4/19/16
Fourth and final week complete.
I spent my weekend planting lettuce, onions, and broccoli. For my last challenge of Earth Week, this was physically more difficult but was, overall, the most fun to complete. Gardens seem to be a rarity in Columbus, and living off of such a busy street only amplifies that scarcity. It felt nice to do something that will last and continue to help the environment beyond this week. The garden is fairly small, as our yard is, but for the vegetables we planted it should yield plenty for the household. All of these plants are also totally fine to be grown after the last frost and should thrive throughout this Summer if all goes as intended!
The weather this past weekend was extremely cooperative and was nearly perfect for gardening. The impact that the garden makes will not be visible, but theoretically any effort or attempt is better than none in my opinion. In theory, this garden should not only reduce storm water run off, but it will also continue to filter CO2 from our atmosphere as plants do, it will cut down the packaging waste that would be present if I were to buy these products from the store, and it will also be fertilized with natural compost (not my compost yet, sadly) so as to not contribute to ground water run off contamination.
My overall experience with Earth Month has been gratifying to say the least. I learned that I was capable of going to greater lengths than what I once thought and I also learned that implementing a small change for a short amount of time is much easier to adapt to than large, drastic changes. As a person who is pretty familiar with these drastic changes, I am surprised at how responsive I was to the small changes I made in my daily life. My only complaint about this challenge is the Oroeco platform as it has only confused me from the beginning. I am unsure of whether I have ever actually joined our Scholars community or not. Regardless, I did still reap the gratifying benefits of doing good for our environment and learning how to do so for myself in the process. Many of these challenges that I started are continuous ones that will require tending to beyond this project, but other smaller aspects are still sticking with me as well.