Our Garden

Adam had asked me what I wanted to do for Mother's day, and I said, "Work in our garden!" We finally have a garden this year, and the plot is on Notre Dame's campus. We were some of the lucky few to get into the garden plots this year, and we had felt bad about not getting out to work the garden at that point yet. The kids had gotten Adam plants for his birthday, plus we had started some from seeds, but they were all cluttering up our small back porch at the apartment. Luckily we had great warm weather to get to work. When we arrived our plot was over grown with grass, covered in straw and cardboard boxes. We thought it was going to take us forever to get it cleaned up, but set right to work. There are tons of tools in a shed for us to use, so we loaded up a wheelbarrow and cleaned it up. It actually didn't take as long as we originally thought it would.

The kids helped load 3 wheelbarrows full of fresh top soil to cover the ground again.

Once we got the ground back into shape, the kids helped us plant all our plants! L is helping to plant one of the tomato plants he got Adam.

 D had to get in on the planting action as well. Here with some marigolds in the middle to break up some of the veggies.

We also planted some broccoli and carrots that the Easter bunny had brought the kids in their baskets that we started from seeds. 

Our finished work after the first day. We also planted peas and made a kind of climbing triangle out of branches we found on site. I think it turned out amazing. 

Happy Earth Day!

Now we typically celebrate the Earth everyday, but today is a day to sit back and think of all the things we do to help Mother Nature. I know that there are more things that we can be doing, but I am proud of all that we do already. If we owned our own home, we would do much more, but it's kinda hard to do some of those things when you have a landlord.

So here are some of the things that we do around our house:

-take reusable bags almost everywhere we go
-recycle 90% of our garbage
-go to the library to get our books, movies, and music
-hand wash using an environmentally friendly dish soap
-make our own cleaners (I'm just starting to do this more)
-use local produce to cook our meals every day
-Adam rides his bike to work everyday that the weather will allow
(we do live in Indiana, where the weather is nice every once in awhile!)
-we walk to the grocery store, library, park, zoo, and farmers market when the weather permits
-i have held a clothing, toy, and this week a used book swap
-we have planted veggies in our own garden
-we use ceramic plates instead of paper
-most of our furniture is reused from someone else
-i save glass jars and plastic containers to reuse again
-we donate our unwanted goods to a local charity
-i use to make our baby food when D was little
-i occasionally make our wet wipes (the only time I really don't is when mom buys wipes for us)
-we keep the furnace turned down to 66 during the day and 63 at night

Things that we would like to do:
-we had a compost pile at our old house, but like I said before, with renting you can't really do that easily.
-Adam would love the rain barrels!
-We would love to have a bigger garden, but with moving soon, not really likely.
-Would love to walk or ride bikes everywhere all the time (but with the weather we get here, and little public transportation not easy)
-Adam would love to save the bath water to flush the toilet, but not really safe with 2 little ones.
-we would love to eat all organic produce, but with making only $29,000 before taxes that's not really do able.


What do you do? What would you like to do? I know that there are probably more things that I can't think of right now (I'm beat!) so share your inspiration!