"Container" Gardening - Growing Tomatoes!

I am an aspiring gardener. I really, really wanted to grow a garden this summer, but the timing was just not right. Between selling our old house, moving into our new house a month before I was due and then Brenden being born there just wasn't the time to plan and plant a proper garden. But, my wonderful mother did provide me with 3 tomato plants and even planted them for me as I was 9 months pregnant!

Also, because I have been known to kill plants in the past, I thought it might be wise for me to nurture and grow these tomato plants this year and see how well I could do, before I attempted to actually grow a garden.

I wanted to share how we planted these tomatoes, because it really is such an easy way to grow tomatoes, especially if you don't have a yard, or don't want to (or have time to) designate a spot in your yard for growing tomatoes.

We (and when I say "we", I really just mean my mom) used bags of potting soil and cut a hole in the top of the bag and planted the tomato plant right inside the bag of potting soil. The bags came prefertilized, so technically these aren't "organic" tomatoes, but I haven't sprayed them with any kind of chemicals, and I didn't have to add any other fertilizer, so I'm okay with it. Then all you have to do is put them in a sunny place and water them regularly. The bag really helps to give the tomato plants the kind of growing environment that they thrive in by keeping the soil hot and keeping the soil moist.

My tomato plants are growing well. And last week I harvested my first tomato! My mom and my sister were actually in town visiting, and we sliced the tomato to have on sandwiches for lunch. Oh, there is nothing like a homegrown tomato! It was really good, and I'm excited for my many green tomatoes to ripen up!

I am hoping to plan and prepare this fall for planting a real garden next spring/summer. There is something so exciting to me about planting something, watching it grow and produce food that you can actually eat. And best of all - it's free. Well, besides the cost of the plants or seeds, soil and any other supplies you might need to start your garden. But, the cost of homegrown food is much less than buying it at the store or the farmer's market. I love to think about all the possibilities of growing my own food in my own garden next year!

Have you planted a garden or container garden this year? What kinds of things are you growing? Do you have any tips for preparing in the fall to plant a garden in the spring?

Garbage Inventory - Part II - You Are What You Waste

As I mentioned before, a few weeks ago I did a Garbage Inventory - keeping track of the garbage that myself and Kaelyn created over the course of one day. It was very interesting to me, and I shared a few of my observations in Part I, and I still have a few more thoughts I want to share.

While I found that we had a lot of food waste, I also realized that we had a fair amount of waste that related to food - wrappers, containers, things of that sort that food comes in. I realized that the more you eat whole foods (as in not processed foods), cook from scratch and buy in bulk, the less food related/packaging waste you will create. This is an area I really want to get better at - it will save us money and is much healthier to eat less processed food. I am hoping in the coming months to learn to cook/make even more things at home, and from scratch.

Thinking about process food packaging, made me think about packaging in general and how much waste is created simply in the packaging of items. I would really like to become more aware and thoughtful of the packaging and waste created in a products that I purchase, whether food or otherwise. When deciding whether or not to buy something, does the amount of packaging the item have play into your decision making? It never has for me before.

But, now I want to start looking at an item on a store shelf or rack, and think "Do I want to throw away the waste created by this items packaging? Is there a way I can buy what I need with less packaging involved?" This would include buying baking supplies, cleaning supplies, etc. in bulk, as well as not buying single serving food items - like single serving fruit snacks, cheese sticks or granola bars, but trying to figure out a way to create my own single servings in re-usable packaging. This may also mean looking at a toy or household item and trying to find the one that has the least packaging waste. This is also another great reason to buy items used whenever you can - no new packaging to throw away!

"You are what you waste". The types of things you throw away and the waste your family creates says a lot about the kind of life you live - the kinds of food you eat, the way you clean your home, the way you care for your children and ultimately the way you think about the environment. I think so many times it too easy to throw things into the garbage can and it becomes 'out of sight, out of mind'. We don't think about the fact that our garbage doesn't just go away into some vast black hole of trash when the garbage truck comes and hauls it away. It has to go somewhere, it takes up valuable space on this earth, and it has effects on the ground, the water, the air that we don't even realize. I want to become more and more conscious of the things my family throws away and try to reduce our waste in any and every way that I can.

Is this something you think about, or does never really cross your mind? Have you thought about the type of waste you and your family create? Have you taken steps to reduce the amount of garbage you throw away?

Meatless Mondays

In June, I decided once a week we should try eating a vegetarian meal for dinner instead of eating meat as the main dish, which is our typical dinner. And just to make it a little more fun, I chose to have our vegetarian meals on Monday so that we could call it Meatless Monday.

There basically two reasons I thought this would be a good idea for us to try.

1. It is frugal. Meat is expensive. Beans, veggies, eggs, and other things that make for good vegetarian meals are cheap. I thought it would be good for our grocery budget to have one less meal of meat during the week. Plain and simple.
   
2. It is better for the environment. The meat industry creates greenhouse gases - lots and lots of them. In fact, according to the Environmental Defense Fund eating one less meat meal per week is the same as taking half a million cars off of the road in the U.S. in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The meat industry is also one of the largest producers of the greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide. So, reducing meat consumption helps to reduce these gases in our environment.
   

Because we had so many meals provided for us after Brenden was born (which was such a huge blessing!) we've only been eating meatless meals for about 4 weeks. In that time I've also been thinking about all of the people in the world for whom meat is either a luxury that they just can't afford, or something that they don't have access to at all. They eat vegetarian meals out of necessity, not by choice, and I think that it is so important for us to remember just how fortunate and blessed we are to be able to eat what we want, when we want.

Also, I have been trying to be committed to not eating meat for breakfast or lunch when at home with Kaelyn. This is partly because K doesn't like to eat meat, but also came from a suggestion by my friend, Jenica, as a way to reduce our meat consumption. We do eat meat sometimes for lunch, usually when eating leftovers from dinner, but it has at least made me more aware of trying to find meatless alternatives for lunch time.

All in all I think it's been a good thing for us so far, although my hubby may disagree with you, he's not a huge fan of the vegetarian meals. If you have any good meatless meals, I'd love to hear about them, please leave a comment with a link or a recipe!

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Meal Plan Monday

I'm back to Meal Planning after the new baby. We were so blessed to receive meals for about 3 weeks after Brenden was born, and we've just been kind of taking it day by day since then, but now it's time to get back in the habit of having our meals for the week planned out. It makes life so much easier - just one less thing to have to worry about and spend time figuring out during the week. I love knowing what we're going to eat for dinner each night, and being able to prepare as much as I can ahead of time to keep dinner time as simple and stress free as possible. I have enough on my hands with my two babies now!!

Also, we're trying to eat out of our pantry as much as possible to use up the food we already have and buy as little as possible at the grocery store this week.

Meatless Monday - pasta with marinara sauce and veggies

Tuesday - hamburgers or brats on the grill

Wednesday - sloppy joes

Thursday - tuna salad sandwiches

Friday - BBQ Chicken Pizza

Saturday - meal from the freezer or leftovers

Sunday - meal from the freezer

Check out more great meal plans at Organizing Junkie!

Eliminating Paper Waste

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A few weeks ago in my Garbage Inventory, I realized how little paper waste our family creates. I have tried in many different areas to eliminate paper products from our home and replace them with reusable items. I think for those just getting started with going green, this is one of the easiest steps you could take, once you make one small change to not use paper, you will start thinking about how you can make changes in other areas too.

So, here are some of the ways I have eliminated paper waste in our household.

In the Kitchen:

• Hand towels and kitchen washcloths - somewhat obvious, and something that most people use in some form anyway. Use them to dry your hands, or dishes after washing, wipe down counters and the table, light cleaning, etc. Just the normal stuff that you might otherwise have used a paper towel for.
• Washcloths - instead of using paper towels to wipe off Kaelyn after she eats, or clean or wipe down her high chair I now use baby washcloths. I bought 2 packs of 12, so I have 24 washcloths and either use one throughout the day, or grab a new one whenever it gets too gross to keep on using.
• Bar Mop Cloths- I use towels like these that I got from Meijer for most cleaning type of jobs in the kitchen that I would have used a paper towel for. They are for messy cleaning, like wiping a spill up off the floor. Because they are white, I can bleach them if they get too dirty. And I think they actually do a better job than a paper towel would anyway.
• Cloth napkins - We used to use paper towels for napkins, but we had cloth napkins that we received as wedding presents that we never used. So I pulled those out and we use those instead of wasting paper towels as napkins.
• Dishcloths - this isn't something that you would necessarily use paper for, but I use cotton knitted (either by me or by my mother-in-law) dishcloths for washing dishes. I have read so many disgusting things about sponges and the bacteria that live in them that I refuse to use them or have them in our house.
  

Cleaning:

• Microfiber Cleaning Cloths- I use microfiber cloths that I got in the automotive section at Target (thicker and cheaper than the ones you find in the cleaning section) for most of my cleaning around the house. They are great for dusting without any harmful cleaners. They scrub and clean without scratching surfaces and they are lint-free and super absorbent.
  
• Rags - I have a wide variety of rags that I use for cleaning as well. I use old t-shirts and socks, old hand towels, thin white cloths that I got from Sam's, Gerber Prefold Cloth Diapers, etc. I just think you can never have too many rags for cleaning - then you will never run out and have to grap for a paper towel because they are all dirty.
• Swiffer mops - I use Gerber Prefold Cloth Diapers that I cut down and hemmed to fit onto the Swiffer for light cleaning and mopping. The diapers are so great for this because they are thicker and more absorbent in the middle, which is the part that does the actual mopping, and they are thinner on the outside, so they fit well into the Swiffer notches. I either spray the floor with my vinegar and water cleaner before mopping, or just wet the cloth with water before I put it on the mop, or use it dry for more "dusting"/picking up dog hair type of jobs. Better for the environment, and MUCH cheaper than buying Swiffer replacement cloths!

With all of the different types of cloths above, when they are dirty and ready to be washed, I just throw them down our stairs into a laundry hamper by the washer and dryer. I try to wash cloths and rags about once a week, and have built up a large enough stash that I don't run out before I've had time to do the wash.

Diapers and Wipes

• Cloth Diapers - we use cloth diapers on both Kaelyn and Brenden. (Although I do have to confess that K wears a disosable for naps and bedtime - she got used to them when we went through a period where we were not using cloth.) This really requires a whole separate post - one that I plan to write in the near future.
  
• Cloth Wipes - I use cheap gerber baby washcloths as well as some homemade flannel wipes from unused receiving blankets. I use a disposable wipes tube and fold the washcloths in half and lay them in. I mix up water with a squirt of baby soap and a few drops of Tea Tree Oil and pour it over the wipes. With two babies in diapers now, I go through a tub of my cloth wipes a day. I usually make up a new tub of wipes first thing every morning.
  

I think that's most of the ways that we have replaced paper products with cloth in our house. Sometimes though, I forget what we used to use paper for because I am just so use to using cloth for everything now!

What are some ways that you have reduced or eliminated paper waste in your house? Are there any paper products that you would like to stop using, but just haven't found a good replacement for yet?