I took a quiz online this week to find out how green my diet is. It turns out that since I don’t eat meat, I’m going to prevent 165,000 lbs of CO2 from polluting the environment in my lifetime! Crazy!! Since I eat a lot of vegetables, I’ve also been trying to do my part by getting my veggies locally whenever I can. Christy and I went to the farmer’s market in downtown Vancouver last weekend, and it was tons of fun walking around and seeing what is in season.

Last year, I belonged to a CSA (community supported agriculture), but this year I’m going to try growing some fruits and vegetables myself. You can’t get much more local than your own backyard, can you?

Here is my little raised bed with my broccoli, kale, and spinach starts. I’m giving the square foot gardening method a go, as you can see. We put in a soaker hose (right after I took this photo) to try to conserve water.

We also have grapes and raspberries in the backyard, and a couple of little blueberry bushes in the front yard. I might add a couple of apple trees out front this weekend!

If the berries and greens work out, I plan to try my hand at peppers, tomatoes, beans, strawberries, and basil when the weather warms up. So if you have any tips for a newbie gardener, I’m all ears. You can definitely find me hanging out in the Crafty Gardeners and Locavores forums on Ravelry scrounging up suggestions from my fellow knitters.

I’m looking forward to a summer of drinking raspberry lemonade, snacking on salsa, and knitting out in the garden this year!! <