Living green

I've always been in to the "green scene" and have been an active recycler of many different things: the obvious bottles for moola, bringing our own bags to the grocery store and local recycling service this lovely city offers - containers, newsprint and paper products.

Contributing to these different recycling options, we have significantly reduced our garbage in half. However, I still feel like it is not enough.

I want to start a home compost. Now, living in an apartment does not always deem this easy.. or maybe even possible, but I am determined. After briefly searching the wonderful worldwide web, I have come up with the idea of a "trash can" compost.. ironic, I know. It essentially consists of a plastic garbage pail with a lid and several large holes cut out (with mesh covering said holes). The idea thrills me. I can now imagine that our trash will be cut down ten fold because we throw away so much food.. yes, I know, I know.. why purchase food if we don't eat it? But don't rag on me because we all do it.

Now obviously a compost isn't really necessary unless you have somewhere to use it's wonderful composty goodness. Hence my next brilliant idea: I want to start a garden on our deck. We just so happen to be fortunate enough to live on the ground level and have a lovely large deck.. not balcony. I would love to get some large cedar boxes to line the deck and possibly some boxes to put on the ledge.. think along the lines of flower boxes. A little garden would not only save costs, but it would be better for our health.. no pesticides or herbicides. I could basically grow anything; carrots, peas, lettuce, potatoes, zucchini, asparagus, herbs, and even some fruit! I am thinking along the lines of strawberries and tomatoes. Not only will my apartment garden contain a bountiful amount of veggies, but it will also allow for beautiful flowers and luscious green grass for my three furry monsters.

I've always really enjoyed gardening, but haven't really entertained the idea of actually having one, with the limited space and all. Of course I have to have this brilliant idea come while we are in the middle of fall and with winter quickly threatening us. I suppose I can look at this as a good thing because now I can start saving for my supplies. I pretty much blame my Martha Stuart magazine subscription for subliminally presenting me with this gardening desire. I have been seeing way too many adds for gardening gloves (and embarrassingly swooning over them) and watering cans.. not to mention adorable gardening spades, and the essential gardeners carrying box.. yes, essential. Having this idea at this time of the year will also give me time to prepare and decide which seeds I would like to plant, and if they need to be started before being plunged into 'ol mother earth.

All this talk about gardens now has me excited for garden visitors, butterflies and bumble bees! And now I am inclined to also include a bird feeder. And you can't just include one bird feeder, you must have two to please both seed munchers and sweet nectar suckers, ie. humming birds. Now my cats are really going to love me! They get grass and a show.. a very tempting show.

Until next time..