A City Girl and Her Garden

Now that I live in the bucolic countryside north of Baltimore, I've decided to take up gardening. Both my sweetie and I have dreamed of a vegetable garden forever, but have only had the room to grown herbs up until now. This year we've planted cucumbers, red peppers, two kinds of tomatoes, sweet peas and of course, lots of herbs. Everything is doing really well, especially now that it's getting hot. We've already enjoyed the sweet peas, but can't wait for fresh Roma tomatoes and sweet cucumbers mixed with our mint and basil. Mmmmmmm. If only we could grow fresh mozzarella, too!

You can tell that we're having a hard time letting our city ways go, since we planted everything in planters. Some habits die hard, but our patio sure looks cute with all the veggies around. I wish it could be early summer all year long.

Green Idea: Giving new life to a takeout container

This year, like many people, I've been making an extra effort to be conscious of what I consume and what I put in the landfill. Going beyond simply putting plastic water bottles in the recycling bin, I've been reducing consumption by bringing my own bags to the store and doing my best to not purchase items that cause any extra waste. However, with our busy schedules sometimes it seems impossible to keep all random plastic items out of our lives.

Last night, exhausted after a busy week, I picked up some takeout. Guess what came with it? This enormous plastic container. After careful cosideration, I decided that this would be perfect for planting seeds or starts. So, I cleaned out the container and poked holes for drainage in each of the sections. If it wasn't fall, I would have planted some new seeds or starts to put outside. A use in winter could be an indoor herb garden for your kitchen. I feel so happy that this container turned out to be so useful!