How Does Your Garden Sow?

Now that we've lived in our new house for a full year, the spring flowers are (finally) blooming and temps are somewhere above freezing, I'm ready to reboot my gardening skills.  Now, please don't go thinking I'm an experienced gardener or anything- 'cause I am most certainly not!  I'm actually one of those types of people that tend to (no, strike that, always) bite of more than I can chew.  Just ask my husband - he'll most certainly agree (especially since he's the one who helps me dig myself out of those situations!)  These ideas just seem so exciting, doable and manageable when in my head and then the reality tends to prove otherwise.  That said, I'm doing it and that's that.

I have had an 8'x8' raised bed garden in my previous home and, despite me, it's done incredibly well (actually too well - it was always spilling over it's sides by the end of the summer!). This year, in an attempt to keep my gardening bounty contained within the boundaries of my garden, I'm hoping to at least double that space to some combination of 4'x8' or multiple 4'x4's.  Not exactly sure what layout will best take advantage of my backyard's sun and be so convenient I'll have to trip over it whenever I go out back (and thus, be forced to pull weeds more frequently).  I'm thinking that the 8' width was too wide and 4' may be a better maximum width - that way you can reach it from the grass and can't use the "oops, I forgot my gardening shoes" excuse).

My previous garden was entirely organic and this year I'm going to try to do something similar (I'm sure I can't call it totally organic - I know some of my seeds aren't organic).  But, we're going to try to avoid all chemical use and exposure by using natural cedar planks, using our own compost (well, at least what the racoons haven't taken), adding peat moss and trying to stick with all-natural fertilizers.  We are using an organic lawncare service as well.  My lot backs up to a ravine that leads straight into the Olentangy River and I have kids and it just seems like there's no reason to have that kind of sketchy stuff in our backyard, our water bodies or our bodies!

My seeds have been started indoors and I'll be ordering soil just as soon as I make up my mind about bed sizes.  Man oh man, it's hard to figure out which step is A and which is B sometimes!  I just get to chomping at the bit and want to go-go-go!  There's just so many products to consider and so little time to go check them all out.  I'm currently debating whether there is an affordable raised bed kit I can buy that will allow me (as opposed to my husband) to install the beds or if just buying the pieces separately is best (for price, quality and ease of assembly).  I'm going to go check out a cedar kit at Home Depot tonight - looks like it may be an option worth considering. More will be forthcoming - stay tuned!

You gotta start somewhere!

I just can't be the only one!  "Only what?" you ask.  The only parent out there that wants to have kids without destroying the Earth (or the little piece of it which my family of 4+ inhabits) at the same time!  Does it have to be an either/or scenario?  Darn it, I want to have my cake and eat it, too!  And so, begins my blogging journey.  I want to share my struggles (both internal and with my spouse and kids) to do the right thing while being mindful of what my mother always called my "Beer Tastes and Champagne Money". 

Ever since I was 12 and started making money as a mother's helper, babysitter, pet sitter, house sitter, snow shoveler, etc., I have always had these champagne tastes and some amount of beer money (not literally, of course) to support it.  My parents we the ultimate "frugaltarians" and always tsk tsk'd my purchases, but since I earned the money, they just reminded me to save and let me be.  I paid my fair share of college, paid off student loans, got a paying job and all along the way, I've had to keep those ever-present champagne tastes satisfied without making me go broke.  Fast forward 10 years to the present and it's really no different.  I make a decent living, our finances are stable, but I am always "stalking" (as my husband calls it) something.  Whether it's a new cookbook, a new purse, the perfect used dresser on Craigslist for the kids' room, or a new car - there's always something on my list to be researching and eventually, I WILL get it.

All this time, however, I've been ignoring the fact that, deep down, I know damn well that my consumerism, materialism, voracious shopping appetite, etc. is absolutely counter to being a good environmental steward.  There's no denying that, eventually, all the plastic toys, metal strollers, new iPhones, new cars and new clothes I've bought will some day (maybe not today, or tomorrow, but at some point during my two kids' lives) end up in a landfill.  And that's just not good.  Not good at all.

I recently read a quote that read something to the effect of: "When did we start living life for things instead of love?" (yeah, that was a terrible paraphrase).  Which in turn, reminded me of another quote: "The best things in the life aren't things."  I know that both of these phrases are 100% accurate and I also know that I am 100% guilty of both.  I want so badly to mend my materialistic ways so that I can show AND tell my kids how they can live on this planet and also make it a better place to live.

Professionally, my career revolves around sustainability.  I work for a large retailer on their sustainability program and see how small changes can ultimately add up to have big impacts.  However, I also know that as a retailer, if people don't buy our stuff, I don't have a job.  Talk about opposing interests!  So, I know that the answer isn't that we all stop shopping and stop buying.  But what if we can make it a point to buy less, buy stuff that lasts, buy stuff that's repairable and buy something that's made in a sustainable way so that a rainforest and indigenous people don't have to suffer b/c I NEEDED that teak patio furniture?  I know that planet Earth cannot forever provide for our ever-expanding population without our consumption habits changing - big time.  However, I also know that you gotta start somewhere.  And I'm starting right here, right now.

I truly hope to help further a conversation about how we can make better, smarter choices that will leave our children with a planet no worse or maybe even better than we found it.