All (Green) Thumbs?

A lot of you have huge doubts about starting gardening, saying, "Everything I try to grow dies." Of course, there is no such thing as having (or lacking) a "green thumb." There are, however, the all-important elements of luck, knowledge, and practice.

And, after all, sometimes it's best to start small.

In that vein, let me urge you plant-phobic readers to try a little experiment: growing pet grass. Only Natural Pet Store, an online and catalog-based business, has an excellent pet grass kit. Including rye, barley, oat, and wheat grass, this kit contains lots of seeds, peat moss to grow them in (so you don't have to bring any dirt or soil into your house), a two-layered black plastic growing container, an attractive wooden box to house the growing container, and really thorough growing instructions. Best of all, the seeds and the growing method are organic, so you are not only helping the digestion of your pet, you're encouraging environmentally-friendly farming and seed production. Only Natural Pet Store also offers refill packages that have more seeds and peat moss if you want to continue growing grass with the same kit for a long time. Check it out here.

Growing pet grass indoors is a simple, more or less fool-proof project. With this little bit of experience and, consequently, confidence under your belt, perhaps you will consider yourself just a little bit of a gardener, too.

Image from http://www.onlynaturalpet.com/

No garden? No problem!

Not everyone in suburbia has the good fortune of having some land to grow on. Whether you live in a condo, townhouse, or apartment, you too can grow some of your own food and reduce your carbon footprint!

Our master bathroom features a nice corner bathtub that we would never, ever use. We're just not "bath" people. So we decided to put it to some use and turn it into a mini container garden.

Currently we have squash, broccoli, lettuce, and pet grass growing there. The squash especially looks great. We are trying the broccoli and lettuce in the tub because it's out of season to grow in the garden. Note, of course, that we're reusing like crazy too. Although I did buy four new pots, I also reused three from plants I bought months ago at a nursery. We are using an overturned laundry basket to add some height to our indoor "garden" and make watering easier. Also, instead of purchasing official plant water collectors, we brought out my husband's old plastic dishes, "borrowed" from the college cafeteria and never quite returned.

You don't need an outdoor garden to enjoy a harvest, especially in the sunny South. You just need a couple of small bare spots in front of a window somewhere!