The Fruits (I Mean Vegetables) of Our Labor...

Our garden has been growing quite well, especially given the fact that I am not consistant with my care and upkeep of it at all. I also have no excuse for this, since I do not work in the summer...but I digress. Fortunately, tomatoes and yellow squash can handle my neglect. So far, we've harvested four HUGE squash, which we've shared with the neighbors and grilled up for some summer dinner lovin. We've also got a ton of cherry tomatoes (also shared/eaten), and 3 of the juiciest, most decadent regular-size Jersey tomatoes I've ever had the pleasure of eating. They managed to make a gluten-free bagel taste delicious (no easy task).

If the tomatoes keep coming, I will be looking into turning them into tomato sauce and possibly jarring and freezing it. Or just eating it all and forgetting about the jarring.

Our basil and mint plants are also doing swimmingly, and we've injested a ton of mozza pasta and mint green tea to prove it.

Red peppers, cilantro and cucumbers, not so much.

Weeds, Be Gone!

I need some lawn maintenance advice. We have weeds. A lot of them. Our front "lawn" is actually small stones, and despite the weed block mat underneath (which I'm sure is very old and I know is completely ineffective as a result), we have a weed lawn growing in between all the stone. There are weeds everywhere. My garden has weeds. Our weeds have weeds. I pulled out a weed that looked like a small tree today.

We tried one chemical treatment at the beginning of the season (much to my protest and I'm still feeling major guilt) and it didn't really work anyway. I've heard that people use vinegar, but my future in-laws tried it and said not only was it not effective, but it made the entire neighborhood stink.

Does anyone have an environmentally friendly way of eliminating weeds?!?!? I don't have the stamina to keep pulling them out by hand, and it doesn't really seem to make that much of a difference anyway. Sigh.

Summer Grillin

G and I have decided to attempt an air-conditioner free summer. We have ceiling fans in every room of the house, and buying window units just doesn't seem all that appealing. Number one, they cost money to buy and operate. Number two, they would take away some of the limited natural light we get in the house (a fact which does help our AC-less cause, btw).

There has only been a couple of nights that G has felt a bit uncomfortable, but I haven't noticed it, as I've been told I sleep with my eyes open and the bedroom lights blaring. I'm low maintenance. So, here's hoping we can make it through and save some major dough and some carbon footprints!

As a result of our venture, we've been using the grill a lot, as cooking on the stove increases the kitchen temperature considerably. I'm big on grilled veggies, and I'm hoping that my Jurassic park yellow squash plants are ready for some action soon. These are perfect. They are so delicious, so filling, and so simple. I sub in Trader Joe's Brown Rice Tortillas for my tostada. And until our garden kicks into full force, I'll be going here for my produce.

Happy summer!

Summertime, and the livin's easy...

Things are winding down at work, and things are sprouting on Roe Avenue.

First, it all started in the spring with a cheap-o beginning to composting. $12 garbage can from Home Depot, free bungee cord from our car's emergency kit, and leftover scrap wood from our deck project. Enter, the compost bin. Be sure to drill some holes on the sides and on the bottom for drainage. I've found that adding some dirt in addition to your browns and greens (4:1 ratio-ish) has really helped. And adding worm friends from the dirt around the house doesn't hurt either.

Then came the garden. I was so amped to start my first vegetable garden, and it seems to be doing quite well so far. I planted spinach, red pepper, cucumber, two tomato plants, and two yellow squash plants. At the beginning, it looked like this:

The ugly chicken wire fence is to keep out critters and the pit bull dog from across the street, as the garden is in our front side yard.

About a month or so later, our garden began to look like this:

Notice the Jurassic Park-esque size of the squash plants. They are almost double that size currently. It's absolutely ridiculous. And I've since caged up the tomatoes, so we will see how that goes.

And, we are sprouting...check out the little guy!

Last but not least, our first spinach harvest:

I love learning the ins and outs of gardening. I'm doing this completely in a "fly by the seat of my pants/trial and error/this looks good and uh oh this doesn't" sort of way. I'm not very methodical, but I can read the signs of too little watering, which is working in my favor. And our herb pots in the back (cilantro, basil, and mint) are doing pretty well too. Let's hope it continues!

Spring Has Sprung!

Finally! Spring is here, and I have a moment to reflect. So many things have been happening, I've neglected my blog...but hopefully I'll be able to become more dedicated again now that things are slowly (but surely) falling into place.

We have finally gotten rid of all of the scrap wood and debris in the yard and took it to the recycling. We've tackled our lawn and gardens with some major weeding action (and I mean major), G planted new grass that we are anxiously awaiting, and I started a compost. Next weekend I plan to have my veggies in the ground and my herbs in pots (yellow squash, spinach, cherry tomatoes, cilantro, mint, basil, and possibly red peppers).

And there are flowers in bloom! Things are looking up! Pictures to come once all of these things are more picture friendly...

Home Ownership: Day 13.5

Owning a home is hard work. G and I have put in many hours of hard labor, and I am beginning to realize a few things:

1) Primer is not a very green product, and its fumes give rather large headaches.
2) Peeling, priming, patching, priming, and painting a ceiling will end up taking about 3 weeks, not 3 days.
3) It's cold outside.
4) Handy and helpful family members go a long way :)

Not much more to report on the green front, but we are hoping to be in by the new year!

Green Home Ownership

It's been a very hectic couple of months. Among the many happenings, I got engaged and bought a house with my pre-hubby!!! Therefore, blog posting kind of fell to the wayside.

Have no fear! Now that I am a homeowner, I am searching for ways to lower our costs and our carbon footprint within the home.

On our first (of many) big trips to Home Depot, we purchased a Dual-Flush Converter for our toilet. We haven't installed it yet (we are too busy scraping peeling paint off the ceilings and cleaning up the kitchen!) but I am psyched, and the product got great reviews. And so cheap!

Other priorities in the coming month will be a low flow shower head, signing up for Viridian, and trying to buy some of our furniture on Craiglist, instead of buying new.

Be on the lookout for more home improvement updates!