As the Garden Grows

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Great selection of hiking boots

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As gardeners I’m sure that some of my readers love of the outdoors extends beyond their gardens. Perhaps some of you have cottages where you enjoy the great outdoors or maybe some of you visit hiking trails?

If you are an outdoors enthusiast or if hiking is one of the ways that you keep in shape you might be interested in taking a look at the Hiking Boots at Metboots.com. If you are a hunter or want to buy a great gift for a hunter their selection of Hunting boots is quite extensive as well.

I’ve always enjoyed hiking myself. There are a number of beautiful trails within Toronto and of course there are many outside of the city as well. I’m sure that now that we have a Labrador retriever we’ll be going out hiking even more than we ever have since it’s a great way to exercise the dog and to get some exercise ourselves.

You’ll find hiking boots from brand names such as Converse, Carolina, Danner, Dickies, Dr. Martins, Haix, Hi-Tech, Nautilus, Rocky Outdoor Gear, Terra, Thorogood, and Wolverine just to name a few. All are fine manufacturers of hiking boots.

As a Canadian I always check online store policies to see if they ship to Canada and other international locations and it appears that I’m in luck as they do ship internationally. I was also pleased to see that they accept Paypal payments! I love that! I’ve been using Paypal to pay for quite a few of my online purchases lately. Metboots.com also offers free shipping on orders over $100.

If you’re in need of hunting or hiking boots visit Metboots and check out their selection.






Living green can save you money

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As a follow up to the post I wrote about whether the Live Earth concert would make a difference in the way people live I thought I’d write about one of the comments on the Go Smell the Flowers site that inspired my post in the first place.

One of the posters seemed to believe that changing over to a green life style would cost a lot of money and might discourage people from making such changes.

Well as someone who has changed her own life style over the years to live in a greener manner I can tell you that a green lifestyle can actually save you money.

Sure the energy efficient light bulbs cost more, but they last four or more times longer than regular light bulbs and barely make a blip on your energy bill so you’ll end up saving money by using them. Plus, if you’re a little bit afraid of heights like I am you won’t have to stand on chairs, step stools or ladders as often to change bulbs.

We compost our food scraps and then use the compost. We also add grass clippings, a small amount of paper product and leaves collected in the autumn to keep our compost going then we use the compost on our garden each spring. The compost is rich in nutrients and acts as a natural fertilizer for our garden.

Growing your own food is cheaper and less fattening than buying processed food or even veggies and fruit that have been transported from the other side of the country. The fruit and veggies that you’ll grow will be full of nutrients and fresher than those you can purchase in a store, plus the act of gardening is good exercise.

If you have a small space you can grow veggies in window box planters – whether they are mounted in a window area or not. If you compost you can use the compost that you’ve made on your own to fertilize your home grown veggies. Once you purchase your initial materials the cost of growing your own food is very low.

Hanging your clothes outside on a line to dry in the sun is cheaper than running the dryer and your clothes smell fresher. Our dryer is very old and uses a lot of energy – we save a ton of money by not using it very often.

Walking, or biking more often is good for you and doesn’t cost you a cent.

Taking public transport is cheaper than paying for gas and insurance for your car and has a lower C02 footprint.

Buying a re-usable bag to bring to the grocery store has an initial cost, but if you shop at a store that charges 5 cents per plastic bag you’ll save money in the long run and keep plastic bags out of landfills.

The law says we must recycle here in Toronto – at least if you are a home owner. The city provides the various recycling containers that we use so it doesn’t cost us any money to perform this task.

If you convert your house to an alternative power source it will be expensive, but in the research I’ve done on this I’ve learned that many homes in my city that have converted actually make surplus energy and the local energy company ends up buying it back from them. So in the long run that saves money or possibly even makes you money.

All of what I’ve mentioned above can save you money and I don’t find them difficult to do at all.

Do you have any more tips or ideas?

The many benefits of Gardening

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Have you ever sat back and thought about how good gardening is for us in general?

There are obvious benefits to gardening, for example if you grow fruit or vegetables in your garden you have access to fresh fruit and veggies throughout the growing season. The produce your grow is so much fresher than what we can purchase in grocery stores isn’t it? Not to mention that it likely lacks harmful pesticides and other chemicals that could be bad for our health.

Less obvious perhaps are the social, psychological, and physiological benefits of gardening. Maintaining a garden, whether it’s one that produces food for your family, contains a mix of flowering and leafy plants or a mix of both is good exercise, gets us outdoors for some fresh air, and allows us to spend quality time with our family or friends when we are working in the garden, or sitting back and enjoying the view from the patio.

My garden is many things to me. I spend several hours working in the garden from Spring though to Autumn. I know that I get a fair amount of exercise while working in the garden.

When I’m out working in the garden my neighbors often come out to work on their own yards, or simply just to say hello. Therefore I get a chance to get to know my neighbors better and to create a sense of community within my neighborhood.

When I’m not working in the garden, I can often be found either gazing out the window at the lovely flowers, or sitting at my patio table enjoying a drink or pleasant meal with my husband and or friends and relatives.

My garden is also one of the first places that I head after a long night of working as a Nurse in the ER. There is nothing like walking through the garden in the early morning hours to see which new flowers are about to bloom and smelling the heavenly scent of rose perfume wafting through the air. A few minutes in the garden after a long night of taking care of patients and perhaps saving a few lives and I’m almost magically de-stressed. It’s wonderful.

I also take great pride in how my garden looks and I’m very pleased when people stop on the sidewalk as they are walking by our house to look at the flowers in the front yard, or even to stare down our driveway to see the beginning of our backyard paradise. If I happen to be outdoors when my garden catches their eye I usually don’t mind talking to them about the plants I grow, or listening to their compliments.

Why do you garden? What benefits do you derive from gardening?

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