Going Green In Baby Steps

When I first told a good friend of mine I wanted to go a little green in my day to day life she of course laughed. After she saw I was serious she told me I just had to blog about it.

Great idea!

This little blog will be my adventures in going green in an apartment. I've combed through page after page of content online and they all talk about homesteading. The only catch is you need some space.

I dont have any space to spare!

My patio is 12ft x 5ft I believe and that isn't quite enough room in my opinion. However, I've started a small vegetable garden out there and I will post about new projects and updates/upgrades to current ones.

Here is a small list of things I want to do:
1: Start a veggie garden
2: Start a compost pile (apt. style)
3: Expand veggie garden
4: Explore gray water reclamation
5: Design and build a Self Watering Pot
6: Harvest!
7: Replace 1 meal a week with homegrown goodness

This list isn't complete or even in the right order necessarily. I'm also sure that things will come up that will be added or removed. I do have a personal goal of eating a minimum of 1 meal from homegrown sources. That was actually what started this ball rolling. Here's my, brief, story of why I wanted to do this.

Everyone wants to save a little money so I decided to bite the bullet and brown bag it to work. I went to my favorite supermarket here in Phoenix, Az (there are dozens "favorite" is a misnomer) and picked up everything needed to make sandwiches.

Including a tomato. I love tomatos

I haven't really bought veggies in awhile and it was fun grabbing some. I thought to myself "Hey I can save money and eat healthy!"

All of the tomatos were hybrids. No biggie I'm sure they taste great.

Nope. For the first time in my life I ate a tomato that tasted bland. I mean I do know how a tomato is supposed to taste and it tasted a LITTLE bit like that. But gone was the taste I remember from my grandmas little Victory Garden. I remember it like yesterday with the big red tomatos just sitting on the plant looking delicous.

But not anymore. I went back a week later and I noticed every sign in small print said "Imported from Mexico". Please please understand I really don't care if a product is south of the border. However I would have thought tomatos which are pretty easy to grow would be a product of my own State and if not at least my own Country. Apparently almost all of the food grown comes from a distance greater than 1000 miles.

To me thats disconcerting.

I would think to keep costs down they would like to ship food pretty close to home. Again I'm wrong.

My Solution

Going Green!!!

I will keep you updated on my projects and let you know my solutions for Homesteading in baby steps even if you have an apartment. Please check back often and please give me any ideas and/comments.

Thanks for stopping by the farm!