Today is Earth Day, well technically every day is Earth Day, but today we take note of how special this planet is. It is a time to recognize that the choices we make on a daily basis have a huge impact on our planet. It is also a time to see where we can make changes, big or small. It can also be time where we see everything that is going on int he world and we want to help do everything, which can be quite overwhelming. Today I want to talk about the little changes we can make that have a much larger impact than you might think. 

Growing some of your own food. Notice how I didn’t say growing all of your own food? In reality a lot of us are living in smaller spaces and either don’t have enough time or space to grow the amount of food our families consume. (It’s around 4,000 square feet per adult of garden space plus another 4,000 square feet for pathways, storage, etc. to grow enough food for a year.) Growing some of your own food whether its culinary herbs in pots, containers on a balcony garden or a backyard kitchen garden it makes an impact on food miles and helps sequester carbon. Plus homegrown food is less likely to spoil when harvested at the right time and used right away. There is nothing like fresh homegrown food.

Eating Locally and Seasonally. Another way to lessen food miles is to eat locally grown food, which generally means it is also seasonal. Shortening the amount of miles traveled for the food we eat is so beneficial to the planet, our bodies and directly supports our local community. 

Join a CSA. This directly ties in to eating locally and seasonally. Joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) supports your local farm(s) by pre-purchasing the crops to come for the season and in return you receive weekly packages/boxes of what is in season and ready to harvest. A lot of farms have a few options so you can choose what works best for you. They also have multiple pick up sites, allowing you to choose the closest one, making it feasible to use less gas. 

Shop Locally and Support Small Businesses. This also ties in to eating locally, but encompasses so much more than food. You are having a direct impact on your carbon footprint by utilizing local shops, especially of what they are seeing is made locally. 

Buy In Bulk and Use Zero Waste Products. Buying in bulk uses less packaging, shortens how many trips to the store for purchases of the same product/food. Taking advantage of local zero waste stores (where available), allows you to reuse packaging over and over again. It can also save you money in the long run.

Grow Medicinal Herbs and Make Your Own Herbal Preparations. If you have the space to grow even just enough of a single herb to make herbal medicine you can impact your health and that of your family. I can’t cover all the benefits of doing this in this post, so look for a future post about this!

There are so many blog posts and articles that cover so much more than this small list that you can use as inspiration to make small changes that have a big impact on this beautiful planet we call home. We can all do some small part and together those small parts make a larger whole. Focusing on what is actually doable is better than being overwhelmed trying to do everything. Do what you can, knowing that it is having a beneficial impact. I wish you the very best this Earth Day and every day! Let me know what small changes you have made for our beautiful planets health and wellbeing in the comments below!