This is Ming Ming.
He’s my baby avocado tree. He goes outside for 15 minutes of sun every day.
Unfortunately, Ming Ming is about to get pruned. When he’s six inches tall again, he’ll be planted in soil! I’m sad about pruning him as he’s going to be losing all of his leaves. Poor Ming Ming…
I have sprouts!! I literally squealed when I checked the bags this afternoon. They are barely visible, especially in the photos, but there is just a tiny bit of green in each of the bags.
My oregano is growing the fastest. There are tons of tiny green sprouts poking out of the dirt.
Oregano
The basil is growing slower but is showing definite signs of progress.
Basil
And my tomato has one tiny white-ish shoot. Just a tiny little thing. So cute!!
Tomatoes
I know it’s early, but I have visions of a really yummy pizza coming out of the oven.
Until now, I’ve never recevied a housewarming gift. What a wonderful surprise! My brother and his sweet wife sent us a wonderful gift, one that we were very excited to receive.
Pizza in a bag!
The bag on the left is basil, followed by cherry tomatoes in the center, and oregano on the right. When these sprout, I can make homemade pizza with herbs and tomatoes grown on my own counter.
I can’t believe that a tomato plant grows from just these tiny seeds!
The instructions state that the bags are to be covered in plastic wrap. I don’t have any plastic wrap so I had to improvise; I cut up a produce bag and used that instead!
In 7-10 days, I should see the beginnings of life. I am very excited about container and patio gardening and these bags represent the first tiny sprouts of that new venture. Our very own home grown produce. I can’t wait!
I have been cooking from scratch for several weeks. For the most part, it’s been great! Most of the food has been good and I’ve added a couple of meals to our favorites list.
Cooking from scratch requires that I buy a lot of food from the bulk bins: nuts, seeds, flours, rice, beans, dried fruit. Because of this, I am running into two problems.
1 – I’m slowly killing the environment with all of these plastic bulk bags. It’s ironic, as I use reusable shopping bags to carry my groceries home!
2 – My cupboard is overflowing with ingredients and it’s hard to find anything.
Help! Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I could do to eliminate at least one of these problems?
My scary cupboard
Today is Earth Day! I believe that taking care of the earth is important because God gave it to us.
Then the LORD God took the man
and put him in the garden of Eden
to tend and keep it.
Genesis 2:15
God could have created this world in just an instant. After all, He spoke everything into existence. Instead, He took six days to create the earth, making it a perfect home for man to live in.
Although sin has destroyed much of the beauty, our planet is still beautiful. If you keep your eyes open, you can see the fingerprints of God. Just watch Planet Earth or Planet Seas to see some of the beauty. Or, take a look in your own backyard. God gave us a huge gift and told mankind to tend and keep it.
There are many, many things we can do to benefit our world. They don’t even have to be environmental causes, per se. Taking care of our fellow human beings is also a great way to celebrate Earth Day.
Environmentalism, recycling, reusing, reducing our impact on the planet… all of these things have been on my mind lately. I think the tsunami in Japan brought the issue to the forefront of my mind. Looking at the photos and videos of some parts of Japan, I cry. Not only are the people forced to start their lives over, the environmental impact is huge. What do you do with all of the wrecked buildings? The cars? The trashed belongings? All of that trash has to go somewhere.
Lately, I’ve been looking into the zero waste lifestyle. Don’t Waste Your Homemaking brought it to my attention by posting this video.
I’ll be sharing more later about my first attempts at reducing my waste. Even though I have no intention of going this extreme, it’s a great motivation!
Are you doing anything specific to celebrate Earth Day?
Hubby picked up a new water filter earlier this week. I highly recommend it. It’s bigger than our old one and filters the water so much faster. We’re not running out of water now, whereas the pitcher was often empty before.
It’s been a pretty laid back day. I’ve been feeling very low energy for the last couple days so I’ve been taking it easy. I’m reading a lot and keeping up on the dishes, but that’s about it. My desk is almost clean! Each day, I sort through 5-10 pieces of paper and either file, recycle, or shred each one. My pile is almost manageable now! Pretty soon I’ll have enough room on my desk for the cats to sleep. According to them, that’s what all the furniture is used for!
I am so excited. If hubby’s working from home on Friday, I’m going to borrow the car and visit this farmer’s market. It’s only open on Friday mornings so I’ll have to visit some week when hubby’s off work or working from home. There is another farmer’s market we visited last year that’s open on Sundays, but it’s 10 miles from our house.
Buying locally will provide better quality fruit and veggies as well as contribute toward my goal of green living. Hopefully I can find some good organic produce that’s cheaper than the grocery store prices.
Happy Earth Day!!
When I started thinking of ways that hubby and I support green living, I was surprised at how many small changes we’ve implemented.
This website is a great resource to get involved and learn more. Green Living Tips is another great resource. Sign up for their free e-newsletter and they will plant a new tree.
According to the ecological footprint quiz, I need to reduce my carbon footprint. If everyone lived like me, we would need 3.2 planet earths to provide enough resources. I use 14.3 global acres of land and produce 15.7 tons of carbon dioxide. Looks like I still have some work to do!
Goals
Hopefully, enough people can make small changes so that we don’t require 3 planets to support human life.