Category Archives: Green Living

Planting the Rest of Our Container Garden

Last weekend Jesse and I planted the rest of our container garden. If you haven’t been following my gardening posts, you might want to catch up by reading about planning for my first garden and my first day of gardening.

Our Setup

First of all, let me show you most of the new additions:

That’s one pot of red bell peppers, six pots of basil, one pot of cherry tomatoes and one pot of Early Girl tomatoes. We picked Early Girl because Colorado has a short growing season and, as the name implies, Early Girl starts producing tomatoes earlier than some other varieties.…

My First Day of Gardening

At long last we have started our container garden! Jesse and I spent Saturday afternoon shopping for supplies and plants at McGuckin, our local old-fashioned hardware store. Before starting out on our adventure, I read up on buying seedlings, soil and fertilizer in my library copy of The Bountiful Container. (If you’re also new to container gardening, I’ve found The Bountiful Container to be a very helpful resource – it’s all about growing herbs, vegetables and fruits in containers.)

Shopping for Plants and Supplies

Despite my research, I still felt very awkward and insecure at the store. To put off having to look at soil and fertilizers, we first gathered easy supplies: a watering can, a trowel, and a 2-gallon plastic pot and corresponding saucer.…

Planning for Our First (Tiny) Garden

As you’ve no doubt gathered if you’ve been reading here regularly, Jesse and I are moving to a new apartment in about two weeks. One of the reasons that I am super excited about our move is that for the first time we will have a little bit of outdoor space in the form of our very own balcony. The balcony is on the smaller size, but it should still be big enough to do a little bit of gardening. As this will be my first garden, I thought I’d share how I’m preparing for the experience.

Before I go any further, let me first state that I have just about ZERO background knowledge on gardening.…

Five Eco-Friendly Actions You Can Undertake in a Small Apartment

Renting a six hundred square foot apartment prevents me from undertaking certain eco-friendly actions. For instance, I can’t compost, garden, raise my own chickens or upgrade existing appliances to be energy efficient. After living in this apartment for three years, however, I’ve found that there are quite a few things that I can do to reduce how much trash I generate and how much energy and water I use. Here are five actions from my list.

1. Air-dry your clothes

I air-dry all of our clothes using two of these metal drying racks. Since we don’t have any outdoor space, I set them up in our entryway.…

Decluttering? Try Freecycle

A few weeks ago I read a great post about decluttering. Inspired, I immediately set about collecting and getting rid of several bags worth of unnecessary stuff. Although a few items just went straight into the trash, most things I wanted to pass along because they still had plenty of life left in them. In addition to donating items to thrift stores and the library, I also gave away several things through Freecycle. If you’re unfamiliar with Freecycle, today I want to share a bit about how it works and what I use it for.

Freecycle is a nonprofit organization that facilitates the free exchange of possessions.…