NPR Radio: Food Crisis! Get a garden and subsidise your food purchases!

NPR: Food Crisis hits middle class, listen here.

I was listening to NPR today and they had a story on Marketplace about the current food crisis. It covered three different families who were using home gardens to supplement their diet and save some money at the grocery store. If you are serious about having good food to eat and saving some money, a garden just may be for you! One point that was brought up was that a women didn't have time to garden. In my research with my own garden, after the initial set up with building the box, mixing the dirt, and planting your plants, I only spent less than 10 minutes on gardening a day. I could do alot more, but on my busy days I just give it a quick water and a check and harvest a little for lunch and dinner, thats it! Little time invested and I save so much $$$. Good luck Gardening!

Strawberries are Poppin' Up!

Here's some pics of some strawberries popping out in bobs big green garden. I can't wait! Strawberries are some of the most expensive and necessary and tasty organic fruits out there. So it is in high priority that I grow these. I have three plants, one in each of my gardens, and each is starting to pop some berries out. I hope I get at least a good pound, maybe more! mmm...strawberry shortcake:)

I love my garden!

Here's a pic my friend Chrissie took while she was visiting from the great white north, Chicago. She was amazed at how much could be grown in a little space. Last night we made a salad with Romain Lettuce from the garden and we had enough to feed 6 adults with leftovers! All from $2.99 plants from Home Depot. So far it has provided 5 times the amount of lettuce for what I paid. I love free veggies and I love my garden! Have a great day!

Sunset Mag. Garden

Here's a great example of a large scale square foot garden with some style!

Check out this article and learn how you can use little space to grow a lot of Veggies!!!

Bobs Big Green Garden Topic

Here's where you will find all of my posts of Bobs Big Green Garden.

Square Foot Garden Begins!!!
Square Foot Garden Continues: Mixing Soil
Bobs FIRST Tomato!!!!
I love my garden!

New BBGB garden begins!

Thank you for gardening:)

Bobs FIRST Tomato!!!!

Here she is...all red and shiney. mmm...can't wait for more of those! Easter Tomato!!! This was a cherry tomato that Jen and I quickly enjoyed.

Happy Green Day!!!

Just a quick "Happy St. Patty's Day" to all of you!!! Here's an update on how my garden is growing. Lots of life sprouting up in Bob's Big Green Garden! Tomatoes are coming in and I had my first sandwich with garden lettuce. Also we've been making some great guacamole with the cilantro that is blowing up in the garden... almost hard to use it all. Have a great green day!

Square Foot Garden Begins!!!

Here is the first step in my square foot garden...building the frame. I took two 8ft, cedar 2x6's and cut them in half. Screwed them together with galvanized screws, lined the bottom with burlap and tadaa! Instant site for a garden! I am going to add the soil mixture later, but here's a good start. This could be used in an entry way, on a patio, on the side of the house, think of the spots that you have 4ft x 4ft in you yard or patio and you could build one of these. OR! Just build a box as big as you want and plant whatever you want as well! Enjoy mini gardening.

Here are some plants that I am starting indoors, so that later I can plant them outside. Garlic (the tall ones), carrot tops (maybe they'll sprout?), and some onions and beans in the container. (which is some leftover deli containers filled with vermiculite, on top of each other to create a mini green house). The onion seeds have started to sprout, the beans are taking a little while longer.



I will continue to post updates on how my progress is going! I am curious to see how much produce I can get from this one garden and in future gardens!!!



I got all these fun ideas from:



the All New Square Foot Gardening book and website!

Composting is Fun! and good for the green lifestyle!

Composting: the collecting of ones kitchen scraps and paper products, mixing together for a few months and creating black gold! If you don't know already, composting is a great way to be green! Not only are you not throwing your organic garbage in the landfill to rot and add to the escalating amounts of methane, but you're creating the worlds best fertilizer! It's the circle of life all inside of a garbage pail. You ad organic material, add water, add more material, wait, stir, wait, stir, add, wait, stir...when your compost is a nice shade of black, you are ready to put it in your garden where you will grow tasty, healthy vegetables that you will cut up and throw the scraps into your compost pile and thus, the circle continues.

My wife and I have been composting all of our non-cooked kitchen scraps (minus meat product and dairy) and all of our shredded office paper in our backyard composter for the last three months. We have noticed that we are taking the garbage out less and less each week and truley destroying our disposed financial documents (who wants to dig through my compost for my credit card number?) We also throw in all of our dryer lint, paper towel and toilet paper tubes, weeds, dead leaves, egg shells, fireplace ashes, etc.
So far, we have only filled our 25 gallon trash can less than half way. You can use any container you want to hold your compost, we chose this 25 gallon Brute trash can for its compact size and tight fitting lid. We just leave it in the back yard and let it do it's magic. I stir it about once a week to airrate it and to mix all the good stuff together. I added a little water to begin the pile with and haven't added any more lately. You want it moist, not wet, but moist. If you have to much liquid drain it off into a bucket and dissolve 1 cup of the tasty brown liquid into one gallon of water to make "compost tea." You can then give all of your plants a drink of this perfect food. It's like a V8 for your plants! You want to make sure you have a good 1 to 3 ratio of greens (kitchen scraps, weeds, lawn cutting, etc.) and browns (carboard, newspaper, office paper, etc)... This makes sure you have a perfect mixture of carbon and nitrogen, which make the compost alive. I have thought about adding some red worms to the mix, but I am afraid I will bake them in the container. I am looking at some worm farms to help break down some of my waste sooner.

I will be updating everyone on the progress of my compost bin. I plan on using it in my Square Foot Garden...Coming Soon!!!

Here's a couple links for extended reading on composting:

How to compost.org

Tree hugger.com