Sustainable Souls Project

The beauty of nature really embodies this quote, how lovely the silence of growing things. Nature is perfect for every single person: a deaf person can see the beauty, a blind person they can smell the beauty of the flowers and feel the wonders of the earth. 

Check out the other amazing artists playing along with this fun project here: 

http://thesustainablesoulsproject.blogspot.com/

Every single person has the ability to use all, or part of their senses to inhale the beauty of nature and feel it's beautiful silence.

Sustainable Souls Project from Catherine Scanlon on Vimeo.

Nature, or what we often refer to as our lovely green spaces; are there for us. But are we always there for them? Do you reach for harsh chemicals that will harm the animals, the beneficial bugs or other things that live and grow in your green space to take care of a pest or issue that is threatening your green space?
 

My house is situated on an aquifer and while I have a lot of gardens, sometimes the gardens require pesticides to remain beautiful but I do not like to use them because I want to protect my water source. Simply, we have a high the water table and I try to find natural remedies to take care of pests that might hurt my gardens.

Here are my helpful hints that you can try first if you have any of these problems in your garden:

Ants or other Exo Skeleton Bugs: sprinkle diatomaceous earth over the spot where the ants are living. Around the earth or the rocks and really sprinkle it in there. This is harmful to the ants because it does something to their exoskeleton and they dehydrate and die. Diatomaceous earth is what is used for a pool filter.

Slugs: while we love coffee, slugs do not! Sprinkle coffee grounds or a coffee solution on the ground and around your plants that may have a slug problem, slugs do not like the acid in the coffee grinds and will turn away when they encounter it.

Tomato Hornworm: sadly, the only natural way I have found to get rid of the hornworm is to pick it off the plant. The part about the hornworm that breaks my heart is it creates a lovely, lovely month. It's such a double edge sword, but since I want tomatoes to grow I will sacrifice these interesting moths.

Weeds: pull them out by hand or spritz a vinager/water mixture on them. If that doesn't work, try bleach and water. The harmful effects of bleach dissipate into the air after a few minutes. Also, mulching with a thick layer of pine mulch helps stop the weeds.

Fertilizing: Always use organic versions, cow manure or your compost pile. Miracle Gro has a lot of bad stuff in it, and is definitely not a good choice for vegetables, but I always spend a little more and get an organic version.

Epsom Salt: also known as magnesium sulfate; "helps speed up plant growth, increase a plants nutrient uptake, deter pests, increase flavor of fruit and veggies, plus increase the output of vegetation."

Lime: if you find that your tomatoes have a weird brown rotten spot on the end that starts as it gets bigger and by the time it is ripe enough to eat, your earth has a calcium deficiancy and you can amend the dirt with a little lime. This is a deficiency in the earth that causes the tomato to get Blossom End Rot. In the fall after I have cleaned up all of my vegetable beds I sprinkle and work in a generous application of lyme into the earth. You can also take your soil to a local gardening center to have them test to see what you need to add to make your soil better.

You can make a difference and protect our precious earth! Before you reach for the harsh chemicals, take a minute to look on Pinterest or Google what your garden problem is and I'm sure that you will find and natural way to solve the problem, if in the end you still have it then reach for the chemicals, but use these chemicals very very sparingly and take the safety precautions seriously. Not only do they kill the bad stuff -- but they also kill the good things like the bees, the butterflies, the birds and all of the other beautiful things that you enjoy in your garden.

Thanks for joining me today for this fun project!