NATURAL PERSPECTIVES:

Vic and I try our best to live lives that are good for the environment, but as Kermit the Frog says, “It isn’t easy being green.” So we take it one small step at a time.

We enjoy growing organic fruits and vegetables to avoid using energy in food transport, and because it’s healthy and fun. I had plans for a nice summer garden in the raised bed by our driveway at the side of our lot, but the bed grew weeds instead. April, May, June and July have passed, and I still haven’t planted anything there. The strip garden by the front sidewalk, plus the backyard garden, seemed to be all I could handle this summer.

Feeling guilty about wasting space that could be growing food for us, I pulled weeds this morning in the raised garden bed. My plan is to plant a hopelessly late summer garden there and cross my fingers. What I need is a round tuit. If I get around to it, I’ll dig it up, add compost and plant some late summer crops like chard and green beans.

Meanwhile, the front and backyard gardens are doing moderately well. I was overjoyed this morning to finally find a female flower bud on my one lone watermelon plant. Up until now, all its flowers have been male. I’ve never grown any kind of melon before, but when Dave and Margaret Carlberg brought over a homegrown watermelon last year, I was inspired. I put in one watermelon and three cantaloupe plants this summer. My cantaloupe vines have set three fruit that are the size of oranges. I have hopes of getting a modest melon harvest this year.

Last summer, the tomato harvest in our garden was pathetic. We heard from several of our readers who said that they, too, had a poor tomato harvest in 2007. This summer, to compensate for a potentially bad year, I planted 12 tomato plants. One was from seed and the rest from nursery pots. OK, technically, two of them are still in their pots, not planted yet even though it’s August. I planned on putting those two into the raised bed by the driveway, but never got around to it.

My Black Krim tomato is my pride and joy. I’ve never grown tomatoes from seed before, but I wanted to try growing this heirloom variety and couldn’t find any plants at the nursery. They are notorious for being low yielders. When my Black Krim set one tomato this summer, I was thrilled.

Unfortunately, marauding raccoons or possums ate the tomato just before I was ready to pick it. And a fine tomato it was, too, a handsome deep burgundy one the size of a grapefruit. Fortunately, the Black Krim has set another fruit. Meanwhile, our nursery-bought Black Prince tomato, a close relative of the Black Krim, is producing lots of small but delicious black tomatoes.

While in my garden this morning, I noticed that my white German radishes are a tad past prime. OK, “tad” might not be exactly right. They’re the size of sweet potatoes. I was planning on picking them earlier when they were at their peak, but I haven’t yet.

These white German radishes aren’t terribly hot even when big, so I decided to slice and pickle the ones that weren’t too woody. I’m brining them now and will pour hot pickling sauce over them in a few hours. As my Grandma Wilson would have said, “nothing ventured, nothing gained,” and “waste not, want not.” The radish tops, peelings and radishes too woody for eating went into the compost bin. Composting is another small step in our green life.

In addition to growing our own food and composting, Vic and I are always looking for additional ways to go green. I got a Brita water filter and pitcher a few days ago, and we love it. The filter takes out the chlorine and any lead, mercury, etc. that might have leached into the water from pipes as it makes its way from the treatment plant to our house. The water tastes great and the gravity-fed filtering is very fast. We got a couple of reusable Lexam water bottles from REI. We can use them to take our filtered water with us and quit using bottled water in disposable bottles. Because only 20% of plastic water bottles are recycled, anything that can be done to reduce their use in the first place is a good step toward helping the environment.

I decided to use some of my filtered water and a couple of tea bags to make sun tea in my solar oven. I made the tea in one of the blue quart-sized Mason jars that I inherited from my Grandma Wilson. My father and his father before him drank Kentucky moonshine out of those jars, so I thought that I should drink something from them too. Saving and using old things is another way to be green. Also, I saved on natural gas by using the sun’s energy to make tea instead of heating water on the stove. By making my own sun tea, I will avoid buying tea in glass bottles. This will save energy that would otherwise be burned in making and transporting glass bottles of store-bought tea.

Instead of going away this August, Vic and I are saving gasoline and having a staycation between his summer and fall semesters at college. You’d think that by spending time at home instead of on the road, we could get one of those round tuits and have a really nice summer garden. Well, maybe it isn’t too late.

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].