Growing Veggies

I blogged in January about starting a garden. It is now April, and I know what you are thinking. I flopped, right?

Wrong!! Sometimes I blog to hold myself accountable, and sometimes I do it because I know I will do what I say I am going to do. This is one of those times that I needed accountability. It helped that my neighbor started this journey with me, but I have to admit, it's hard to learn something knew and stay motivated knowing in the end, everything could die. Here is what I've got so far:

I've got three tomato plants, three bell peppers, and six banana peppers. Many did not "take" because I learned too late that they did not receive enough water. It's not too late for others, and I can always buy starter plants from the farmer's market to plant in my garden. For a first time, I feel like I'm doing all right. Here's the best part, though. My son and I built our own Garden Rack. Lowe's cut all the pieces for us, but we put all the pieces together using the plans, and it was actually not too bad! It was a great starter project for us. My son is almost 12, and got his own drill for Christmas. I enjoyed working on this project with him. We learned how to read plans as well as use tools.

Now if only the weather would cooperate and we could get our veggies planted outside. Yesterday was below freezing with freezing rain, and I'm glad my plants are still inside. Although, with the Garden Rack, I could always bring them back in, I suppose! I will keep you updated on our gardening adventure. Why don't you start your own?

Amazing Product for Soap Scum

I can't even believe I'm blogging about this at 7:25 am. But I have to. I have three different cleaning products under my bathroom counter for soap and hard water scum and they are all useless. But when shopping for a new product that might actually work without killing me, I found the "Scotch-Brite Easy Eraser." I had used the Magic Eraser before, but had no clue that these could be used for soap scum. Duh.
It's a miracle! My tub was HORRIBLE. We have hard water, and the build up was bad. I'd put off cleaning it for way too long. I would have taken before and after pictures, but I was too embarressed. Nobody should see a tub like that! The scum came off like magic. I barely had to scrub at all. If you haven't tried these products before, they get just about everything off of any surface imaginable. And now you know they work on soap scum, too! Happy cleaning!

Water Experiment

After discussing how much trash we generate and where it ends up, we also discussed wasting other resources in our home such as electricity and water. This is a huge issue for me, because I have an internal reminder (that probably comes from my mom who grew up in East Germany) that dings every time the water is running for no reason or a light has been left on.

The first thing we did was make "Energy Police" badges. Then we put bright green light switch covers on our most-used switches that read "TURN OFF." Then I asked the kids, "What uses more water, a bath, or a shower?"

They both said, "shower." So Friday I had them both take showers, but we plugged the tub so that the water would collect in the tub. My son went first, and he took a REALLY long shower. The tub filled up, even more than if he had taken a bath. So when it was Anna's turn, I decided to time her shower. Even though we have a fairly low flow with our Showerwise shower filter [shameless plug] I was amazed to see that after only ten minutes, the tub was at the same level that she would normally take a bath.

This was a great way to show the kids how much water is used for showers. Our rule generally is that if you plan on taking a long shower, take a bath. If you just want to get in and get clean, take a shower. We also conserve water by not flushing the toilet every time. This is not on purpose; this is because the kids are afraid it will overflow on them, so they don't flush!

P.S. We did visit our recycling center but I haven't blogged about it because I forgot to bring a camera. When I have pictures to share, I'll write about our visit. This week: How our choices affect things outside our house (we have discussed the water cycle and will be focusing on the rainforests starting tomorrow.)

Earth Day Activities for School- Trash

During this month, we will be doing Earth Day related studies for science and social studies. I will share what we are doing in hopes that it will motivate you to share some earth-friendly thoughts with your own children!

We started this "unit" last week, with reading The Berenstain Bears Don't Pollute (Anymore). Since we just finished learning about communities and neighborhoods, this was a great follow up story to lead into how we take care of our community. Because it is an easy concept to grasp, we are starting with "trash," and where it goes. This is much easier than starting with wasting electricity or water. Once they get the trash issue, it is easier to transfer their understanding of good stewardship to something that is not as concrete.

So how do you teach about trash? Good question! I remember when I first had a newborn and a toddler in diapers and how much trash it generated every week. One baby's diapers didn't phase me, but two...holy cow! I was moved to start using cloth diapers and life returned to normal. So it only makes sense for the kids to see how much trash we generate as a family. I have a book from The Mailbox called Environment. It is for grades 1-3. In this book, there is an activity called "Tons of Trash." For this activity, you are to collect a day's worth of trash all in one bag. I decided to go three days, and then take an average. Today is the 3rd day. Tomorrow we will complete the graph, showing how much trash we generate each day, how much it would be in a week, and how much for a month. Then we will go through the bag and look at each item, discussing how we could reduce the use or if the item can be recycled. (No food went into the trash).

This week we will also make a visit to our local recycling center. We will bring all our recyclables and talk about what we see there. We have lived here for two years and this is the first visit to the center! This is totally unlike me, but it took this long to find out we even have recycling here. In Georgia they picked it up curbside, so it wasn't much to think about. Next week, we will visit our local landfill. It is only two years old, and my children's dad had a part in helping construct some railings around the landfill offices. We had just moved here when he did the work, and we've never been to see it. Perhaps we will visit each year and see how much it changes!

Come back and see the other ideas I have planned this month!

*Various mom-owned businesses are running Earth Day specials. Check them out!