Happy Earth Day

A second post in the same day? Unheard of! But I suppose a vegetable gardener must celebrate Earth Day. What do we do every day but dig in the earth? We live to get our hands dirty. We celebrate the soil itself each and every day. Many recently have gotten into growing their own food for love of the earth. I confess that is not me. I garden because it is in my blood. I love to watch the seeds sprout from the soil. I watch as the plants grow in wonder. I celebrate the harvests. The miracle of growing my food each day is why I do it.

I appreciate that it helps the earth too. I garden organically, or rather naturally. I let the bugs duke it out in the garden. If the bad bugs get too aggressive, I hand pick them. I rarely use pesticides and when I do they are very nontoxic and very directed to the individual bug. This year I'm using Bacillus Thuringiensis, which is a bacteria that only kills caterpillars. I'll only use it on the winter moths to protect my blueberry blossoms in the spring. In the last four years I haven't gotten any blueberries because the moths had eaten them all (they are an alien invader that came to Massachusetts recently). I'm also using Sluggo for the first time. It is nontoxic and I'm really sick of handpicking slugs after two years of excessive rain. This year is stacking up as a rainy year too so far. So I celebrate nature and let the good and the bad live (mostly) in the garden. They usually maintain a good balance.

The quest to use my car less is one reason for my move to the new house. My current house has a walkability score of 28 which is a Car Dependent score. The new house has a score of 79 which is Very Walkable (though weirdly they missed the CVS that is three blocks away when making that score). I used to try to bike to things. When I worked outside the house 8 years ago, I biked 45 minutes into work and an hour back home whenever the weather was nice enough. That extra fifteen minutes coming home was a result of the hills. I live on top of a large hill. It is work getting up. I could stop at the grocery store on the way home, but carrying the gallons of milk that my son went through was nightmarish on a bike. All that extra weight. I eventually gave up on doing grocery shopping with my bike as too much work. The new house will be within a mile of just about everything. Both of our families are going to be going down to one car (both Priuses or is it Prii?). We are thinking of a shared minivan with a third friend, but I don't know if we will do it or not. It would make hauling leaves easy.

We are also only 0.7 miles away from the red line subway stop and if they actually build the extension to the other line we will be close to the green line too. The bus stop along Mass Ave is just a few blocks away. Most things will be so easy to get to without a car. Life will be greener at Lee's End Eden, which is the new name of the condominium association. Though it was almost named Earth Lee. And I kind of liked Happi Lee Ever After. But Lee's End Eden it is. I hope it lives up to its name. I just hope I don't get kicked out for eating the apples.