After reading this post, don't forget to enter our contest – you could win a new dishwasher. Plus, do you have your own story to tell? Send it to greenchallenge@canadianliving.com (no more than 300 words, please), and you could win one of 30 daily prizes. Today's winner is Jennifer Wilson.

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Although I live in an apartment, I compost my kitchen scraps and put them in my small outdoor composter. Come springtime, I have enough good new earth to do all of my patio container plantings. I water my pesticide-free containers with "grey" water left over from my dishwashing water, coffee, tea, and liquid left from cooking vegetables. I do not consider myself someone with a green thumb, but the results have been amazing! I have provided most of my green bean, spring onion, lettuce, tomato, carrot and herbs needs for two people over an entire summer without buying soil, fertilizers or using fresh water out of the tap. At the end of the summer, I have learned to harvest seeds from the beans and tomatoes and now no longer buy seeds for those veggies/fruits. I am pretty proud of myself that I have taken waste materials and made a full cycle of my tiny garden from scraps, to soil, to plants to seeds and around again.

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Thanks to Jennifer for sending in her story – and don't forget, if you still haven't entered, there's still time to send your own story to greenchallenge@canadianliving.com.Jennifer wins a set of five fab books from Random House, including the following: The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen Living Like Ed: A Guide to the Eco-Friendly Life by Ed Begley, Jr. Ecoholic by Adria Vasil The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon True Green at Work: 100 Ways You Can Make the Environment Your Business by Kim Mckay, Jenny Bonnin and Tim Wallace Today's code word: garden Read more: • How to start seeds indoors • How to start your own compost pile • 5 healthy herbs and how to grow them