Simple Green Living 

Sharon:  Hi Wendy,   I have to say that I have enjoyed your site. You have a great common sense approach to having a green lifestyle.   Here's a quote;

Would you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about you and your family, and about your creative common sense filled site Simple Green Living. 

Wendy:
Hi Sharon, We are a homeschooling family. We have been blessed with four children ranging in age from 14 to 7.   My husband and I both work from home and as a result we tend to spend 24/7 with one another. This makes for interesting family relationships as well as lots of opportunity to do things together. My site www.simple-green-living.com was simply an extension of what we were learning about as a family and I thought that by sharing our journey on the internet we may encourage others to embrace a simple lifestyle with promotes healthy family relationships as well as a healthier environment.


Sharon: You have a page on Simple Green Living telling your story of converting your smallish backyard, to an urban homestead.  What was the hardest thing to let go of in your conversion? On the other hand, was it an easy transition from grass to veggies?

Wendy: Our backyard is very small. Our plot is 900sq meters and of that we have 1/3 as yard space. We had to think very carefully about what we were going to do so that we could maximize our space.

When converting from lawn and flowers to veggie beds I think the hardest thing for me to do was deal with the fences we had to put up around our veggie beds. I don't believe that nature has many straight lines and the fences jarred with me for a bit but they were a necessary evil with our dogs and later, chickens. The other thing that crossed my mind was "What will the neighbors think?" This turned out to be a foolish concern as now my neighbors pop in to see what we have done and ask advice on how to get started with their own gardens! The easiest thing for me was with the first little harvest we had...all the hard work was rewarded, even if it was just a salad at first. But when our corn and other staple crops came in the transition became so worthwhile.

Sharon: What is the most important lesson you have learned in adapting your space for your needs?

Wendy: Early on in our first planting season I realized that we needed to grow lots of what we eat and forget the rest! simple green living So even though I had planted beets and fennel and other pretty edibles I needed the place for what we ate every night.  So this year our planting has been simplified greatly down to the things that we eat lots of and things that we can can or freeze. To answer the question: If you don't eat it, or your children don't like it, don't waste the time growing it. Plant lots of what you like.



Sharon: You have not only uprooted some ground space for a garden.   You have discovered new areas of space. I loved the idea of hanging strawberry and tomato plants. Are there any other ideas that have worked out really well for you?  What seems to give you the most profitable results for the area you have?

Wendy: Oh yes, we cannot expand "horizontally" for a while so we have looked at all our vertical spaces to see what we could grow upwards. We also looked at what could be grown in hanging baskets or something similar.

This season (we are in the Southern Hemisphere so we start planting in September) all of our beans and squash will be grown up trellises. The trellises have been build like and A-Frame and are attached to the wall inside the veggie garden. This means that the ground space is now available for other plants.  

We have hung up lots of hanging baskets and half-moon baskets which are filled with strawberries and herbs.

We are still waiting for our tomato seedlings to be big enough but they are going to be grown upside down in buckets. We had to choose cherry varieties for this and still grow the larger tomatoes in beds. We also have planted loofahs in tyres on a concrete area near a fence so that they can ramble along the fence and we have 4 granadilla plants growing along a wall which we planted 12 months ago and show signs of the first blooms now.

So far the strawberries have been our most prolific growers in baskets. If you do consider baskets for veggies, just remember that they dry out a whole lot quicker than the earth and need to be watered daily in Summer.



Sharon: Other than gardening and producing your own food, what is one easy step that someone who is leaning toward a green lifestyle should consider taking.

Wendy: Buying local foods and organically as far as possible would be the first recommendation I would give to someone who wants a more green lifestyle. Often buying local is also learning to be content with what you can source close to home instead of buying items flown in from another country. Choosing organic foods is also a great benefit to the environment and the more consumers who buy organic, the lower the price becomes.

Then the next big issue is learning to spend more time at home. The effect of this is three fold. First we slow the pace of our lives and have time to breathe, think, plan and create. Secondly we have more time to cook from scratch and plant veggie gardens and thirdly we reduce the amount of Carbon Monoxide released into the air as our car spends a couple more days in the garage. We have a day of rest each week where we do not go anywhere. Sometimes we manage 3 or 4 days a week just being at home.

Sharon: Are there any other areas that Simple Green Living addresses that you would like to mention that I have not asked about?

Wendy: The last thought I have is on waste and recycling. When we embrace a simple slow lifestyle we stop producing as much waste as we are not out buying things (packaging), eating convenience or fast foods (packaging) and we have time to consider what we are bringing into our homes which will eventually end up in our trash in whole or part.

While I am all for recycling, I think a further step is to be very aware of what we buy, why we buy it and if we can make it ourselves or do without.
Thanks Sharon for giving me this opportunity to share a little bit about our family's green journey with your readers. Wendy