Eco Friendly Friday

This week we finally put our garden in. A little late, but better than no garden at all. Since we let the boys help out this year we have an interesting mix...tomatoes, tomatillos, zucchini, yellow squash, watermelon and lettuce. The boys REALLY wanted apples, bananas and mangos but were satisfied with our choices.

Keeping a garden is a great way to be eco friendly! What we don't grow in our garden we purchase at our local farmer's market. Keeping it local helps support our farmers and cuts down on the carbon footprints. And I have to admit, after working in the garden for a couple days I have a newfound respect for our farmers. So I want to send a big THANK YOU to them and the hard work they accomplish in order to put food on our plates.

Composting is another great way to be eco friendly around the house. We started ours a couple years ago, and this is the first year I got around to using the compost in my garden. It's amazing to see how much organic waste you have...I just feel too guilty throwing it in the trash. Now that we compost I have an instant fertilizer for my plants and garden. We have a basic bin and every night I toss our scraps. Once in awhile...like once a summer...I get into the bin with a shovel and mix it around. I know I should do this more often, if only I had more time on my hands! This is a great site to learn more about composting: How to Compost.

Here's a little look at our garden and what we grow:


Plants that we purchased from our friend's nursery.






This year I planted herbs in planters. In the past I had them in a separate garden since they came back each year, but I noticed that each year they lost a little bit of flavor.

Blueberries are planted on the west side of the house.

Hops grow up the west side of the house.
My husband loves to brew his own beer. We both LOVE hoppy beer.

Do you have a garden? What do you grown in your garden? I would love to hear about it!