Green Consumerism on Earth Day

Isn't this the most gorgeous lettuce you've ever seen? I picked it this evening for our dinner salad, then added orange, purple and white cauliflower (we love cauliflower), orange carrots,a fresh crisp cucumber, and a hard-boiled egg.

I love green.

Which reminds me today is Earth Day. I'm older than dirt, so I remember being in middle school (which we called junior high school) on the first Earth Day a bazillion years ago. We spent the afternoon picking up all sorts of trash from the school grounds, and surrounding city blocks and the local paper came and took a picture of all of us with the trash. We felt positively revolutionary.

Today I took DD to my favorite greenhouse, Walters Greenhouse, to pick up plants for the garden. This is our third greenhouse trip in three days - we made the rounds of all the best places. (If you are in the Roanoke Virginia area, here's the link: http://www.waltersgreenhouse.com/ Sorry, they don't do mail order, but they are well worth the drive. (And while you're there, give Max a pat on the head for us, He's a sweetie of a golden retriever.)

Plants we picked up include tomatoes (Roma, Better Boy, Early Girl, Sweet Million, Sweet One Hundred, Carolina Gold, Oxheart, and my absolute idea of a perfect tomato: the amazing Mr. Stripey. I could happily live on Mr. Stripey's for the rest of my life.

I also picked up extra broccoli (we're planning to grow produce for two families this year), cauliflower (see top paragraph, although we only grow white), cayenne, jalopeno,green and red bell peppers and cucumbers. I waited too long to pick up spinach so that will be started from seed (and it better be soon if I want it this summer).

Still my favorite color.

In addition to all those plants, I picked up herbs as well. As I've mentioned before, my favorite herb is basil. I found a new "boxwood" basil plant, plus a seed pack for Siam basil. Of course, I stocked up on the regular basil as well, 6 plants plus a ton of seed (I like to plant basil all over - the fragrance is wonderful.)

I'm hoping to dry my own "Italian Seasoning" mix this year, so we added Greek Oregano, plus added some rosemary, thyme and French Tarragon.

My DD picked out her favorite plant, bloody dock. It's an odd little plant that grows well anywhere from a rock garden, to potted container, to swampy bog conditions. No matter how cold it gets in the greenhouse, it winters over just fine.

I just can't get enough of it: that intense brilliant green. Love it. And it was tasty too.

After picking out plants, I added seed packets -whatever I plan to grow in the winter greenhouse has be purchased now. Then they go in the back of the frig till late fall.

The only item I haven't been able to find locally is any sort of variety of gourd seeds. I prefer the big bushel gourds, but we may be limited to the birdhouse gourds this year.

So this Saturday, think of me - I'll be out planting and digging, starting seed beds, running soaker hose, hauling water.

That reminds me - we got the water barrels hooked up, and about an hour later it rained, and now we have 550 gallons of water waiting to be used. For free.

What more convincing do you need to go hook up your own rainbarrel?