Green Options

Happy new year! Can you believe we’re starting a whole new decade? We thought it would be fun to take a look back and dig up the best and most controversial Ecolocalizer posts of last year. Here we go!

Whether you’ve been forced to take unpaid furloughs, reductions in pay (or increases in insurance premiums and out-of-pocket medical expenses) or find only one person in your household with a job instead of two, you’re not alone in having to rediscover how to live on as much as 50 percent less in household income.

According to Kenneth Couch, a University of Connecticut economics professor who studies worker pay issues, displaced workers who eventually find a job may experience pay cuts as much as 40 percent. It’s no surprise the latest productivity numbers nationally are as high as they are; corporate America is getting more work out of their employees for the same or less amount of hours and, of course, paying those who do have a job less.

What thousands of Americans have discovered is that you can actually thrive by getting by with less, a large part due to adopting a more sustainable approach to living and working, often, for yourself.

Here’s a few approaches I’ve discovered while writing ECOpreneuring, Rural Renaissance, and Edible Earth:

About two kilometers from the Dead Sea and two from where Jesus was christened, in the country of Jordan, Geoff Lawton of the Permaculture Research Institute and his crew created a near miracle turning desert into a lush permaculture garden.

In August in this location, Lawton says that temperatures could rise above 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). People farming there were farming under plastic strips and using tons of synthetic chemicals and fertilizers. The idea to grow a lush forest or garden of edible plants would probably make people laugh or roll their eyes. Nonetheless, the permaculture crew had exactly this vision in mind and a little funding to help them to do it.

Editor’s note: This review is part of the Green Books campaign. Today 100 bloggers are reviewing 100 great books printed in an environmentally-friendly way. Our goal is to encourage publishers to get greener and readers to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books. This campaign is organized by Eco-Libris, a a green company working to green up the book industry by promoting the adoption of green practices, balancing out books by planting trees, and supporting green books. A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on the Eco-Libris website.

Thinking about giving gardening a try? While the traditional growing season has ended in most parts of the US for this year, it’s not too early to start planning for next Spring. You may want to check out books on starting a backyard garden, and there are plenty of them out there. You may also want to find some of the books that offer suggestions and recipes for the produce you grow. And, if you need encouragement to grow organically, there are still more books on that subject.

If you want a book that covers all three of those areas, though, your choices get much more limited. Janette Haase’s From Seed to Table: A Practical Guide to Eating and Growing Green* not only provides readers with gardening instructions and tips, recipes and menus, and essays on the environmental issues surrounding agriculture and food production, but does so in a month-by-month structure that gives you the information you need when you need it.

With all the news surrounding food safety, global pollution, misguided government food policies, and the myriad of other problems faced by consumers, it’s always comforting to occasionally read some good news.  Here’s a bit of uplifting news.  An organization, Edible Schoolyard, bringing gardening knowledge to junior high school kids in urban areas.

The program strives to teach inner city youth about gardening and consuming fresh, seasonal produce.  From its own website, Edible Schoolyard specifically defines its goal of involving students “in all aspects of farming the garden and preparing, serving, and eating food as a means of awakening their senses and encouraging awareness and appreciation of the transformative values of nourishment, community, and stewardship of the land.”

image courtesy of CaliforniaOrganicFlowers.com

We are a family that sends flowers to funerals, mothers in the hospital, for Mothers Day, or just because.  To be honest, I still have not found a great online source for ordering and buying flowers. I haven’t been thrilled with any of them and just now realized I should have been looking for an organic flower source. We strive for everything else to be organic.  Why not the flowers we send as gifts?

I started browsing the web in search of these companies and am excited to share with you the list I put together:

With all the news (and common sense) about the harmful effects of various weed killers, I’d like to arm our readers with a free, earth-friendly weed killer.

Scroll

down

to

access

your

free,

earth-

friendly

weed

killer.

Yep, it’s your hands. I am arming you with your own hands. The thumb and index finger can work together to rid most

[...]

When Michelle Obama announced plans for a White House kitchen garden, local foodies, gardeners, and health advocates rejoiced: what better way to promote the value of home-grown food than get the first family involved. It turns out that the Obamas aren’t the only executive family growing vegetables on the grounds of the official residence: a number of governors and their spouses have taken up the cause of not just planting vegetables, but also implementing more sustainable landscaping practices at governors’ mansions and even state capitols.

Container gardening is a great way to grow your own veggies, even in a limited space. We’ve looked at making an upside down tomato planter. Now let’s make use of that patio or back porch’s floor space with a home made Earth Box! Not only does this contraption let you grow a bunch of veggies and herbs in a small space, it’s self-watering! Once you start to get sprouts, you just have to add a bit of water from time to time to replenish the reservoir if you don’t get any rain!

Gardening with your children provides valuable lessons, family togetherness time and plenty of fresh veggies to dress your table.

I’m a big slacker this year.  My big, fat, Eco-Confession?  I didn’t plant a garden this year.  This means we have been relying on farmers markets and u-pick to survive!  Ugh.

But, wait… I have a pretty good excuse.  We moved this Spring.  Our Spring was consumed with painting, cleaning, packing and unpacking.  It was pretty crazy around here.  Then my beloved Mama passed away and I didn’t want to do much of anything for a good two months.  Now, I’m up and running… but my yard is far from it!  Since this is a new to us home, there was already a bunch of yard work to do.  Needless to say, we haven’t gotten around to much of it, which includes clearing the garden beds and replanting.

So, that’s the plan this weekend.  Get those beds cleared and start our transplants inside the house.   Good thing I have plenty of kids.

Like we needed one more reason to keep nasty pesticides away from our homes and children. They’re linked to respiratory problems and asthma. And a recent study shows that children up to age 7 have a harder time ridding their bodies of the chemicals.

Now a new study shows that kids with childhood leukemia have elevated levels of household pesticides in their urine. The study was performed at the Georgetown University Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

These aren’t industrial-level pollutants, either. These are everyday chemicals people pick up at the hardware store and use in their very own backyards.