Eat Locally - Really Really Locally

The farther our food travels to get to us, the worse it is for the environment. Read "Buy Local, Buy Fresh, Buy Beer" for more information on this.

The most local, least environmentally damaging food is that which you grow in your yard. Although it is too early in most North American climates to start planting, you can start preparing.

There are 2 major things that you can do right now to get ready for gardening season:
1. prepare your soil
2. create a water source

Without good soil it is impossible to have a productive garden. The best and cheapest way to get fabulous soil is to compost. It is almost effortless and it is cheap. You not only save on garbage pick up costs, but you also avoid buying soil (which also uses plastic bags). I am a lazy composter and just dig mine directly into my garden. Most things are gone within a month. Some things, like peanut shells and eggs shells take longer. (Peanut shells can be used as mulch instead if you don't want them in your soil. Egg shells take a long time but are a great nutrient, especially for tomato plants.)

To get a good balance between green and brown items in your compost, add leaves, grass, or mulched tree limbs. Many cities offer free or cheap mulch which can be added to your compost. I picked up 10 garden bags of free mulch last month. Check out the website of your local municapality or call them to find out about their program. For the City of Thornton, Colorado you can find the information for how to donate your garden wastes and pick up free mulch here.

Please send me links to your city's mulch program and I will post them.

The second thing that you can start on now is creating a water source. Having a garden is water intensive. If you are using household water not only is it expensive, but you are unneccasarily using treated water. Better than this is to build a rainbarrel. I just installed my first two and they filled up very quickly. I purchased previously used barrels from Pepsi as the main barrel. This was not only very cheap ($10 each) but reused plastic, so I wasn't creating more plastic.

Finally, start preparing now for your garden by reading "The Dirt Cheap Green Thumb" so that you can avoid the $64 tomato problem!

Happy Gardening and don't forget to compost!!

Being Green While Travelling

I was in Las Vegas last weekend for my daughter's soccer tournament. Although we didn't stay on the strip, what adult can resist at least one walk through sin central?

As a pro-environmental person who carefully watches everything that goes in my trash, it is frustrating to see that the number of "girls, girls, girls" flyers handed out hourly on the strip (and then left on the street) produces more trash than I produce in a year.

While there isn't anything I can do about that, I can still be green as possible when travelling. When I stay in hotels I don't like my towels changed daily. In fact, I can go several days without new towels. Many hotels offer a policy now where they will only change the towels you leave in the bathtub. However, my experience over the years is that it is impossible to stop maid service from replacing all used towels. My trick now is to leave the "do not disturb" sign up 24 x 7. I don't get maid service, but I don't need it. I am tidy enough and don't need my room vacuumed and cleaned every day. If I want more soap, I just grab it off the maid's trolley.

Another travel trick is to carry an empty water bottle with me that I can quickly fill and reuse instead of buying water and wasting water bottles on my trips.

So, happy travels while staying green!