Green Living where Global Warming is considered a Hoax

There is no easy way to break this to you guys but the only way your gonna keep grass out of your garden is to hoe! 

BUT, there is good news…if you hoe consistently at the beginning of the growing season, you probably wont have to break your back all summer long. 

Here’s how I did it:

First things first, I tilled up a plot.  I went through the dirt and got out any large clumps of grass root.  I have a yard full of centipede grass (roots run really deep).  I planted all my veggies, watered really good and the next day went out with the hoe. 

My grandmother, an experienced gardener, taught me how to hoe properly.  You use your blade to turn up the soil.  When you spot grass coming up, hack at it and try to pull the root and blades out.  When you hoe around your veggies, mound up some of the soil around the base of the plant. 

This serves many purposes in the garden: 1) your going to aerate the soil, 2) you will prevent your veggies from becoming root bound (the roots will not grow and your plant will become stunted), 3) you will prevent water from just running off your row by directing water to flow down around the root and 4) you will get rid of the grass. 

For the first month or so of gardening this season, I hoed every other day.  You should wear gloves so you don’t get blisters.  I will warn you, this is hard, back breaking work.  My best advice is to enlist your husband, wife, child or anyone willing to help.  The good new is I don’t have to hoe every other day now.  I haven’t hoed in a week and a half. 

I do turn up the soil periodically around the base of my veggies with a small trowel for purposes 1-3 but I don’t have grass in my garden.  My diligence payed off and I successfully removed all roots and seeds.  Occasionally I will see a blade pop up and I just pull it out. 

We have a lot of green tomatoes, we have eaten squash and cucumbers, there are 4 cantaloupes growing, the corn is about 5′ tall and my peas and butter beans are all blooming.  I see bees every morning.  I do have to water some but I let the ground get dry before I get out the hose, you can over water. 

I hope this info helps and I’m sorry about the bad news.  It will pay off though.  This is my first garden and it is a success.  If I can do it you can too, it’s not too late.  Good luck and I look forward to hearing your success stories!

So I’ve been thinking a lot about how my garden might be offsetting my carbon emissions and decided to do some research about it. 

As you all know, we all leave a carbon footprint.  Someone out there had a capital idea and started a business of offering offsets for businesses and individuals’ footprints.  These offset businesses take your money and invest it in renewable energy, conservation and so on.  This investment in the environment is supposed to offset your carbon emissions leaving you with a neutral footprint. 

Al Gore offsets his $1300 a month electric bill for his Tennessee mansion through one of these businesses. 

Buying offsets is a booming business for Corporate America, Hollywood and the like but, is it a realistic choice for individuals. 

With the economy in it’s current dire straights how, besides buying offsets, can the average individual, or family, offset some of their carbon emissions with out choosing between that and the mortgage?  So first thing you would need to know is your carbon footprint, right? 

There are a lot of calculators on the web and most of them are from offset co. but I did find a rather fun one that is set up like a game, called Consumer Consequences.  It’s not too detailed but you can get the jest of where you are emitting the most carbon. 

So you’ve played the game and now know how many Earths we would need if everyone lived your lifestyle.  You’re probably feeling pretty sick and frightened now.  This is what these offset co. are banking on, now they have you primed to spend some money. 

My primary problem with this, besides the fact that I think they are using shock and awe tactics, is that if your expecting someone else to put your heart into their work your buying fool’s gold. 

Here is an analogy for you: who takes better care of your kids than you?  No one right?  Well, your kids are your life and your carbon footprint is your life too.  No one is going to do as good of a job as you of cleaning it up. 

So you’re on board; where to start?   Before you start thinking of offsets, think of reduction.

Everything we buy leaves a footprint, think of your groceries: all that packaging created a lot of carbon emissions to create it, not too mention the shipping, the emissions of the people who had to get to work to get it to the store, on the shelf and eventually to you. 

Your table or kid’s lunch box is just a drop in the bucket of that bag of chip’s journey. 

Think small and start reducing your waste and reusing as much as you can.  Instead of buying individually warped chips, buy the big bag and a reusable plastic container (and if you’re going to be putting the same thing in that container everyday, don’t waste water washing it, just wipe it out with a dish rag, it’s just chips). 

Stop eating out, pack leftovers for work. 

Don’t wash your towels after every use, let them dry out between uses and use them 2-3 times. 

It’s all very small scale but if you start thinking like this, you will reduce your carbon emissions and not have to offset so much. 

Start buying locally.  Remember the further an item has to travel to get to you, the heavier its carbon footprint is.  There are farmer’s markets everywhere.  Look around in your area and start supporting your local growers.  The food taste better, your helping to support a real person’s life and your reducing your foot print. 

So your living a green life, you just bought a hybrid and installed some solar panels on the roof but your still emitting carbon, how can you offset some of those emissions with out padding the wallets of some offset co. CEO? 

Look no further than you own yard.  Plant trees, plant flowers, better yet, plant a garden; grow something to eat (a very short trip to the table). 

Put up a clothes line and offset the electricity you use to wash your clothes by drying them naturally. 

Once you start thinking like this you will come up with ideas that work for your life.  Please share them with others.  It may seem simple, and really it is; with a little extra work here and there you can get close to a neutral footprint without breaking the bank (you’ll actually end up saving money).        

To my delight, I went out to the garden this morning and all of my corn had sprouted out of the ground!  I am most apprehensive about my corn because corn has special growing requirements.  My uncle explained to me last night that people typically plant corn in at least a 10×10 plot. 

I am a little discouraged.  I also learned that each stalk will only produce one ear of corn, two at the most.  If I’m lucky we will get 25 ears of corn! 

All of my other veggies are growing beautifully.  I’ve only spotted a few zinnias popping up out of the ground but I did plant a handful of mammoth sunflower seeds today.  I am also very worried about the bees.  I hope I get enough pollination action. 

I attached some lattice to a few stakes and drove them into the ground by the cantaloupes, they like to crawl.  The wind blew over one of the lattices so I had to drive it back into the ground.  I have to get some more lattice for my cucumbers.  I will dig around in the wood shed at my parents and try to find some more. 

It did not rain yesterday as I had hoped so I watered some this morning after hoeing and pulling out some grass that is starting to creep into the garden.  I have been toying around with the idea of extending the garden and planting a row of butterbeans and a row of string beans.  I’ve also wondered about putting up a scarecrow, maybe a weekend project to work on with the kids. 

My plan now is to have a garden every summer.  My mother has beautiful flower gardens and my grandmother has grown vegetables every summer.  She used to have huge gardens but as she has aged, her gardens have grown smaller.  The tradition and desire has been passed to me.  Now that I have children I want to make sure I pass the tradition down to them and also fill their bellies with the best stuff on earth. 

With the rising cost of food and gas I thought it would be fun, healthy and cost effective to plant a garden this year.  I have been successful in the past with container gardens but have never tilled up the ground and tried to grow vegetables.   

My grandparents plant a garden every year and usually grow enough to share some.  I love fresh, organic veggies so I am very excited and a little apprehensive about my venture.  My grandmother has showed me how to hoe to keep grass at bay (it can strangle the vegetables) and aerate the soil.  I tilled up a small plot and created four rows. 

I planted 10 tomato plants, 1 green bell pepper, 7 cantaloupes, 5 cucumbers, 4 yellow crook neck squash, and 2 rows of corn (my grandmother informed me you have to plant at least 2 rows of corn so that it will cross pollinate).  I also planted some zinnia seeds at the ends of the rows to attract the bees and butterflies to help with the pollination. 

Bee populations have been on the decline but I did have a swarm of them earlier in the spring that stayed in a tree while it was in bloom.  The tree is about 5 yards from my garden so hopefully I will get enough bee action to provide a good crop. 

I have been working in the garden everyday since I planted everything (about a week now).  I have hoed twice and watered once.  We are forecasted to get some rain tomorrow, I’m keeping my fingers crossed; I don’t want to water all summer.  My corn hasn’t popped out of the ground yet but everything else is growing.  I am so excited; my mouth is watering just thinking about a tomato sandwich!