Water wasting lawn to waterwise garden

Whatch the video here We recently converted our dead ugly lawn to this beautiful waterwise, money saving, native garden and our city paid US to do this. Happy New Year everyone and in this video I'm going to share with you the steps that you need to take to convert your lawn that consumes tons of water and needs a lot of work, but does nothing for your environment. You can't really use it because it's on the front side of the house. To this beautiful native garden that you don't even have to water that often, so saves you money. You don't have to mow it or take care of it, so saves you time, And you can take a walk through it, it serves ton of native species of birds and bugs in providing them food and shelter. And you don't have to spend a dime on it. And on the contrary, with just a little bit of patience, you can get your city to pay you for it. So this was our lawn and when we moved in. And as you can see it did not look that bad. It actually looked pretty plush. But very soon we learned that it did so because the sprinklers were set to water it for almost 15 minutes every single night. There were 5 sprinkler heads and each residential sprinkler head is designed to spray between 1 to 6 gallons of water per minute. So if you do the math we were pouring atleast 75 gallons of water into that lawn each day, or a minimum of 2250 gains of water each month.. and then we had to mow it atleast once a month. It was expensive and time consuming, and then the drought in California led to a city issued a mandate that we should not waste water on land, and our front yard became and eyesore. I had heard about native plants that do not require as much water, and while researching them, I came across a program by our city called Landscape rebate program, that pays residents up to $3000 for converting their lawn to a garden with water wise native plants. Our county has an online portal that you can submit your application through. So I created a profile. It is important that you still have your lawn when you submit your application and until they come and do their inspection. They won't pay for any work you have started before the inspection and approval. So if you want your garden to be paid for, you will need to be a little patient. Take ton of pictures of your lawn, dead or alive. they don't care. And measure the area you are playing to convert. They also want you to give them a list of native plants you are planning to plant that will eventually cover half of the area you are planning to convert. The portal also provides you a list of plants and shrubs they prefer and the area of coverage for each. This is just a tentative list. So don't stress over it. Just make a list. here is a list I submitted initially. Don't worry, you don't have to stick to this list. Once they receive your application, and they send someone to your house to inspect, and measure the area for you. After that they approve the application, and give you a Motion to Proceed. This is what you have been waiting for, and now you can start the actual work. The approval initially gives you 90 days to complete the project, but later you are allowed two 45 day extensions on the deadline. So all in all, you have about 6 months to complete your conversion. Now the first step of conversion is to kind of plan out where you want your garden beds to be and which parts are going to be your paths to walk through. You want to remove any sprinkler heads and pipes from areas you might not want them in. You can buy some garden edging, I bought mine from Amazon, and put it around the pathways and garden beds. At this stage, if your lawn is still alive, you can just cover the garden beds with cardboard. I, however, had to find some wet material to add to those areas because my lawn was very very dead and almost completely dry. The idea is that the cardboard is going to prevent any lawn from growing back, and the decomposition of the wet material is eventually going to lead to decomposition of the old lawn roots, killing the lawn and fertilizing the soil in the process. So, I went to the local Starbucks, and asked them for used coffee grounds. Unfortunately, Starbucks has stopped their used coffee grounds program, and now they kind of give you their used grounds in these large plastic bags, if you request. I had to make several trips to my local store to get enough "grounds" to cover the ground I wanted to convert. We spread the coffee grounds around, and splashed the area with water. The soil in my front lawn was so compacted and dry, that the water was not selling in at all. So, I drilled some holes in it with my largest drill bit in hopes that the water can actually get to the soil. I then covered the garden beds with cardboard from boxes I had been saving for this project. If I was sure of location of where I wanted a particular plant to be, I dug a hole there before laying the cardboard down and put the plant with the pot in it as a marker. But then, I did dig other holes afterwards as well. So either ways is okay. Then we added some horse manure compost we got from a local horse farm on top of the cardboard, and then added some mulch on top of that. The Boganvillas you see here were just a place marker for two crape myrtle pants I had ordered. And then the rain started and I could not work on this project for a couple of months. So I applied for the extension, and waited for some clear days. Once the rain subsided, we covered the pathways with some garden cloth I had ordered from Amazon. I know I know, garden cloths are not exactly great for the environment, but I wanted to add mulch here, and wanted some material underneath that would not just compete disintegrate within a few seasons. The plan is to change the mulch and the garden cloth out for some stone tiles after a few years. But here it is now. All finished. We bought these paver stones and black mulch from Home depot. We already had these gray tiles in our backyard, and I love the contrast between the black and brown mulch, and the red and gray tiles. My kids love walking through it. Oh, and for the rebate, all I had to do, was create a list of the approved plants I finally planted and submit that on the portal along with pictures of the finished conversion. We had also applied for and received rebate for converting the back yard lawn, converting the sprinkler system to inline drip, and for changing out our old sprinkler controllers to these nice new weather controlled Rachio controllers. The rebate amount covered all the plants and material we purchased, and would have covered for over 50% of the labor if we had hired someone to do the work. But I personally love gardening and totally enjoyed the process. And in a way got paid to do so, you can say ;). Ayways, if you are thinking about doing a similar conversion, check if your city offers any such rebates before you start any work. And even if it does not, I would still recommend the conversion. The money and time you save is totally worth it. I don't know what to do with my lawn mower any more, and our water bill has reduced substantially.

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Can they reach the temperatures? Ninja Foodi XL Pro Air Oven Vs Instant Omni Plus

Since my breads did not bake as expected last week, I bought an oven thermometer and tested how long it takes all the ovens to reach the temperatures. And unfortunately, the Ninja Foodi XL Pro Air oven completely failed the test.

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My very first attempt at baking in these two ovens. It definitely did not go as I thought it would. Check it out. #InstantOmni #InstantPotOmni #NinjaFoodiXLProAirOven #NinjaFoodiOven #AirfryerSourdough #SourdoughBread #SourdoughFocaccia #InstantOmniVersusNinjaFoodi #InstantOmniPlusVersusNinjaFoodiXLProAirOven #PalsLivesLife

My lil helper

Today I asked Dhruv to pick up one of his shirts, that he had just changed out of and was lying on the floor, and take it to the hamper. He said, 'No no', as he has started saying now a days, and started playing with his car again. I went back to watching TV. In a few minutes he disappeared. I asked J where he was, and J didn't knew. I noticed that the shirt I had asked him to pick up had disappeared, as well. Just then, Dhruv walked back into the living room, saw a pair of his pants on the floor, and took those to the hamper as well. He then came back, and walked towards me clapping his hands, with a smile on his face. I know, it's such a small thing. But, he really made my day. He is not even a year and a half yet.

Feeding the hungry children, instead of the stone gods

India is a country of extreme contrasts. On one hand, we are almost out of the 'developing countries' list,  while on the other there are thousands of children on our streets that go to bed hungry at night, while alost 3000 won't even make it through the night. And while that is happening, precious food resources like milk, oil, and money that could have fed these kids gets poured down on stone statues by God fearing people.
The sight of begging kids has always bothered me. But now that I have a kid, who I see almost loose his mind when he is hungry, makes it even more personal.

This picture, posted on Facebook, especially struck a nerve. Both J and I felt that, the little one even looks like our baby. The Gods are our patents. And if that is the case, will I ever be happy, if my baby was crying away with hunger, and someone was bathing me in food? Then how can Gods be happy with the same? I need to do something to get the food/money to these hungry mouths. God forbid, if there is ever a situating, a worldwide natural calamity, something devastating, that lands my babies in a situation like the ones in the picture above, I want to feel like they will atleast have food. I don't want to add to the list of things that people do. I don't want people to give to god and then give to these kids. I want them to give it to these kids, these flowers from God's garden as they are called in my native Marathi language, knowing that it is infact reaching the God. I need them to feel the same satisfaction/ happiness/security they feel in giving to God, knowing that they did what was needed of them. I know that I am talking about a massive change in outlook, which is usually very difficult to bring about. That is why this needs to be done in conjunction with the temples. Either have a deal with the temples, which I doubt if the priests would be willing to let go of a major chunk of the hundi, or separately collect the donated food items; or have booths right outside temples, which I am afraid would simply be ignored by most devotees. I would like suggestions. I would like to hear from some hardcore devotees out there.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1517098

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/02/16/10424930-indias-hunger-shame-3000-children-die-every-day-despite-economic-growth?lite

Blowing bubbles

Today my baby, who is just one day short of his 16th month birthday, pulled out the top from a small empty spray bottle. Held the little spray tube close to his lips and blew. Then with his little hands he gestured something flying upwards. It took me a minute to understand that he was pretending to blow bubbles, the activity he loves so much, and we haven't done for over a month since we got back from India. Oh, bless his little heart and imagination. Love him so much!