Tryin' to go green...

I've decided to make more of an effort to "go green" as they say. We have done the basic recycling for many years and I've always felt good about that, but I am learning about so many other ways to conserve and protect our earth, and use natural resources.



The first thing I did to avoid as much chemicals in food as possible is join a local organic farm a.k.a a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). We met the owners of this particular farm two years ago at a local farmer's market. At that time I was trying to convince my husband we needed to eat more organic foods. So once we learned this gentleman's farming methods and beliefs (and met many members of his wonderful family), we decided to join for this current growing season. The season has just started and we picked up our first "fruits" last week. Mmmmm....fresh lettuce and radishes were our choices.

Also, I decided that I myself wanted to try my own raised bed garden. So I planted different lettuces, onions, radishes, rhubarb, strawberries, beans, peas, tomatoes, peppers, garlic, eggplant, zucchini, squash, and would you believe I still have room? My mother was right...nothing tastes better than something you've grown yourself. I'm amazed I've been so successful with it thus far. And boy do I LOVE walking up to the back yard and harvesting for dinner-can't get any fresher!

I also began bin composting earlier this year. I attended a local seminar and learned a lot about it-more than I ever thought was involved. I also purchased a kitchen compost container to collect the compost goodies and transport to the larger bin. I do have a problem keeping it as moist as it should be so I need to be more vigilant with adding water.

In addition to the "food" scraps compost, I also started a yard waste compost pile. I did purchase a cage like bin for this but it is not as sturdy and durable was advertised, so I ended up using other fasteners to keep it together. I will look to getting something different going for next year, but for right now I at least have it functioning.

Oh my gosh I almost forgot our newest composter-The Pet Poo Composter! What a hoot! I'm not kidding-this is actually a system that converts your pet's poo into viable compost-no sh*t! (pun intended) I just set it up so I'll have to see how it goes (no pun intended). But with multiple pets it seemed like a great way to use something that is such a "hot commodity" around here. It was pretty gross putting the worms in the composter though-ick! I'm not that earthy. I'll let you know!

I purchased rain barrels to collect nature's water for gardens, etc. I haven't set them up yet though as we are having some work completed at our house and they would be in the way, so I have to wait a bit for set-up.

Now here's a biggy, for me any way...light bulbs! I am gradually working to change all bulbs to the energy efficient ones. In time..

Our washer and dryer are newer and both carry the energy symbol as does our dish washer, so as appliances break down, hopefully we will be able to continue purchasing "green/energy efficient products."

There are other smaller ways we are trying to conserve but those are the big ones here and I am very proud we are on our way to "Green land." It's very interesting discovering more ways to conserve and save and I'm always looking for new ideas. I hope you all may consider "green efforts" as well-we need to take care of God's earth and it can start with each one of us! Enjoy the beauty of today!