Onward with my goals... and a little inspiration!

Day 4 - so far so good! I'm starting to feel good. Feeling like I'm making better decisions. 

Well last night after I posted my blog ..... and was suppose to be sleeping..... I started reading a book about gardening.... how to make $10,000 a year from your own backyard. I've always had a passion of growing things. Now... I'm not talking on acres of acres of land and having the mules plow.... and having a sunburned neck all the time.... (like the redneck I was sorta brought up to be, but I digress) I'm talking about having a few small plants and watering them and nurturing them... and maybe even whipping up some kind of food concoction. Well well well.... I got a little bored of the book... and started looking at this magazine called 'Mother Earth News' ... I started subscribing to it last year when I wanted to first start this garden project. There was an article from the Fall 2010 - Guide to living on less and loving it that was titled 'Grow $700 of food in 100 square feet' DUDE.... this was my thing. Basically the woman had decided to take a 5 by 20 ft area (100 sq ft) out of her backyard and plant a few veggies that she likes. Two types of tomatoes, 6 types of bell peppers, 4 types of zucchinis, four basils, and 18 lettuces mostly all romaine lettuce. Here is a picture of what it looked like when she got it planted. She also had added a few flowers for looks.

In one summer she counted and weighed all her harvest and compared prices at the grocery store and she estimated her garden to have produced over $700 and it was all organic! It was 77.5 lbs worth of food (15.5 pounds of bell peppers, 14.3 pounds of lettuce, 2.5 pounds of basil, and 126 zucchinis!). The article also mentioned if that 84 millions US households had a garden in 2009, and if just have of them planted this 100ft garden that would be a national savings on groceries of $14.35 billion! She also brought to light that in one month she harvested 230 servings of salad!   This is the picture after:

Now..... I'm no farmer BROWNE (my last name) but I love my salad.... and I decided that I wanted to plant a garden this year and this article just put it into action. I know for some having a garden isn't an option.... or they may not want to get down and dirty.... but I can spare a few hours outside enjoying the beauty, soaking up some vitamin D the natural way, and harvesting food so that my grocery bill is lower. Love it! Do you know what I could do with an extra $700.. and that was only one season!

The article was out of Mother Earth News Fall 2010. It was by a woman named Rosalind Creasy who has a website (http://www.rosalindcreasy.com/) and she's also published a book (which is next on my list to get) called Edible Landscaping. 

I was so excited last night I think I made a list of about 20 things I'd like to grow... now I know me... and I know that I put way too much on my plate for my own good.... (yes yes... even with food....) so I know that my list will have to shrink a little. We shall see, you never know.

I also forgot to mention that I have 3 lime trees and 1 orange tree on my property that is already producing fruit.... SCORE... I just need to properly prune it this year (yikes) and fertilize it. I will be sure to post pictures of my progress! I gotta start planning now.... I'd like to have all my stuff in by march... and I need to figure out if I want to just plant in the ground... or do a raised bed.

I'm feeling good... I feel like I got some motivation... and I've been struggling for the longest time. More to come

Hope you are having a healthy and happy sunday!

Love Always,

Amberly