I am not the gardener in this household. I’ll admit it – my husband is. He loves being outside digging in the dirt, walking in the woods and all that.  But nothing is done here that is not a family project with everyone involved at some stage of the process from planning to completion. In this house, it takes a family to get it all done.

With the very real problem of unemployment, salary cut-backs and tough times falling on millions of households around the world, not just in the United States; talk of  ‘Victory Gardens’ and home gardening in general is on the rise, especially among my homeschooling friends. It only makes sense that if we can grow our own food, we are able to sustain ourselves for only the cost of our labor and we won’t have to rely on buying absolutely every scrap of food that is on our tables. However, one of the real benefits to gardening, is the ability to also help others – again, for no more cost out of your pocket than the labor you are already putting in to produce a crop for yourself – just share some of your abundance to help feed someone else.

Gardening is great, but if you have to buy chemical fertilizers – it becomes cost prohibitive, not to mention questionably safe. If you use organic gardening methods, using only organic fertilizers, then you be be assured that the food you produce is safe and you are not harming the environment.  If you use heirloom seeds that can be replanted year after year, and not genetically modified seed, you will also save money there – and again, not have to worry about health or safety issues of altered food sources.

Think of how much more we could can and put away for our own families, but also how much more we could share with those in need, if we could actually produce more – and do so organically and on less land! I have found some gardening books that will help you do just that.

For the first time ever the Mittleider Method gardening books and manuals are available for digital download.

*  Six Steps to Successful Gardening            *  Mittleider Gardening Course

*  Mittleider Gardening Manuals                    *  Let’s Grow Tomatoes

*  Gardening by the Foot                               *  Grow-Bed Gardening

More Information & to Order

Being a conservative Christian, it’s no surprise that I disagree with President-elect Obama on just about every single thing; except one – renewable energy. While I do not agree that we need to bankrupt coal companies to try and force them to stop using coal altogether, I do agree that we need to rely less on fossil fuels for our energy needs. Green power is cleaner, and other than the cost to setup such a system, would then cost each homeowner nothing to provide their own renewable power. Already many utility companies buy electricity from solar homes – a practice that I think should be strongly encouraged.

My suggestion: instead of the ‘punishment’ approach that Obama has suggested to try and force coal companies out of business; I think a ‘positive reinforcement’ approach would work better. Offer tax credits to those utility companies that use renewable power to create electricity; and I would go one better, and offer tax credits to each solar home in America that has chosen renewable sources of power.

Currently, in the town where I live, we pay all of our utilities to the town City Hall. They are the electric company and the water company. In 2007, we were forced to hook into the city sewer system and our septic tank disabled. Failure to do so would have resulted in a ‘first lien’ against our house. So we had no choice but to pay the nearly $6,000 to connect to a sewer system we did not want; or risk losing our home! There was no payment plan for this – we had to pay cash! Many families could not afford this, and liens were placed on their homes. I hate politics – and this was purely for greed and political games.

Since our connecting to the sewer system, our water bill has been increased by over 80%. Now our sewer bill is as much or more each month than our water bill. We have a large home, with five of us living here (plus our animals), and since I work from home and homeschool the children – there is always someone here. We conserve as much as we can – but water is something we do use daily, and I have already bought the front-loading washer/dryer and done all I can to reduce our water bill. You can get debt-free, but utilities are something that you will always have… unless, we produce our own renewable energy. And that’s exactly what we intend to do!

As I have written previously regarding making your own electricity at home, it is possible to make your own homemade solar panels and wind electricity (windmill) with this downloadable guide. If you’ve done any research into home solar power, you quickly find that these systems are extremely expensive. If you don’t have several hundred to several thousand dollars of spare change sitting around collecting dust, the Earth 4 Energy guide shows you how you can make your own solar power systems for as little as $200 from supplies from the hardware store. I mean honestly – how awesome is that?!

Earth4Energy - $49.97

My husband and I are going to do this ourselves. It’s my plan to video him making these solar panels and windmill; but don’t wait for me to do this – buy the Earth 4 Energy downloadable guide (a very affordable $49.97) and make your own solar power systems. If you do, I would love to see photos of your new solar power systems.