Seedling love!

Well my first lot of vegie seeds finally arrived from ebay, and I must say the kids and I were most impressed.

I pulled out the seeds that are in season, and we started our first seedling trays. For this we used a shallow styrofoam box, some old egg cartons, and some high quality seedling mix to grow them in. To keep the soil moist, we covered them in some gladwrap.
Seedlings are very delicate, so we only water them with a gentle mist from a spray gun. We also take care that we close the windows if it gets too windy outside, as strong draughts can hurt young seedlings.

We keep our seedlings in the sunniest and warmest area of the house, so that the light and warm air can give our seeds the best start.

Here we have some 2 day old purple basil and some mixed flower seedlings:

And on Xavier's 5th birthday, he had a lovely surprise, our veges started to sprout! 

Here they are at two days old:

Above is a two day old romanesco seedling. The boys are super excited about growing these, as they form an amazing fractal pattern as they grow. Here is how they will look once they have grown: 

Amazing, arent they! They are a cross between a broccoli and a cauliflower, and have a slightly nutty taste when cooked. I cant wait to cook some of this up and serve it with a cheesy white sauce! Yummo!!

Here is what a 2-day old kohl rabi looks like:

Kohl rabi are a funky looking vegetable, which I chose for it's colour. We've never tasted them but I've read that they are similar to a turnip. I'm really looking forward to them growing, here is what they look like when mature:

We've also got some broccoli coming up too! Here's a seedling that only sprouted this afternoon:

Isnt it tiny?

Our brown onions are an interesting shape. They seem to be growing the fastest.

Along with our vegetables we started some mixed flower seedlings on cotton wool in glass jars as an experiment. They are growing really well:

Also in cotton wool, we have an old ice tray that we are growing linseed and cress in. The boys love waking up in the morning and checking how much they've grown overnight. 

The good thing about planting seeds in cotton wool is once the seedlings are big enough, you can place the cotton wool directly in your garden and it will decompose naturally. The benefit of this is the roots dont get damaged when transplanting. 

We will be using the same principle with the egg cartons. Simply cut out the individual 'pots' and place them directly in the ground, then cover with soil. The cardboard will break down over time and is friendly to your garden. 

Stay tuned for updates on how our garden is growing!

Getting Started

Aside from reducing our electricity and water consumption, probably the biggest change to our home is going to be our garden. We only have a small, bare, grassed yard, with very few plants and trees (aside from what Ive planted myself) and being that we are renting,  I would like to take as much as I can to our new home when the time comes for us to move. Also many landlords dont like you digging up the yard to put a garden in, as they are worried that when you move on the next tenants won't maintain it. Therefore Ive decided that the easiest way to go about this is to start a potted garden instead.
You'd be amazed at what you can grow in pots - they're not just for flowers, you know! My plan is to grow a fully functional vege garden, in pots!

Now being that I have three children and money is tight, I need to do this on a budget.
Impossible, you say?
Hardly ;)

Ive managed to pick up some empty styrofoam boxes (the ones broccoli comes in at the supermarket are perfect). These are great for growing all kinds of veges in, such as carrots, potatoes, capsicum - almost any sort of fruit or vege that you can think of can be grown in these with great success.

I'd like to have quite a large variety of produce growing in my garden, and my aim is to introduce something new at the turn of each season. I am quite fond of growing plants by seeds; my children and I love watching the little seedlings grow, and also there is the added benefit of seed being cheaper than plants to buy. So it was a no-brainer for me that our potted vege garden would be started by seed.

I'm a big fan of the savings you can find on ebay, and I found a seller who after spending $20 in her store, gives you free post. Most packets of seeds were only about a dollar each, so for $20 I managed to pick up about 20 different varieties of fruit and vegetable seeds. In each packet there were ALOT of seeds, so Ive decided to share some with a friend :)

Whilst researching the different fruits and veges that I wanted to  buy, I discovered something I'd never heard of before, "Heirloom plants". These are typically plants that have been started many generations ago, and are usually quite hardy, tough plants that live a long time without much care. These sorts of fruits and vegetables are things our grandparents used to eat, and you can find alot of unusual varieties that we dont usually see in the supermarket. For instance, I purchased some rockmelon seeds that dont taste like rockmelon, instead they vary in flavour from a banana to mango taste. I just have one thing to say about that - HOW COOL ARE PLANTS!!! :D
Also, for decoration, I decided to buy alot of purple plants, and plants with purple flowers. (In case you cant tell I like the colour purple lol) I'm hoping it makes our garden look a bit unusual, but fun at the same time.

To maximise 'organicness' in our garden, I'd like to stay away from fertilizers and pesticides that are heavily chemical based. Instead I'm opting to make my own. Ive done alot of research into home made pesticides and guess what - I can make my own by using the plants Im already growing! (more on that in another blog later)

And as for fertilizer, Ive decided to go with a worm farm. It's a bit of fun for the kids, and teaches them that creepy crawlies have a purpose in the garden and arent always pests.

Click on my next blog to see how we made our very own worm farm for next to nothing!

Why Code Green?

I guess I've always been a bit of an earth child. (Or hippy, as my boyfriend likes to call me).
Whether it was the converting to vegetarianism as a teenager, or my love of incense that's always burning in the background, there's always been something that I cant put my finger on, that makes me 'different' to everyone else.

I do things differently, and I'm always thinking outside the box.
But at the bottom of it all, my heart lies with our earth and mother nature. And that's why I started this blog.

It sickens me the way we treat our planet, full of concrete jungles and landfill.
Why do we do this to her? Our beautiful, beautiful land is being destroyed by the minute. No wonder Mother Nature is fighting back, the poor old girl is ANGRY!

Earthquakes, droughts, floods and fires, have you noticed they're increasing in intensity and frequency?
Well guess what ladies and gents, this is going to keep on happening until we take some drastic action to change our way of life.

Reducing our carbon footprint and living sustainably is a really great place to start if we are ever going to put an end to global warming. I'm not just preaching, instead I choose to live by example.

Code Green - The Home Sustainability Project is my personal mission to lead my children to a greener future.
If I can do it in a rental property in the heart of the city, you can do this anywhere.
As a matter of fact,







I DARE you ;)