Round two

In California, we have the luxury of good gardening weather nearly year-round.  The initial plantings this year in March included sweet corn, romaine lettuce, radishes, carrots, and yellow squash.  The lettuce and squash are doing well.  The radishes and corn were harvested, and the few carrots that grew as well.  

I have just planted some bok choy, bush beans, more carrots and sweet corn.  Let's see how this works now that we've added some compost to the soil and learned a little bit about caring for these plants!

I can't wait to get my raised planters so I'll make do with what I have for now.

But I can say that this time around, the soil seems much more suitable to grow corn in!

New purpose

You know those little measuring cups you get with children's liquid ibuprofen and acetaminophen?  We keep them and reuse them and sometimes even give them another purpose. We can use them to scoop powdered laundry soap out of a reusable plastic container before sending them to be recycled.  This saves two items from being recycled and all the energy consumption that goes with it and avoids another plastic container from being purchased (laundry soap- we make our own from borax, dove bar soap, and washing soda).  

Can you share any ways you can repurpose items before sending them to be recycled?  

Doing more of what makes me happy

Zero waste is keeping my family home for meals, getting us more fruits and veggies, more time together, basic learning experiences for the kids without paying through the nose.  The kids know what composting is, enjoy adding to the composter and viewing its progress. They enjoy watering the plants, examining the progress in the garden and eating right from the garden!  The also enjoy learning activities like making homemade applesauce, a great zero waste activity. We peeled the apples, cored and chopped them, boiled them with cinnamon and puréed them. Scraps for compost, natural applesauce, time together, a creative activity with my hands, nothing goes to waste. We even reused a jar we already had. Sure beats picking up a plastic container of applesauce at the store!!!!

Repair and reuse

One of my favorite tops was coming apart at the seams, literally! So I decided to have it repaired at the dry cleaner my husband uses.  It only cost $5 which is cheaper than a new top and its as good as new to me!  

We have been accumulating wire hangers from our dry cleaning so I asked if we could return them.  The woman there was really excited about taking them back and explained to me that the price of hangers had recently gone up!

Thrift store finds

I really got a deal at the thrift store today! I got a kids grocery cart, toy car, purple moon sand set, food grinder attachment for my KitchenAid mixer, and three 3 pint Ball jars- all for under $15!

The whole family is happy with their new toys and we didn't go broke getting them!  What a great day of keeping it out of the landfill!  

Reuse before recycle

Bea Johnson of The Zero Waste Home blog established a 5 R's hierarchy -in this order- refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle and rot. The other day I mentioned that I had reduced my waste and had a significant increase in recycling.  I decided I would reuse some items before just tossing into the recycle bin, consistent with the 5 R's hierarchy.  

I collected a couple glass juice jars from store purchases and sterilized them just like I would do with a baby bottle.  

I took all the ripe lemons from my tree and juiced them for my own home made lemon juice. I get fresh lemon juice from my garden, reuse something instead of recycling it, and avoid the purchase of a plastic lemon juice dispenser!  Oh, and my kitchen smells like fresh lemons!

I found some Ball brand jar labels from Amazon that wash right off the jar!

My first batch of compost

My garden has been showing signs of nutrient deficiencies.  We have coastal clay soil and it is really difficult to work with.  To avoid having to enrich the soil with purchased topsoil or compost, I made my own out if kitchen scraps, yard waste and shreds of paper.  I applied it to the ground surface as a mulch. Let's see how this helps the garden!