"Greens, Greens, Nothing but Greens!"

I am beyond excited that spring has begun! The grass gets greener everyday, we have had several days of semi-warm weather, and plants are beginning to bud! The best has been seeing my flowers planted last fall come to bud, and I have gotten my herb garden started.

Our neighborhood has an unfortunate amount of rabbits. I mean wow! So in an effort to keep my wonderful herbs from succumbing to their gnawing little teeth I have gone the route of a potted garden. There are several advantages to a potted garden, you can easily move your herbs indoors during the winter for an extended season, you don’t end up with “runaway herbs” (My brother has mint running amuck in his backyard, some of which I will be going to take off his hands, if anyone needs mint, see me and you are welcome to some) and it looks brilliant!

I planted Garlic Chives & Onion Chives in one larger planter. I placed Italian Oregano & Thyme in a second planter, and Sweet Basil in the third large planter. I also planted Cilantro in a medium pot, and Rosemary in a smaller pot. Basil and Cilantro are used by my entire family all year in a ton of cooking, and with fresh herbs coming out all year I think their will be pesto’s and sauces galore this summer.

I procured all of these wonderful starters from a local nursery by the name of Family Tree Nursery. I did quite a bit of research on local nurseries trying to decide which one to go with and Family Tree guaranteed locally grown starters, all of which came from A town in Missouri (Clever or Cleveland or something) and the lady in the Nursery said they don’t use pesticides or growth accelerators and the herbs all came from Organic Seeds, which was a huge plus for me!

So only a few more spring projects left, I need to fix up the compost bin, and reseed some grass in the backyard, and possibly some other small things, I really want to do some Veggies, so I am considering a sort of elevated planter to keep the lettuce and tomatoes from the rabbits, but I am not sure this will really work, so I will have to do some research on how to accomplish this.

All of this is being done in an effort to become more sustainable, and to join a small group of people that my good friend, and fellow blogger, Meryl calls Urban Homesteading, while I don’t see myself ever going to the impressive lengths she has (Chickens! I think my dog would eat them!) I feel she has the some great ideas concerning ways to make ourselves healthy and richer (in spirit and money) by doing all we can to make ourselves sustainable. Thanks Mers for the great ideas!