Five Ways to Flex Your Green Thumb at Home

Ah, spring! Now that we’ve officially made it through the colder winter months, we’re rewarded with more sunshine, extended daylight hours, and last but not least, more green!

Are you looking to incorporate some of that vibrant green into your home? If so, we have a few ideas to help you start livening up your living space while flexing your green thumbs.

1. Adopt Some Un-Killable Indoor Plants

Not all houseplants are created equal. The simple truth is that some are simply more sturdy than others. While most plants have specific preferences when it comes to light, water, and temperature, there are a few plants, like aloe, cacti, and succulents, that fall into the low-maintenance category. Adding a few of these easy-to-please plant varieties into your home is a great way to brighten up your space.

2. Spice Things Up with a Kitchen Counter Herb Garden

Purchasing bundles of leafy herbs at the grocery store always seems like a great idea, until you remember that you don’t need an entire bundles’ worth for your recipe. Buying in bulk ultimately leads to leftovers, which will likely live out the rest of their pathetically short shelf live rotting away in your fridge. Instead of reliving this heartache over and over again, try potting a few of your favorite herbs and storing them in your kitchen. A majority of common herbs are fast growing, which means you’ll be able to use the exact amounts you need without having to worry about running out or letting them go to waste.

3. Add Some Flowers to Your Outdoor Space

Spring and early summer is prime growing season for a long list of colorful and aromatic flowers. If you have the space outside or even on your patio, try planting a few of your favorites now so you can enjoy them for their full blooming period.

4. Turn Your Food into…More Food!

Those rough ends and scrappy bits of your produce that usually get tossed out can actually be used to regrow more fresh produce. Even better? Regrowing these foods — onions, pineapples, carrots, and lettuce, just to name a few —is as easy as placing certain parts of those scraps in a shallow dish or glass of water. Let them soak long enough to re-root and voila! You just saved yourself another trip to the grocery store.

5. Create a Compost Space

Even those who have never set foot in a garden have likely heard about how awesome composting is both for the environment, and for growing more plants. Rather than throwing food scraps like vegetable shavings, over-ripe produce, coffee grounds, or even eggshells into the trash, start tossing them into a designated composting bin instead. Composting is not only incredibly easy to do from the comfort of your home, but it is also a great way to get your hands on some nutrient-rich, homemade fertilizer in just a few simple steps. This fertilizer can be used to keep all of your new plants growing healthy and strong. Once they’re done blooming, they can be added back into the compost pile and the cycle can just keep on repeating.