Sometimes when we become used to a chore, we stop thinking about what exactly we are doing, and just focus on getting through with it.  I was doing this a few years ago with my large office fish tank, when I was mid chore, dumping gallons of slimy fish water over a sidewalk, and suddenly wondered “what in the world am I doing?”

I keep a very large goldfish tank in my office at work, somewhere in the ballpark of 70-80 gallons.  Once upon a time, the tank was the “overwintering and emergency tank” for the pond goldfish on my corporate property. It’s been a resort, and temporary home for Comet goldfish for years, used when their ponds were either drained, or undergoing repairs. Being a practical sort of person, in recent years, I’ve been keeping a few fish in there year round as my living screen saver, to keep the tank ready at all times for any Biblical-scale water feature disasters. While I have devised clever ways to cheat the system, and prolong the time between tank cleanings, I inevitably spend an hour twice a month sucking filthy brown water into a tall office trashcan for dumping out on the lawn, or down a drain.

A few years ago I was going through my bi-monthly fish tank cleaning process, wheeling the waste-water trashcan out to the exterior door, when I really looked into the filthy water, and realized that what I was staring at was free liquid fertilizer - and a fertilizer I was about to dump indiscriminately on the nearest patch of land near the door! Feeling like a total bonehead for never having thought about the uses for this “grey water” source before, I began that day using fish water as both a water source, and a fertilizer for my office plants, and exterior potted plants.  A fish’s excrement, and the general waste that they sluff off, are excellent fertilizers for plant life, because they contain so many undigested and beneficial nutrients.

Whether you use a gravel vacuum and a bucket, or a long extension vacuum, to transfer recyclable water directly to plants, recycling “gray water,” is a great way to cut down on your total water consumption, using water that has been lightly used for one purpose again for a second purpose before disposal.  Fish water, while unsafe to recycle for any human benefit, will greatly assist your yard, or office plants, feeding and watering them at the same time, and reducing your need for more commercial forms of plant food.  If you own a freshwater aquarium in either your home, or your office, try saving the water you drain from your tank for your own plants, as a way to “go green” this month! Plus as an added bonus, vacuuming your freshwater fish tank in one area and using the exact same water for your plants is a more efficient way of conquering two chores at once!

TIP: For small tabletop fish tanks in the home or office, keep a large watering can available, and drain aquarium water directly into the can for easy dispensing in your flower pots and garden beds!

This year, I wanted a change!  Instead of planting traditional arbor plants around the trellis’ in my front yard, I wanted something a little more substantial, that would feed both myself, and the songbirds I’m desperately trying to attract to my city home!  As part of my “green journey,”  one of my goals is to use multi-purpose plants to provide food, beauty, and function in my garden, while fitting into the tight space I have allotted to me.  I also want to use native plants as much as possible, to support the local eco-system, and to save myself time and money, by planting plants that are known to be hardy in my location.

When I first moved into my current house, my family brought me a tiny Blackberry plant that was a descendant from the crops of my great-grandparents farm in Maine.  Knowing how hardy the American native Blackberries are in my little section of the East Coast, I was excited that the first addition to my new fruits and veggies patch be a low maintenance plant. Happily burdened with the historical significance of the plant, I made sure it lived through the droughts of last year, and that it provided me with enough berries to top a celebratory Ice cream float!

This year, with all the rain we have been receiving, the plant was growing so fast I could hear it’s progress through open windows, so I decided to do something a little unusual with it.  I placed it in a raised planter with a square framed trellis around it, and taught it to climb up the sides, weaving it through the arched top as well, to provide me with maximum berries, with minimal thorn pricks.  Generally, Blackberries grow on sturdy stems that are covered in thorns from all sides, so harvesting berries from the interior sections of the plant can be tricky.  The stems, left on their own in the wild, will grow in three foot arches, which only means that it is a solid, woodier, and easily shaped trellis plant, than many non-native plants available in garden superstores.  Blackberries need no tying up, or excessive fiddling, to keep it attached to the trellis.

With Trellis Blackberries, I can do three key things:

1. Provide Food: I can maintain a smaller part of the shrub for my own food harvesting, in a bed raised above the reach of mammals, and protected by netting from  birds,  while leaving the upper portions of the plant on the trellis available for birds.  This attracts the wildlife I want to my yard, providing them with natural food sources that don’t cost me a cent!
2. Add Beauty: Spring and summer, the plant sends out clusters of small white flowers, that once pollinated, will provide fruit through the late summer. This translates into visual interest around the arbor from spring through summer.  The shrub, also is a hardy one, that provides a solid, and easily maintained green color from early spring, through late fall.  It also will attract pollinators, and songbirds to your yard, which makes gardening all the more enjoyable, and “green,” providing for the local eco-system.  This is a great way to keep your berry bushes neat and tidy too, if you are working with a small yard, or even a balcony garden.
3. Fulfill A Function: The native Blackberry works well in fulfilling it’s roll as a an arbor plant, providing seasonal greenery, without the care that comes from “training” up other flowering-but-floppy arbor vines.  A trellis provides greater, and easier access to the fruit as well, since the plant is growing on a structure, and not just in a tangle of thorny branches.

I’m happy with what I’ve harvested so far this year, and I’m encouraged to be able to add home grown blackberries to my summer food supply.  Being an outdoorsie person too, I hope that the nutritional benefits of the berries will not only meet my dietary needs, but also fulfill a roll in my overall health, and skin care regimine.

Your Thoughts: Have you tried any new ways to incorporate fruits and veggies into your garden design?

I’ll admit to it right off the bat - I have no interest in composting!  Call me lazy or superficial, but I don’t want to be “that girl” in my neighborhood, with the big bin, or leaf corral in her side yard, for composting. For some reason, the idea of sipping my morning coffee while dumping beer into a pile of decomposing garden waste, and stirring the pile to a suitable consistency, seems a little gross.  I’m not sure why I draw a line there, when I’ve been coming home lately covered in pollen and dirt.  Perhaps it’s the illusion of clean respectability that I’m after!  Or, maybe the “composting bug” doesn’t really bite until after you pass your 35th birthday?  Either way, I try to sneak the idea behind composting into my yard in a way that leaves my yard neat and tidy for the common observer.

Here’s what I do to both recycle and cut back on my weeding: After I moved in to my current house, I was eager to expand the garden area, but I wasn’t so excited about the weeds that inevitably make newly “turned” soil into their home.  I took one look at all the newspaper that I had used to wrap my valuables, and the folded boxes that all my belongings had been moved in, and got an idea.  I had heard that newspaper was a great liner under mulch to choke and smother weeds out (while improving the soil), and knew that the same principle would apply to my moving boxes too.  Since most current ink is soy based, it’s safe to add these common items to your yard.  A layer of about 6-8 pages of completely biodegradable newsprint (or one layer of corrugated cardboard box) can go under 2-3 inches of mulch to create a great barrier for several months of weed free gardening!  It was a great way to get rid of all those moving boxes and supplies, and it’s worked beautifully in my yard!  

Tips:

• I recommend cross-hatching paper, or boxes and immediately covering what you have laid with mulch, so an errant breeze doesn’t relocate your project to your neighbor’s yard.
• Boxes often do well when wet with a hose before you lay the mulch, to assist in softening the edges. I don’t recommend using boxes in any area you may want to add bulbs to at a later date, as boxes biodegrade at a slower rate than the newsprint, and will hinder your efforts.
• I often keep an extra bag of mulch on hand to cover over any edges that pop up through the mulch in the first few weeks. 
• Colored advertisements are not recommended under mulch, because of possible toxic dye in the ink, so use those at your own risk.

Your thoughts: Do you have any creative ways to prevent weeds from popping up or perhaps just some creative ways to recycle things?  Let me know, I’m always looking for new ideas to try at home!