Start A Fun New Garden

Over the weekend I was surfing the web looking for what plants grow well in my zone which is 9b. I am in Florida but a lot of my fellow Texans are also in zone 9b. So I thought I would share this with you. I stumbled on a fun new way to garden called Straw Bale Gardening. There were several websites on straw bale gardening but I preferred this approach because it does not involve getting the bale ready by using Ammonia Nitrate. The website I found is called doug green's beginner-gardening.com, he also has a facebook a fan page. This is a perfect way to have a garden if you do not have a lot of space or if you are looking at garden possibilities give this some consideration. It would also provide the ability to garden for those who may not be able to bend over as much, and a fresh fun way to get your children involved and introduce them to gardening. It is also an inexpensive way to getting started. I called my local feed store this morning and asked for straw not hay bales and they do have them for under $7.00 a bale! I told the owner about the website and she is going to post it in her store, so I am already passing the straw bale gardening idea locally as well.

The key is buying a bale of straw, not hay. I am going to purchase extra twine to run tightly around the bale to keep it together good and tight and I am going to put pavers under the bale to keep it off the ground. Besides the benefits you gain from growing your own fresh vegetables and herbs, the straw bale will eventually become compost. An added bonus for other areas of your yard to boot, it is a win win situation.

The inspiration for having my own garden came from several factors, one being that I have been watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, tune in on ABC on Friday nights. If you have missed any of the episodes go his website posted below and you can watch them all from the beginning to date. I was dumb struck when he was talking to children in elementary school and the kids could not identify different vegetable that he held up for them. I have already blogged on this show in my blog from Saturday, March 27, 2010 entitled "Unbelievable, We Need This Wake Up Call". I posted again on facebook after watching this past Friday nights show, one of my facebook peeps said that she thought that it should be required viewing by every parent out there and I agree with her.

The second factor is wanting produce that is not covered in chemicals, I know exactly where it came from, that it has been grown organically, it has not been handled by a ton of people, picked before it was ripe which causes you to loose most of the vitamins and benefits and that it is truly fresh. So this has been my inspiration starting my own garden.

Below are the links to Doug Green and also to Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. If you have not already signed his food revolution petition and recognise the importance of what he is doing sign up today and join in. Lets save our children from obesity and improve our overall health.

http://www.beginner-gardening.com/straw-bale-gardening.html

http://www.jamieoliver.com/campaigns/jamies-food-revolution

Think twice about bamboo

I like so many others are trying to live green and lower our carbon footprints. When I was starting my business I had many decisions to make and one of those involved what type of shirts I was going to use. I came across the Eco-friendly lines and along with that came bamboo. Well I am a researcher by nature so the investigation began. I have decided that I will not use bamboo apparel and I would suggest that before you jump on the bamboo bandwagon that you do your own research. There are two ways to process bamboo, mechanically or chemically. Mechanically the woody bamboo is crushed and natural enzymes are used to process the bamboo but this is not the most popular method due to the cost. The chemical process cooks the leaves and shoots in sodium hydroxide (lye) and carbon disulphide to break down the bamboo. This process is highly toxic to the people cooking the bamboo and to the environment. Just look up the word lye in Wikipedia. Most bamboo is processed in China and they have just opened a new plant and training facility in Sichuan. They are not regulated for the safety of the people cooking the bamboo or for the environmental damage the process causes.

So before you choose bamboo please do your research, it is not as eco-friendly as we are lead to believe. It is another product being promoted as green but it is more greenwashed than green......