Friday, April 22, 2011

Good Friday and Earth Day! Celebrate!

Hope you're celebrating today:  so many things to celebrate!  Saw an excellent Tweet this morning from @AndrewJParker:  'In a perfect world, every day would be Earth Day and every Friday would be Good!'  Too true!  Also loved the Tweet from @jerryjamesstone: 'Happy #Earth Day: Reduce, Reuse and Retweet!'  Earth Day is about putting aside the time to really think about what you're doing to improve Life on this Planet!  If you only do one thing - it will help, really!  Every little thing each person does adds up to some Big things!

How to get started?  Well, this Earth Day I'm recommending that everyone start reading a little green/environmental news every week - to start to keep up with what's happening on this Planet and to start to get informed.  Follow a blog, get RSS feeds, drop into a website once a week, follow them on Twitter for fast, snappy updates.  Here's a few of the favorites from Aagaard Farms:  Grist, Mother Jones, Rodale, Treehugger, Mother Nature Network.  If you've got a tiny bit of spare cash and want to make a difference check out Kiva, Philanthrope and Heifer International.

What are we doing for Earth Day?  Farmer Man is potting up seedlings and planting some melons.  He's being very Earth-friendly and using homemade pots from recycled newspapers (which may count as 'upcycling').  We love the PotMaker, a handy little gadget that lets you form plantable pots from strips of newspaper.  It's especially perfect for seedlings that tend to be brittle and hard to handle because you plant the seedling out in the garden in the pot, which will just break down!  We've had our PotMaker for years, I think we got it from Lee Valley Tools.  It's become a bit more widely available the last few years and can be found at garden centres and through many seed catalogues!  A most worthwhile investment if you start much of anything from seed.

2 comments:

  1. I've always wondered about those pot makers. I always kind of thought the pots would disintegrate as you watered your plants. Any tricks to keeping them intact?

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  2. The amount of paper wrapped around the perimeter and tucked up in the bottom makes is quite sturdy! We don't let them sit in water in the tray - we do individually water each little pot. We occassionally have to scoop one out to plant - but not very often!

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