Why I Don’t Water My Lawn

For the past week, stepping outside of my house has been like walking into a brick wall.  The heat is that thick and heavy.  No where is this more evident than in the browning of my lawn.  My neighbor’s sprinklers have been running morning and night for days in an attempt to keep her lawn looking green, while I can practically hear my blades of grass sizzling.

Why don’t I water my lawn?  Because I just can’t justify spending one of the world’s most valuable resources on my lawn.  Did you know that 884 million people lack access to safe water and 1 in 8 people die from water related diseases every year?  When people are dying from the lack of something I have such easy access to, I can’t just waste it by pouring it on my grass.  Never mind the additional expense of watering my lawn; money that my family needs or that I can donate to help others have clean, sustainable water. 

Now, I don’t judge other people for watering their lawns and I don’t expect everyone to share my sentiments.  I just want people to understand why my lawn is turning brown and why I’m not doing anything about it.

Click here to learn how you can help others have access to clean water.

Gardening 101

See that gigantic plant in bottom right corner of the picture?  That’s my spaghetti squash.  I’m starting to think spaghetti squash and square foot gardens do not go well together.

It’s starting to encroach upon pepper plant territory.  Oh, what to do!?  Looks like solving this problem will be my afternoon project.  Any suggestions?

Gardening 101

Gardening requires something I clearly lack……Patience.

Gardening 101

Snow Peas!  I noticed these today.  Not sure how large they need to be before I can pick them, but I’m so excited to see them!And I found a banana pepper hiding beneath the leaves!Looks like I’ll have some Lincoln Peas soon, too!Here’s my (mostly) salad garden, with carrots, cilantro, swiss chard, cabbage, peas, snow peas, zucchini, basil, and calendula. And here’s my (mostly) salsa garden with cherokee purple tomato, banana pepper, habanero pepper, sweet bell pepper, jalapeno pepper, bush pickle cucumber, spaghetti squash, rosemary, and bush beans.Abraham is so happy thinking about all of the yummy veggies he’ll get to eat.

Gardening 101

I visit my garden everyday; anxiously awaiting the chance to harvest something…anything!  Finally, the spinach looked ready for the taking!  I should add that this is my first time growing spinach.  In my eagerness to bring forth my bounty from garden to kitchen, I reached in and pulled out four lovely heads of spinach.  I carried them to the kitchen, pulled off the leaves and cleaned them.As I marveled at the size of the leaves, I tried to remember what kind of heirloom spinach seeds I ordered from Bakers Creek way back in February.  I found the packet of seeds.  It’s Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach and it’s been around since 1925.  I continued to read the back of the package, “harvest often for continued growth.”  Wait, what?  I had just pulled them up leaves, roots and all!  So, here’s my “bounty” for the season.  One gallon-sized bag of spinach.  At least until fall, when I’ll try again…now that I’ve learned my lesson.

Suburban Farming

I LOVE to see my garden grow.  In spite of the cool weather and non-stop rain, my herbs and veggies are growing strong.  I’m a gardener at heart; give me some soil and sunshine and I’ve just got to do some planting!  Below are close-ups of my two gardens. This is mainly my early spring/fall garden.  From left to right, the rows are:

1. Beets, Calendula, Spinach, Baby Carrots
2. Broccoli, Radish, Daisy, Cilantro
3. Cabbage, Red Romaine, Swiss Chard, Basil
4. Snow Peas, Zucchini, Cucumber, Peas

This is my mid-late summer garden.  Most of the plants are recent transplants or are just sprouting from seed.  From left to right, the rows are:

1. Purple Cherokee Tomato, Eggplant, Roma Tomato, Spaghetti Squash
2. Cubanelle Pepper, Anaheim Pepper (2), Bush Pickle Cucumber
3. Bush Bean, Pepperoncini, African Cayenne Pepper, Rosemary
4. (Nothing, yet).

Here’s how we keep the rabbits out of the garden!  That’s my sweet hubby in the background making the second garden screen.  They just sit right on top of the garden frame.  I can water through them and can easily lift them off to weed and harvest. 

I hope to post about my harvest soon!

Square Foot Gardening

Above is a picture of my gardening schedule.  I have 33 herbs, veggies and flowers on my garden list; only one of which will be transplanted to a pot.  The rest are going in our square foot gardens.  This weekend is the first weekend for sowing seeds outdoors, so we needed to get our square foot gardens ready to go.  Scott did most of the work, but I helped mix the soil and rake one of the gardens.  The soil to use is a mixture of compost, peat moss and vermiculite.  I didn’t have any luck finding vermiculite, but I read that it’s okay if y0u to leave it out, so long as you keep your garden well-watered.  Scott built the frames, then we mixed the soil and filled the frames.

Once the frames were filled with dirt, Scott hammered in the wooden lattices so that we have 16 squares in each garden.Now our gardens are ready for plants!  Tomorrow, I’ll sow spinach, beets, peas and calendula seeds. I hope our gardens produce a good crop!Visit http://www.squarefootgardening.org/ to learn more.

Signs of Spring

Signs of spring are every where, so I took some time today to capture this awakening!Three days after sowing, my cabbage and broccoli seeds have already sprouted!  Seeing the broccoli sprouts gave me the idea to sow a larger crop of broccoli seeds just for growing and eating broccoli sprouts.  I love broccoli sprouts but they are so expensive at the grocery store. It took some rooting around beneath the mulch to find them, but I was rewarded by little, red, Peonia shoots pushing up through the soil. The Daylilies are popping out!So are the Irises!But the surest sign of spring was hidden beneath the downspout deflector.Bitey, our “pet” garter snake that lives under the porch is on the move.  I’ve been watching for him since the weather turned warmer and haven’t seen him, but it looks like he’s awakened from his winter slumber.  And by the size of his tracks, I’d say he’s grown quite bit!