Green Options

The Showtime series Weeds brings us this abbreviated animated history of marijuana. It wanders from China to Turkey to Queen Victoria, and also states that cannabis is the number one cash crop in the United States, raking in nearly $36 billion untaxed dollars every year.

Last Friday a California Superior Court judge quietly tossed out a lawsuit that had been filed by developers against the cities of Los Angeles and Santa Clarita for their opposition to a mini-city development of 5,500 homes between the two cities.

The two cities rejected the development due to its environmental impact in March, but the developers sued for $100 million soon after. The judge threw out all claims made by developer Los Lomas Land Company.

Having discussed one way to be compassionate in your home by safely catching a fly, I feel compelled to be of even more assistance in helping you to be a kind, friendly presence outside of your own abode as well. So now that you are well practiced in the fine art of catching and caring for critters of all makes and models, I hope you are ready, willing, able, and eager to go out and practice some more random acts of kindness.

And as someone who loves gardening, from the toil of clearing a plot and weeding the rows to the belly-filling delight come harvest time, I thought I would share some tips on how you can be a compassionate, caring, careful gardener.

This is particularly important, too, since even small family gardens can become places of profound natural tragedy, places of mass murder and intensive pollution, places of blood, sweat, and tears. Ironically, gardens can often be the least “green” when the plants in them are shining with the deepest, richest shades of green.

And the main reason for these instances of terror and destruction and death? One word: VARMINTS.

Yessir, critters, pests, thieves…call them what you will. They come in many forms, and they seem to come at every moment, nibbling and draining and infesting and infecting and basically ruining everything that you plan to enjoy. Yes’m, the varmints launch a perpetual (seemingly organized and strategic) assault on your goodly little garden…and so appropriate countermeasures surely seem justified.

But, alas, most of these countermeasures employed on any scale are far from careful, far from compassionate, and extremely far from sustainable or natural or eco-friendly. Just go into any garden center or hardware store and look at the panoply of pesticides, sitting there as an ingredient in a witches’ brew with other chemical fertilizers and enhancers. You may start to feel dizzy even before opening one and inhaling the fumes!

So, then, how can you make your garden green in the healthiest, most sustainable and ecologically friendly ways? How can you be a careful gardener and a small-scale steward on your own little plot? How can you save lives even as you nourish your and your family’s (and maybe even your whole neighborhood’s!) lives? Here are just a few ways you can garden green to get a green garden.

Weed Killer: Photo Courtesy of What's Cooking AmericaToday's tip comes from one of our readers, who will earn two $5 wind power cards from Renewable Choice Energy. Chimneyballoon of Wisconsin has a suggestion for removing weeds from sidewalks and driveways.

I have a unique way of getting the creeping charlie weeds to stop taking over my driveway cracks. I love to buy produce from the

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Herbicides are great for killing weeds, but they also contaminate soils and groundwater, and are toxic to pets and children (not to mention the rest of us). Check out some alternative options for controlling your weeds before going to chemical route.

The best way to get rid of weeds is a little manual labor: Pull 'em. When pulling by hand remove when soil is damp (it's easier than taking them

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