How does your garden grow?

When my husband and I decided to leave the city for the suburbs, nothing about it excited me more (well, besides tripling the size of our home!) than having a backyard and being able to plant a garden in it.

Early this spring, my husband built beds made of cedar in our backyard so I could start an organic garden. We planted most of our vegetables from organic seeds and have watched them grow into beautiful--and delicious--plants. We have tomatoes, red onions, leeks, carrots, a rasberry bush, summer squash and an herb garden.

This photo shows my lettuce bed where I am growing four types of lettuce. The other night we sat on our back deck eating a peppery and delicious arugula salad with tomatoes and goat cheese in a lemon vinaigrette and I have to say... it tasted like it came from a garden!

Even if you don't have the outdoor space for a garden of this size, you can plant herbs in window boxes or even in small containers on your countertop. Getting your hands in the dirt is so therapeutic and growing your own veggies saves a ton of money (how many times has parsley gone bad in your fridge?) The environmental benefits are huge and so is knowing exactly where your food comes from and how it was grown.

Happy gardening!

Where Are You Going This Summer?

Photo courtesy Subaru of America, Inc.

Summer is the time for road trips and we are gearing up for it with our new car. It's bigger than our old pre-baby car but would you believe it has a smaller carbon footprint?

Our new Subaru Outback is a PZEV (Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle) which meets California's Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle (SULEV) exhaust emission standards and zero evaporative emissions standards. Vehicles meeting these standards are considered the cleanest gasoline-powered vehicles. It also gets 27 miles per gallon on the highway, not to mention its 5 star crash test rating.

The Outback is economical, better for the environment and safe for my most precious cargo. If you are in market for a new car, this one is certainly worth a test drive. Whichever car you buy, make sure the company offers PZEV certification. It will make driving more fun and less guilt-inducing...promise!

In Honor of Earth Day

Go green with paint...

My husband and I recently moved (with our baby of course!) from Brooklyn to Long Branch, NJ. We are two blocks from the beach, have a huge backyard where I am planting all kinds of delicious organic herbs and vegetables (photos to come) and we just had the entire house painted.

We used Olympic Premium Interior Paint. It is a zero VOC, low-odor formula and I love the quality and colors. VOCs or Volatile Organic Compounds are a group of carbon based chemicals and just some of the thousands of chemicals found in ordinary paint. As the paint dries, these substances are released into the air and produce ozone. Short term, they can cause breathing problems--especially in children-- long term, studies have shown frequent exposure to be linked with cancer.

Even after the paint dries, these chemicals are still released into the air in smaller quantities. Until very recently, VOCs were thought to be a key ingredient in making durable, high-performance paint, but that is no longer the case. Most paint manufacturers now sell low or no VOC paint.

So let your family, your environment and your painter (if you hire one!) breathe a little easier and paint your home "green."

Photos Courtesy Olympic Paint