Preparing the Garden for planting

Now that it is spring it is time to plant the garden. Creating a bountiful garden starts by preparing the garden from the ground up! It took a bunch of  weeding and pulling out the last of the crops from the year before...

The rest of the carrots & 1 last beet from last years garden

 Then we had to take a shopping trip to get some good soil. Ideal soil drains well and is full of organic material to give nutrients to baby plants aka not our natural soil so we picked up several bags of organic gardening soil  to amend our natural soil in the back yard with. We choose to go with an organic soil to avoid pesticides. 

 

Luckily we had Xander with us to give us a hand with all those bags of soil!

 



Xander doing the heavy lifting of soil bags



 First step when getting home was to rototill the garden area and soften the compacted ground from last year. We tried to get ~6 inches deep with the rototiller. We then spread out the garden soil from the store overtop and tilled it in as well giving us a great base of natural & nutrient rich soil.

 

Prepping the soil... What happened with my Camera!!

 

After we finished preparing the soil a fence had to go up to keep the pup out, we put weed barrier down to help prevent weeds, and into the ground went our little plantlings. We even planted some marigolds because they are rumored to help prevent insects.. (but if the marigolds don't work they will still look pretty!)

The plants are in!



loving the end results

A Scarf Obsession....

Lately I have just been obsessed with scarfs. With spring here and flowers in bloom a bright colorful scarf is the perfect cheery accessory.. & it helps against a springtime breeze! 

I am dreaming of purchasing these ones.

Sukan on Etsy's handwoven ikat silk scarf

Nancy's Gone Green Eco Boutique  Social Butterfly silk scarf

Eileen Fisher  organic cotton stripe scarf

 I love wearing scarves because there are so many different ways to wear them!  Below is an image with just a of the styles you can create with 1 scarf. Just googling how to tie a scarf gives you so many different options & new ways to wear them!

From: Second Chance blog

How do you wear your scarf! I would love to know =)

What to buy at the Farmers Market

With the arrival of summer and warmer days one thing that I love to do is peruse the local farmers market.  It is important to me to buy organic & locally grown whenever possible. 

Avoiding pesitcides is of key importance because they can have severe lingering effects on your body and on the earth. Pesticides are essentially toxins,  can disrupt endocrine function, and possibly cause cancers.  Through choosing organic fruits and vegetables you can reduce the amount of pesticide residues that build up in your body and reduce your chances of having side effects of pesticide build up.  You can read more about pesticide build up in the body here or here.

So what fruits and vegitables are the most important to purchase as organics? Below is a list that the Environmental Working Group has put together on which fruits and vegitables have the greatest amount of pesticides on them "dirty dozen" and which ones have lower levels of pesticides "clean 15."

Enviromental Working Groups List of foods with most and least pesticides

Environmental Working Groups list of fruits and vegetable with highest & lowest amounts of pesticides.

My favorite eyeliner & mascara

After learning about how dangerous parabens, phthalates, and fragrance were to your body I swore off any makeup that had them in it. Which was great until i realized that was ALL my makeup! uhh-ohhh. I then had to hunt for new makeup that without those nasty little chemicals. I was able to find eyeshadow at the local drugstore. Physician's formula has a line of makeup called Organic wear and Almay has a line of makeup called Pure Blends. Both of these lines are fantastic for affordable, easy to find everyday makeup. You can get them at your local Target. However eyeliner and mascara gave me trouble. I spent quite a bit of money and tried several different kinds from my local whole foods natural beauty section. But they eyeliners were transparent and the mascaras gave no boost to my lashes. I wanted something more vibrant along with those thick lashes you see gracing the covers of beauty magazines!

Then I found out that Tarte was eco-friendly! I was already famliar with the brand and had no idea that they had paraben, phthalate, sulfate, and fragrance free eyeshadows. There tag line is Heath Couture and they state that " Health Couture™ is all about pure style:
the marriage between fashion and nature." To read more about there eco-line go here. I was so excited find this out. I love dark purple eyeliner because it just gives your eyes a little more "pop" than plain black and they have this great liquid eyeliner and eyeshadow stick called Indelible wink. Totally recommend that eyeliner. It comes in black, brown, grey, and purple. There mascara is also fantastic. Great definition and it is waterproof. To make the deal even sweeter their packaging is make from recycled paper and printed with soy ink. Also they have a great recycling program where if you send them your empty makeup containers you can recieve 15% off your next purchase. Be green & save green!!!

Check out their website www.tartecosmetics.com you can also purchase Tarte at Sephora too.