But we really don’t know exactly what we’re doing. We’re reading books and digging up resources, and then we’re going to wing it and hope it goes well. New to this gardening thing? Join us on our journey! An old pro? Oh, please, give us some advice.

This month we’re working on planning. From what I can gather, we should begin starting some seedlings in early March, and I keep hearing that we’re already behind!

My dream garden is this massive spread of green from which we could sustain ourselves completely. Something like this garden plan from one of my favorite books by John Seymour.

The great thing about this book is that it also offers much smaller garden plans to accommodate different  amounts of real estate. (And more realistic plans for those of us who need to remember to keep our feet on the ground.) We have good friends who planted their garden in the front yard of their suburban house, since it was their sunniest spot. Make use of what you’ve got seems to be the name of the game!

I’ve been hunting around for good planning tools, and this is what I’ve found so far:

Gardener’s Supply Kitchen Garden Planner
This is an interactive tool that allows you indicate how much space you have available, and then drag and drop your vegetables. When you’re done planning the garden, it assembles a planting guide for your use.

Martha Stewart’s Seed Starting Worksheet
Once you know what you’re planting, begin figuring out when you’ll need to start seedlings or start putting things in the ground.

Hume Seed Planting Chart
How much do you need to plant to feed your family? This always stumps me a bit, but I found this chart that indicates the number of plants you would need for a family of four for several basic vegetables. This seems like a good starting point.

Please give us a shout if you know of other great resources!

We used to keep the studio frig stocked with bottled water. It was an easy way for us to stay hydrated, and we always had a drink to offer visitors.

But then Earth Day rolled around, and we began working on a few shirts to celebrate the day.  As we were researching ideas for the shirt, we started evaluating how we ran our office. We’d all been pretty environmentally-conscious folks, but we definitely saw room for improvement.

One of the most obvious things to change would be our water bottle habit. In fact, it was such an obvious, well-publicized idea that it didn’t even make it onto the shirt. But it became the first change we made in our office, installing a water filter on our faucet. Everyone has mugs or refillable travel bottles. We estimate over the course of the year this saves, at the minimum, 1,000 plastic bottles.

This works great for us, but I always get a bit nervous when it comes time to offer a visitor a beverage. Offering a bottle of water does seem to have this air of civility to it, as opposed to simply turning on the tap. But nearly every time, when I hand over a glass of water and explain the change we’ve made, our visitors comment that they’re making similar changes in their own world, too.

One of those 50 Ways is to wrap presents creatively. We find this particularly topical as we all scramble to prepare for the holidays.

An easy way to wrap is to reuse gift bags, bows, and event paper. But you can also make something unique by using old maps, cloth, newspaper, or pages from one of those zillions of holiday catalogs you receive this time of year. Flip a paper grocery bag inside out and give your child stamps or markers to create their own wrapping paper that’s environmentally friendly and extra special for the recipient.

For even more ideas: HGTV, Martha, DIY Network

In order to begin such kitchen science, somewhere along the way, we’re going to need to purchase a turkey.

As I was shopping at our local Farmer’s Market, I noticed that Morning Sun Farm, where we usually buy our poultry, was taking orders for turkeys. I love this idea! I like that our turkey came from just down the road, was fed an organic diet, and lived a happy life as a free-range bird.

We never would have thought of this option a few years back. As we look toward being more thoughtful about how we shop and eat, I love discovering these options right in our own back yard.