and how different arrangements can create or add to the style and atmosphere of an outdoor patio.  We love the way simple additions of clipped or potted flowers, herbs, and succulents on or around outdoor tables can help to create a balanced, complete outdoor space fit for both entertaining and personal enjoyment.

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Garden-Themed Outdoor Entertaining Tips

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010
Brazil 66 Cocktail and perfect ice cubes

More recipes at www.cocktalia.com

After you work so hard to create a beautiful garden, why not show it off with an outdoor cocktail party or get-together? There are endless ways to put together a fun event. Here are some of our tips for throwing a party that’s as fun for the guests as it is for the host.

  • Have plenty of ice on hand: When the weather warms up, never underestimate the ability of party guests to run through ice. You need ice for cooling drinks, putting in drinks, keeping food cold (shrimp, dips, cheeses—all benefit from sitting on a plate that’s sitting on ice). Designate one cooler/ice bucket for “clean ice” that goes in drinks, and keep extra bags in the freezer or other coolers.
  • Keep the food in the fridge until guests arrive: That means you’ll have to stage the food so that it is easy to reach and pop on the table. Put dips in their dishes, veggie platters together, and add serving spoons or forks to each before covering. Then, you can bring them out of the cold, put them on the table, and un-cover.
  • Serve only one “specialty drink” that can be mixed ahead: Nobody likes to be stuck behind the bar all night. Provide a range of drinks, including water, lemonade or tea, beer and wine, and one specialty mixed drink (if you like). Try to serve something that can be mixed ahead of time. Sangria, margaritas, daiquiris, and other “punch” concoctions will allow your guests and you to have fun.
  • Provide “bug-off” products: Depending upon how rowdy your guests get, how dry it is in your neck of the woods, and local open-flame ordinances, you might not want to have citronella-filled tiki torches all over your garden. There are plenty of natural “bug off” products, and synthetic products, as well. Place a little basket of these in your powder room so your guests can stay comfortable, even if mosquitoes are out in full force.

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Grow Your Own Garnishes

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
Herb Garnish

From Left: parsley, basil, cilantro

One of the easiest and most fun ways to dress up your party platters is with edible garnishes. Flowers like nasturtium, marigold and chamomile make good garnishes.  Herbs are great, too. You can buy the garnishes at your local farmer’s market or grocery store, but many of them are so easy to grow, and expensive to buy, that it makes sense to grow your own.  It isn’t too late in the growing season to start growing your own garnishes. aHa! Modern Living has seeds for many of these, and we’re having a seed sale!  Save 15% OFF all Botanical Interests Seeds – many organic and heirloom varieties.

Here are some of our favorite edible garnishes, and their suggested food pairings:

Photo Credits from left: Earth Spirit Organics, LeeAnn Smith, Smithsonian Blog

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Is it Time To Plant an Eco-friendly, No-Mow Lawn?

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

There is nothing quite like kicking off your sandals during the summertime to stroll barefoot across your soft, verdant lawn. But unfortunately, maintaining a finely manicured lawn is an activity that can be extremely straining on both your wallet and the environment.

Buy now for $34.95

Maintaining a Turf Lawn = Not Eco-Friendly

Running a lawn mower for just one hour emits the same amount of pollutive gases in the air as running 40 new cars for the same amount of time! Not to mention, every year, over 13 million gallons of gas are spilled by homeowners as they fill up their lawnmowers, trimmers, edgers, and other landscaping power tools.

This year, we are encouraging all of our family and friends to try a wonderful product called Eco-Lawn, which allows you to mow your lawn only about once a month. Let’s face it, mowing is not only bad for the environment, but can’t you imagine about 100 other ways you would rather spend your time when your outside in your yard? Pushing along a noisy, sputtering machine that burps out stinky fumes is not our idea of ideal.

The Benefits of Using Eco-Lawn:

  • Once you have planted your Eco-Lawn, you only need to mow it about once a month. This will help you minimize the time you spend behind a gas guzzling lawn mower.
  • There is very little watering necessary with an Eco-Lawn. Therefore, you’ll save both money on your water bill and the Earth’s valuable resources. Plus, with a less swampy yard, you are less likely to attract grubs.
  • Eco-Lawn requires no application of dangerous chemical pesticides or fertilizers, so it is safe to use around your children and your pets. There is no chemical runnoff that will end up in your groundwater or in nearby streams.
  • Eco-Lawn contains a type of grass that has very deep-reaching roots. These roots make the lawn particularly drought resistant. They are able to reach deep into the soil in order to naturally reach the nutrients that they need.

Eco-Lawn

From left: unmowed, mowed

How to Use Eco-Lawn

Depending on the region in which you live, the time at which you should plant your Eco-Lawn will vary. If you live in a warm, southern state such as Georgia, you can plant it as early as March or April. In you live in a cooler state, such as Idaho, you’ll probably want to wait til May.  Planting in the spring means watering during the summer to get your new Eco-Lawn established.  If you can wait, why not take advantage of the rainy season, and plant your new Eco-Lawn in the fall.  If you are going to be planting your Eco-Lawn over your existing lawn, there are just a few easy steps for you to follow.

  1. Mow your existing lawn as short as possible. If you are able, mow it to less than one inch in height. If you have a dull lawnmower blade, this is actually good in this instance. It will help to damage the existing grass that you want to plant over.
  2. Rake the surface of the yard to get it all nice and even. If you’re planting in the spring, be careful not to raise any weed roots to the surface. Rake thoroughly to remove sticks, grass clippings, rocks, and other debris.
  3. Spread 1/4 inch of organic compost in order to create a nice, fertile base for your seeds.
  4. Sow your Eco-Lawn seeds using 15 seeds per square inch. A 5 pound bag of Eco-Lawn covers 1,000 square feet.
  5. Rake the area gently so that the seeds are just barely covered with soil.
  6. Roll the area with a lawn roller in order to help prevent soil erosion.
  7. Water every day for 3 weeks after planting. It is best to water early in the morning when the water will not evaporate in the mid-day heat.

This 7-step method is the most natural way to replace your current lawn with an Eco-Lawn. Now, until your Eco-Lawn fully takes root, your “traditional” lawn will continue to grow. You’ll have a full grown Eco-Lawn within about 4 years. If you wish to replace your traditional lawn more quickly, you do have the option of getting rid of your current lawn with an organic herbicide before planting your Eco-Lawn. You will, however, then have a lot of dirt til your new lawn grows in. The above method is gradual, but it allows you to make a smooth transition without ever being without grass in your yard.

Watch Patty Moreno of Garden Girl TV install Eco-Lawn

Other Alternatives to a Traditional Turf Lawn

Yarrow- Yarrow, or Achillea millefolium, doesn’t make much of a play surface, but it can handle a bit of foot traffic. You can also find it in a variety of colors such as white as pictured here, gold, and red.
Clustered Field Sedge, or Carex praegracilus, grows to resemble a traditional turf lawn. However, the good thing is that it tends to be thicker, fuller, and greener. You can occasionally mow it if you’d like, or just let it go to create a lush meadow-like lawn.
Hard materials such as flagstone, oyster shells, recycled concrete, and decomposed granite make great turf substitutes. Here we have pictured flagstone with moss. Pretty cool, isn’t it? And hard substances such as this can stand up to wear and tear, and take plenty of foot traffic.

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