We just paid our last electric bill and it was much higher than it has been on average.  We usually pay around $100 a month in electricity and this month it was $155.  So, I’ve decided we need to do something to try to get this back under control.  It has been cold here, and there have been days in January when we did not leave the house because it was too cold and snowy outside, so I’m sure between the extra heating and using the lights, TV, etc. more added up.

I’m going to start simple and see how much I can reduce our electricity by doing some basic things:

1) Turning off lights – I’m usually pretty good about turning off the lights when I leave the room, however sometimes when I’m in a hurry or have a toddler squirming in my arms I see that a light is on and just don’t turn it off when I leave the room.

2) Unplugging things – Standby power for appliances you have plugged in but are not actually using has been estimated to be around 5% of all of your household power.  I know we are guilty of leaving things plugged in that don’t necessarily need to be.

3) Opening the windows – I’m home a large portion of the day since I stay home with Jacob and don’t go to work.  But, I know sometimes I turn on lights instead of opening the blinds to let light in.

I’m going to leave it at that, and try to get in the habit of doing these three things before I delve deeper.  I’ll try to report back in a month or two when we get our electricity bill and see how it’s going.  Of course, it won’t be as cold in March as it was in January so it won’t be a great comparison, but I’m still hoping we’ll be able to see a difference.  I’m hoping we’ll be able to become greener and save a little money at the same time with this undertaking.  If anyone out there decides to join me, you’ll have to let me know how you do with it as well!

Today I finally got around to ordering the seeds for our garden this summer.  Jeremy and I had been narrowing it down for a while, but today I got on the internet and made our purchases.  We order from two different catalogs, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and Seed Savers.  Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds is our favorite catalog, it was started in 1998  in the Ozarks of Missouri, by Jere Gettle who was 17 at the time.  His first catalog offered 70 seeds and was sent to 550 people and today they offer 1400 varieties and mail their catalog to 250,000 people.  There is a video of him talking about his seed catalog and how he got started on YouTube:

Anyhow, Jeremy and I probably did things backwards of what we should have.  I probably should have drawn up a garden plan first and then ordered seeds, but we went through the seed catalogs first and picked out what we were going to plant this year.  Here is the list:

Long Island Improved Brussel Sprouts – we grew these last year, but planted them to late and only got a few sprouts.  This year we know to plant earlier!

Tendercrisp Celery – We’ve never tried celery before.

Celeriac Caesar – We’ve also never tried to grow celeriac, which is related to celery but a root vegetable.

Red Russian Kale – We grew kale last year but planted it too late and it never really took off.  It is in our garden now and is still hanging on, I’m not sure if in the spring we will get any new growth or have to plant more.

Yellow of Parma Onions and Tropeana Lunga Onions – We grew Tropeana Lunga onions last year, they are a long red onion, and they grew easily.  Last year we also grew Gold Princess Onions but only a couple actually came up, this year we are trying a different yellow onion and hoping to have more success with it.

Green Grape Tomatoes, Monomakh’s Hat Tomato, Fox Cherry Tomato, Siberian Tomato, and Silvery Fir Tree Tomato – Last year we did not plant any grape or cherry tomatoes and regretted it, so those are on our list this year.   The green grape is supposed to be like a mini green zebra, so we are excited about that.  I am also reading a Rocky Mountain Vegetable Gardening book right now and it said to look for Siberian tomatoes that ripen early, so I found one of those to try as well.  We also have seeds from last year that we will also try to finish off, so there may be a few other varieties we grow again as well.

Slo-Bolt Cilantro – Last year I tried to grow cilantro but it bolted so fast we didn’t get much.  This year, I found a Slo-Bolt Cilantro and am hoping we will have more luck!

Thyme – We’ve never grown before.

Giant of Italy Parsley – We’ve never grown parsley before, this is a large leaf variety.

Arugula – We’ve never grown before.

Cherokee Trail of Tears Pole Bean and Scarlett Runner Pole Beans – We grew Scarlett Runner’s last year and they were beautiful and we had a lot of luck with them.  We also tried Molly Frazier White Cut Short beans last year and had trouble getting them to grow, so are trying Cherokee Trail of Tears Pole Beans this year, which is a type of green bean that also dries as black beans.

Aquadulce Fava Beans – Fava beans are new for us to try growing this year.

Bloomsdale Spinach – Spinach is new for us this year, we decided we needed more cool season crops in our garden this spring.

Lady Godiva winter squash – We have never grown winter squash before.  This year we got a lot of winter squash from our CSA, but we found this variety that you can grow specifically for the shelless seeds.  Jake loves roasted squash seeds, so we thought we’d try this variety.

Stevia – This is an herb that is very sweet and can supposedly be used in place of sugar.  We’ve never tried it, but it sounded interesting.

Southern Giant Curled Mustard Greens – The farm where we get our CSA from grows mustard, arugula, and some type of lettuce, and gave us a mix this summer to use for salad greens and they were delicious.  So we thought we’d try to grow some ourselves this year.

Cauliflower – I can’t remember the variety we have, we tried some last year, but couldn’t get them to work, but we still have seeds left so will try again this year.

Leeks – Another one we tried last year and were unsuccessful with, but will try again this year.

Lunar White Carrot and St. Valery Carrot -  Last year we tried a yellow carrot, which was really sweet and delicious.  This year we thought we’d try something different and picked the Lunar White carrot which is also supposed to be really sweet and also not supposed to have much of a woody core to it.  We grew the St. Valery Carrot last year, it is a normal looking orange carrot, which was really tasty and easy to grow.

Turnips – We had so many turnips this year that we are a little burnt out, but we still have seeds, and want to grow things early in the season, so we’ll do it again this year.

Alma Paprika Peppers, Joe’s Long Cayenne, Joe’s Round Pepper, Chinese 5-Color – Last year we didn’t have much luck growing peppers in our garden, it is too cool and windy, so this year we are going to grow them up against our house on the south side where it is warm.  We did that a few years ago and had a lot better luck with them.

Caribe Potatoes – We’re going to try potatoes for the first time this year, and thought we’d try something we can’t get in the store, so are trying these purple potatoes.

I think that covers it!  We are really hoping to be more efficient in our garden this year, we have already used most of our stored food from last year, and now that we are hardly eating out because of our food issues it would be really nice to have a lot of food to freeze or preserve this summer.  Now I need to work on how we are going to fit all of this in our 20×20 plot!