Mother's going GREEN Day 53 - Children's Eco-Craft

When Fridays come along, I usually head to the recycling can and try figure out what we can create this week because we have an abundance of milk jugs I decided to put them to use. We also needed some sort of plant markers for our rooftop vegetable garden which is growing so well - so the idea of Vegetable Plant Markers came to mind.

Vegetable Plant Markers

You will need:

-- Empty Plastic Milk Jugs

-- Pictures of Vegetables

-- Glue Stick

Instruction (with adults help if required):

-- Cut long 'rain drop' shape from recycled milk jug (2 per marker)

-- Glue picture on the top of 'rain drop' shape cut out (I used printed pictures on the back side of an already used paper, but you can either draw your own or cut some from a magazine)

-- Glue on second 'rain drop' shape to cover picture - this will provide some waterproofing so our pictures do not get damaged.

-- Place markers in garden to identify your vegetable plants.

Mother's going GREEN Day 19 - Garden Pests: in particular a Squirrel

We have our rooftop garden underway - but the last few mornings we have woken up to see that some little animal has dug up our seeds - we suspect a squirrel. Now we are trying to grow our own vegetables in order to be sustainable - but we did not figure we would have to sustain a squirrel as well.

When I 'googled' garden pest deterrents I came up with some scary facts in regards to pesticides:

• Pesticides not only kill the pests but all of the good bugs too like Lady Bugs, Honey Bees and Wasps.


• Collect in the tissues of animals and humans, causing disease and possible death.


• Each year 43 000 children under the age of 6 are exposed to pesticide in concentrations high enough to cause damage to their developing bodies.


• Many of the common pesticides have been linked to an increased occurrence of allergies, asthma and cancer.

Since we are growing an Organic Garden using pesticides was never an option but the information on them very informative.... But I still had a squirrel to deal with.

One website suggested that we feed the squirrel - squirrel food. Set up it's own little eating area away from our garden and then he would not bother our seeds. While this would be ideal, quite honestly I do not want the squirrel to become reliant on me for providing its food.

Finally, I found a website that suggested hot pepper flakes. Currently, we have none on hand but I thought regular coarsely milled peppercorns might do the trick too.

My search on pest deterrents also lead me to a website where you can make your own Pest Control Spray right in your kitchen. Should we ever get those unwanted bugs we will be sure to try the recipes. Most of them involve a combination of Water, Oil, Biodegradable Dishwashing Soap, Garlic Powder, Chili Powder - all non toxic and chemical free.

For some information on the dangers of pesticides visit: http://www.noahsnotes.com/naturalpest.html

And for the recipes for the "Pest Control Spays - you can make in your kitchen!" visit:http://www.sierraclub.ca/national/programs/health-environment/pesticides/non-commercial-pest-spray.pdf

Mother's going GREEN Day 14 - Our Rooftop Organic Vegetable Garden

After a lot of work, building boxes, hauling them and the soil onto the roof we finally have our Organic Vegetable Garden set up and ready. We are lucky enough to have a 'flat' garage roof with fairly easy access onto it and being dead space we figured we would put it to good use and plant our vegetable garden. Because of where we live we need to be mindful of the bears and we figure they will not be able to access our rooftop. We opted to make some boxes for our plants although you can pretty much use anything for container growing. Also, you can pretty much grow whatever you want in containers. We chose to use Canadian potting soil, it had to be chemical free and organic. We planted many of our plants from seeds but chose a few that have started growing so we can enjoy their rewards sooner.

We have planted: tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, butternut squash, peas, winter squash, cantaloupe, water melon, rosemary, cabbage, cauliflower, pumpkin (hopefully for our jack-o-lantern come Halloween), sunflowers, parsley and celery. I can hardly wait until we can harvest our vegetables and we hope that it can sustain us for a little bit - talk about organic vegetables and zero traceability and of course very local.

In our 'regular' garden mixed among our plants we have grapes, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries - the strawberries already have berries so can not wait until they are ready to eat. We live close to a wooded area where there are many blackberry bushes and they have fruit on them too.

We hope to have a summer filled with fresh organic homegrown berries. It feels great - this possibility that we will be able to sustain ourselves for a short while and eat the best and freshest vegetables ever.