1 Year of GardenPunks

Happy Birthday GardenPunks!

The focus of this blog has broadened since it's inception on 12/16/2006, and I think it's time to assess the journey thus far.

I originally started this blog as an expression of changing our suburban garden into what we wanted, and serve as a garden notebook for me.

This last year was really an experiment for us. We wanted to see what we could grow ourselves, and in the process discovered that living organically was so much more than gardening and food alone!

While gardening is still a focus of GardenPunks, readers may have noted that posts often dealt more with "green" issues than gardening. I've talked about producing most of the food we eat, my first experience with composting, our recycling and garbage, eating locally, stopping our junk mail dead in its tracks, living in a yurt, creating our backyard orchard, native landscaping.

You get the point.

I won't get into global warming, because I think it's effects are pretty obvious. (Even if you aren't a purveyor of the belief in global warming, mass consumption for the sake of "simply being able to exploit" isn't cool anymore, and green living is in.)

We currently face a great opportunity in our personal lives to make a huge difference. I like to say, you vote with your wallet.

In response to this worldly issue, my life has changed drastically and positively in the last year. We are very involved in getting the production of our own food going and doing whatever we can to have a lesser impact on our Earth. If that means shopping at thrift stores or buying organic products, eating organically within 500 250 miles when possible, wearing warm clothes in the house during the winter, composting everything we can, NOT eating bananas, and once in a blue moon being preachy about our life, so be it.

The "American Way" has become a message of "grow to the size of your fish tank" - consume!

I feel the secret to real happiness comes from simplicity - good people in your life, healthy + local food, and simple living. And that's what this blog has come to represent. The ideal of getting back to basics from our vantage point of where we are today. It will take years, but one idea (and post) at a time will get us there.

GardenPunks has grown and evolved, deserving of a new manifesto:

GardenPunks is the story of a Northern California family doing as much as it can to live organically, thoughtfully, and with regard to the environmental impact of its activities. Expect stories about gardening, food, energy use, consumption, and other things green (and sometimes tasty).

More than anything, thanks for reading and making me feel like part of a wonderful community of great people.

Katie
GardenPunks creator, creative director