GardeningNude

Global Warming VS. Climate Change VS. Idiocy – Start Taking Care of the Earth and Stop Your Whining and Gossiping!

Recently, there’s been a lot of debate related to the supposed hacker confiscation and internet broadcast of private atmospheric scientist’s documentation and correspondence. Apparently, in these documents, the scientists are discussing the possibility that global warming might not exist. There are lots of problems about the public basing a firm decision on the earth’s health on what a few scientists are tossing back and forth via email instead of reviewing scientific evidence. We won’t address that here.

However, there is something we should all take a look at – does it really matter if we are living under the threat of “global warming” or any number of other titles we give “climate change”? Why are we arguing semantics? We earthlings are already experiencing something which we have experienced since the birth of our species: climate change is happening.

Documented from Biblical times, the earth has been changing. Areas in the Middle East which were once verdant and green are now deserts. Areas which were once deserts are now lakes. This is true. This is documented. It continues to happen now. Above you see a photo of the Aral Sea. It was once the world’s fourth largest inland salinated water body. Within 20 years it has been almost totally destroyed due to inefficient rerouting of the rivers leading to it by the Soviet Union.

The region's once prosperous fishing industry has been almost completely destroyed, bringing unemployment and economic hardship to the humans living near this endorheic basin in Central Asia. Local climate change has been significant due to the sea’s retreat, with summers becoming hotter and drier, and winters colder and longer. The Aral Sea region is also now extremely polluted with consequent serious public health problems.

Whether it is specifically “global warming” or not is no longer the point for me personally. CLIMATE CHANGE IS HAPPENING. PERIOD. Whether it’s related to the “global warming” theory or not makes no difference in the way we should be taking care of our planet. Every single human on this planet should be thinking of ways to help keep the planet going so humanity can continue.

The earth is an evolutionary entity and changes temperatures constantly – deserts become oceans; lakes become deserts. Sometimes within a single lifetime when aided by idiocy and poor management by local governments, and other times within a million years.

The fact still remains that we should be cleaning up and regulating pollution and climate change so we are better able to save lives and maintain cultures; preventing the human race from disappearing in the process.

I don’t think the “world will end” in a firey explosion on a certain specific date in the future as so many people are duped into believing, but I do believe because of our own stupidity we might just end up making the earth an inhospitable place to support life within only a few short generations; destroying both humans and many other of the animals we share the earth with.

It is time for all of us to stop arguing semantics. It’s global warming, it’s climate change, it’s global warming, it’s climate change – no people; it’s idiocy to sit on your hands and do nothing but complain. Every human on earth needs to stop whining and gossiping and start doing something about it!

As always, I still adamantly believe that one person at a time is the place to begin. One determined person can make a difference. It starts here. It starts now.

MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

PHOTO CREDIT: I had difficulty finding the original source of these photos. I found the photos at this link. However, the author did not credit it properly. After further search, I believe the credit should go to Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC for the sky’s-eye view. I found further information and more photos credited to him at this link through NASA. Photo credit for the Aral Sea shipwrecked fishing boats goes to William C. Tumley, 1990.

How To Winterize Rain Barrels For The Big Freeze

 

As the thermometer plummets in the northern states, it is time to close up gardens and winterize/weatherize garden tools and rain barrels. It is easy to do and a must for extending the life of your rain barrels as freezing water left inside a rain barrel forms a giant “ice cube” and will crack most rain barrels.

HOW TO WINTERIZE A RAIN BARREL

1. Disconnect rain barrel from down spout and drain all the water from both the rain barrel and hoses.
2. If you are able – relocate your rain barrel into storage. If this is not a possibility, flip the barrel upside down to prevent water from freezing on the interior of the barrel.
3. Reconnect gutter downspouts to redirect winter roof water away from your home’s foundation. Do this by screwing on the downspout you removed in the spring, or by adding temporary flexible down spouting (see photo to the right).

Make a difference for yourself and your community - consider a rain barrel for next season. The above rain barrel came from www.cleanairgardening.com.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Stop Throwing Your Disgusting Cigarette Butts On The Ground – Our Earth Is Not Your Ashtray and Taxpayers Are Paying For It!

Did you know that cigarette butt litter makes an impact economically and environmentally in your community? Daily, as I go about my business, I am constantly shocked by drivers who pitch their disgusting cigarette butts out of car windows and on the sidewalks as they are going from their car to stores and businesses. Doing this is littering.

Cigarette butt litter is a negative issue for more than just aesthetic reasons. Cellulose acetate is what makes up the filter on a cigarette. Sadly, it also contains trace amounts of cadmium, arsenic, lead and other toxins. It is very slow to degrade, so is damaging to our environment. Each cigarette butt can take up to ten years to decompose, dependent upon environmental conditions. Wildlife also mistakes the butts for food and eat this poison.

When smokers discard cigarette butts in inappropriate ways – like throwing them into lakes, out car windows, on to beaches, and on the ground - they are basically throwing these substances directly into the environment. In fact, 5.5 trillion cigarettes are used worldwide annually. Keep America Beautiful, a national litter prevention not-for-profit, says there is an economic impact of cigarette litter, “Residents and businesses “pick up” the tab. Cigarette butt litter has to be cleaned up. This requires additional sidewalk and street sweeping, greenway and park maintenance, storm drain cleaning, and increased maintenance of storm water filters. And business owners bear the expense of cigarette butt litter cleanup around entrances, exits, sidewalks, and parking lots.” 

Join Keep America Beautiful’s Cigarette Litter Prevention Program (CLPP). It is designed to support local community improvement initiatives for reducing cigarette butt litter. Get step-by-step instructions for implementing a program today and get started making a difference in your community.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Harry the Pug Says “Save Money!” Here Are Five Tips for Reducing Indoor Water Usage

Did you know the average American uses almost 100 gallons of water per day? This includes drinking, washing clothes, washing dishes, flushing toilets, food preparation, bathing, as well as watering lawns and gardens.

Surprisingly, the United States is one of the highest ranking water users in the world. Other countries such as France and Germany use roughly 55 to 60 gallons daily. Below are five tips for super-easy but significant ways to reduce your water usage:

1. Retrofit water fixtures with water saving fixtures such as a water saving showerheads, toilets, and aerators.
2. Audit water leaks by turning off all the taps in the house. Take a meter reading off the water meter. Wait at least 30 minutes, then read the meter again. If the far right hand dial on the water meter is moving or if your meter readings are different, then you have a leak somewhere in your home and need to address it.
3. Take a bath instead of a shower – on average, you can save 45 gallons of water if you only put a couple of inches of water in the bottom of your tub. However, this number is reversed if you utilize a water saving showerhead (see Harry the Pug taking a shower above). A ten minute shower utilizing a water saving showerhead uses only about 20 gallons of water. Test which works best for your household by plugging the bathtub up while you take a shower and measure the difference.
4. Wash only full loads of clothes in the clothes washer or dishes in the dishwasher, or lower water settings for smaller loads.
5. Do not let the water run while you brush your teeth, shave, or wash your hands.

The Water Conservation School in Florida has an interesting way of helping Florida residents learn about water conservation. Try the cool Water Calculator Survey on their website to see how much water on average you use daily in your household.

Make a difference – save water and save money – today!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

GAIAM’s Kitchen Compost Pail – A Great Way to Encourage Garden Composting – A Video Review

Composting is one of the easiest ways to create incredible soil for your garden which requires very little or any amendments. Compost is “black gold” and the first step to composting is getting your kitchen bi-products inside your home out to the larger composter behind your home.

Truly, compost pails are a neglected part of the composting process because of their simple nature, yet many people give up on composting without really trying at it because they do not like the smells or issues related to “rotting” veg material sitting on their kitchen counter. A compost pail combats that problem.

This stainless steel compost crock* was sent to me from GAIAM, an awesome company focused on providing products to customers who value the environment, a sustainable economy, healthy lifestyles, alternative healthcare and personal development. They are keeping life green – and this crock is a part of that by encouraging better composting. See the below video review I made for the compost pail:

Compost pails hold kitchen scraps. A pail should be large enough to hold at least a day’s kitchen compost and perhaps two – this crock holds more than that easily. Here’s some advice on utilizing a compost pail in your kitchen, with a mention of some of the better features of this particular pail:

• Wash the pail on a regular basis. Rinse with warm water and soap. I like to dry it with paper towels I might have already used but not diminished much, then I put the paper towels in the compost pail as it is great material to compost. Good idea for reusing paper in the kitchen.
• Empty the pail every two days or whenever it fills – with the lid and charcoal insert GAIAM’s crock uses, it keeps odor down considerably, so can be kept longer.
• Fruit flies become far less of a problem with this pail due to the lid structure. Be sure to keep your pail lidded for prevention of fruit flies.
• Regularly sterilize the pail with hot water and bleach. This prevents harmful bacteria from becoming a problem.

Please get a kitchen compost pail soon; it’s a great holiday gift and will encourage the user to really consider composting in a more serious light.

I loved GAIAM’s stainless steel kitchen compost keeper after testing it for almost two months, and plan on using it for a long time because it was really easy to use and has a terrific non-stink charcoal insert in the lid. No compost stink in the kitchen is fantastic! It helped remind me to bring the material out to the garden composter, instead of tossing it down the garbage disposal. All around a win-win product.

If you would like to learn more about the above composter and perhaps order it, just click this link.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

FYI – I also posted this on my gardening blog – http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com, but felt it was so useful for composting, I should post on my “greening” blog as well. Enjoy!

*This product was sent to me at no cost - I tested it for two months in the kitchen. My review is wholly honest, my own opinion, and not based on additional payment from the Gaiam company in any form. In fact, my agreement with them is that I would review their product in a totally honest fashion, keeping my readers and viewers needs at the top of the priority list when considering this product’s recommendation and use.

College of Dupage Students Make A Difference With A Rain Garden

Educating the community on the benefits of having water conservation oriented gardens is critical to help the storm water system in the United States experience less stress. Students from one College of DuPage classroom in Illinois are working to help make a difference for the water conservation in their community by building a rain garden.

Planted depression gardens called rain gardens, allow rain water runoff the opportunity to be absorbed. This water comes from urban areas which are impervious such as roofs, driveways, walkways, and compacted lawn areas. By collecting rain water in this way, it reduces rain runoff by allowing stormwater to soak into the ground that would normally flow into storm drains and surface   waters and then cause erosion, water pollution, flooding, and diminished groundwater. Rain gardens can cut down on the amount of pollution reaching creeks and streams by up to 30%. By saving water from automatically funneling into your region’s storm water system your community could be saving millions of taxpayer dollars as well as recharging your local ground water supply.

One man trying to educate college students on the importance of this concept is Jim Kleinwachter. He teaches a Rain Garden class at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn which is part of the Horticultural program there. This class focuses on how rain gardens, bio-swales and other native plantings can help reduce flooding, conserve water, and provide food and shelter for a variety of wild creatures.

Last week, Jim and a group of students from the college, went on a field trip to McDonald Farm, which is The Conservation Foundation’s corporate property, and built a rain garden to demonstrate the benefits of water collection. In the photos above you can see the class’s progress from their initial dig of the rain garden area (which is situated right below a downspout), through the plant arrangement phase, to it’s completion. In the top photo you can see the final product – a successful rain garden!

Congratulations on the beautiful rain garden team; it will serve to educate the community on how easy it is to build and install a rain garden for years to come. To learn more about rain gardens from the Conservation @ Home Program, feel free to click this link.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Save Money and the Earth – Turn Off That Light Switch!

Switching off the lights both at your home and business could save you a whole lot of money and do good for the earth as well. “Residential lighting consumption was about 215 billion kWh, equal to about 15% of all residential electricity consumption. About 311 billion kWh was consumed for lighting by the commercial sector, which includes commercial and institutional buildings and public street and highway lighting, equal to 23% of commercial sector electricity consumption,” according to the Electricity Information Administration (EIA).

Turning off your lights when you are not in the room helps use less coal. In the United States (in 2007) 617 electric generating facilities burn coal. Generating electricity is dirtying our air with pollution from the coal burning.

In 2008, 65 nuclear power plants with 104 operating nuclear reactors generate more than 808.97 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), or almost 20% of the nation’s electricity. Nuclear power plants create radioactive material which must be disposed of; but there is no place on earth which is really safe for this disposal and the waste is building up.

The message is clear: turn off the lights - simply turning off your light switch when you are not in the room brings humanity a little closer to living cleaner, plus it saves you a bundle of money during a difficult economic time.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Show Your Children Nature – I Spy A Green Leaf Bug

 

Katydid’s can be heard all over the Eastern United States as well as the Midwest, but rarely do we see them because of their incredibly wonderful camouflage. Today my nine year old daughter and I got lucky and spotted one on the front window, which is located next to the front lawn vegetable garden.

It sparked a lot of conversation, and inspired me to remind my wonderful readers to take every opportunity to talk about nature. It expands kids’ minds and allows their natural curiosity to bloom.

Katydids, seen above, are nocturnal and arboreal; meaning they sing in the evening. The males have song-producing organs located on their front wings. When courting, the females respond with a chirp in counter-balance to the noisy song of the males, which sounds kind of like this "katy did, katy didn't," hence the name. The female Katydid lays eggs in the ground or in plant tissue; the eggs hatch in spring.

Make a difference in the life of your child; spend time in nature and talk about nature to expand a few brain cells as well as to help your kids get outside in the sunshine and be healthy.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

The Field Museum Teaching How Soil Connects The World In A Sustainable Way

Healthy soil is more than just dirt we clean off our shoes after gardening; it is a living ecosystem in itself, full of an amazing variety of creatures necessary for healthy plant development. One teaspoon of healthy soil contains as many as 5 billion living organisms. These organisms are responsible for helping fuel enough plant life to oxygenate the air and feed the more than 6,700,000,000 people on earth.

On a recent trip to the The Field Museum of Chicago, I learned a lot about soil by visiting the museum’s Underground Adventure. This adventure shrinks visitors down to a tiny size, so viewing the soil up close and personal on the correct  scale is possible. This is a particularly wonderful exhibit for families to see together.

Proof of this is when I met Jeff O’Connor, Organic Farmer and Certified Crop Advisor, and his family (photos above and to the left). He was at the The Field Museum of Chicago as a soil expert on the day I came in to tour the Underground Adventure. As working organic farmers, Jeff and his wife, Gina, hope to live an experience that puts their children Kelsey, Evan, and Morgan in direct contact with the soil and the natural world around them. They answered dozens of questions for touring children and adults alike.

Jeff and I spoke about the amazing process of how microbes flock to root tips to eat dead cells and drink sugar and amino acids, thereby creating a uniquely powerful symbiotic relationship which enables plants to support the human race. Promoting positive soil habits like utilizing less insecticides and weed killers will allow homeowners to build microbes and have healthier soil, and therefore healthier plants on their property.

The Field Museum’s Top Ten list of things you can do to improve soil quality at home is below. More detail and further descriptions of each of the items on the list can be found at this link - http://www.fieldmuseum.org/undergroundadventure/index.shtml

1. Recycle.
2. Start a worm compost bin.
3. Start a regular compost pile.
4. Support farmers who grow crops organically.
5. Read and incorporate the principles of the International Earth Charter into your life - www.earthcharter.org/, environet.policy.net/.
6. Learn about your local area's special dumping, run-off, and hazardous waste disposal rules, as well as what toxic materials you may have in your home..
7. Grow things.
8. Have a No Trash Lunch Week.
9. Plant native species in your backyard or on your school campus.
10. Plan a volunteer workday to help clean up a vacant lot, river habitat, or other place in need of restoration.

The Soil Adventure Mobile offers community groups, schools, libraries, and  neighborhood groups all over the Midwestern region a perfect way to extend the Underground Adventure exhibition experience. Have your community explore soil with a hands-on educational program (see the cool Soil Adventure Mobile to the right) – invite the Soil Adventure Mobile out to a community event to promote healthier living.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Chicago Botanic Garden Plant Conservation Science Center – Saving the Planet With Research and Conservation!

On the cover of the Chicago Botanic Garden’s (CBG) map and garden guide it says, “Plant Science Will Save The Planet.” After visiting The Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Science Center, I agree that educating the public on this amazing process will be critical to the earth’s future.

Julie McCaffrey, Senior Media Relations Specialist, gave me a wonderful tour of the newly renovated Plant Science Center. She and I hopped on an electric cart and jetted over to the state-of-the-art building. First thing she pointed out was that the floors in the halls behind the scenes were made from recycled tires. All the floors are radiant heated to promote energy conservation

The Plant Science Center was designed as a gold rated certified building for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). CBG’s 38,0000-square-foot Plant Science Center provides teaching facilities and laboratories for more than 200 Ph.D. scientists, land managers, students, and interns whose conservation and plant research is very important to accomplishing the Garden’s efforts to save our planet by saving our plants. It also serves as home to a doctoral program in plant biology and conservation with Northwestern University. A viewing gallery of the scientists at work (see photo above) and the 16,000-square-foot Green Roof Garden are open to the public. Annually, nearly 800,000 visitors will get to view plant science firsthand.

Emily Shelton (see right) is a gardener for the green roof and helps maintain the plantings. Nearly 320 varieties of plants were planted at the Plant Science Center Green Roof Garden. Just recently installed, the green roof was quite impressive, and I am excited to come back and see progress over the years.

Most impressive was a very special rain garden which surrounds the Plant Science Center Building. It is a shallow, trough-like depression and is called the Rainwater Glen; it functions like a river’s floodplain. It is designed to hold back stormwater runoff, allowing deep-rooted native plants to facilitate absorption and help filter impurities to improve community water quality. Above you see a photo of a portion of the Rainwater Glen as bikers pass by riding through the incredible scenery at CBG.

Below is a video on the Plant Science Center Rainwater Glen which really speaks to it’s wonderful water conservation science.

Next chance you get, go to The Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Science Center at the Chicago Botanic Garden – you will see conservation in action and an entire community built to make a difference for our earth.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

The Morton Arboretum On The Cutting Edge; Beer Bottle Glass Sustainable Paving

Once again The Morton Arboretum is on the cutting edge with sustainability; utilizing recycled glass as a path product.

“Building paths from recycled beer bottles is another wonderful example of our progress towards a more sustainable experience for the public,” said Kris Bachtell, Director of Collections and Facilities. The Morton Arboretum is an internationally recognized 1,700 acre outdoor museum with 4,117 kinds of trees, shrubs, and other plants from around the world located in Lisle, Illinois.

FilterPave^TM paving is crushed glass and beer bottles held together by a special mixture of polyurethane and comes in several different colors. It’s benefits include a highly permeable surface which allows water to sink through and return to the water aquifer instead of traveling into our sewer systems. This is excellent for the environment because the glass mixture is rescued from landfills.

According to Bill Handlos, Director of Presto Products Geosystems Division (seen left), the company that manufactures and the product for the 1,000 square foot walkway, “another benefit of the FilterPave^TM porous pavement is it helps reduce the “heat island” effect by trapping and mitigating heat, rather than reflecting it, as a blacktop surface does.”

Emerald Site Services, LLC, a leading environmental service company in Illinois, donated the installation. John Donahue, from Emerald Site Services (seen right), says “All ingredients for the product are mixed and then laid like cement on the path. It forms a “rice krispy” like consistency which allows more maximum porosity.”

Surprisingly, the finished product only costs about $10 to $12 per square foot installed, which is similar to the price for brick paving. However, utilizing recycled eco-friendly material in a permeable paver form makes it a much better choice than traditional paving for both residential, government, and businesses across the United States.

FilterPave^TM beer bottle paving is long lasting – currently lasting over 16 years in trial tests – and has an attractive crystalline glitter when finished. The Morton Arboretum chose “Amber” as it’s color for the path – a great choice on a grass path surrounded by planting beds lined with brown mulch. It looked beautiful when finished.

Winter plow blades can damage the surface of the paving, however, by plowing the surface a tad high to prevent damage, the permeability of the product allows snow to melt exceptionally quickly, thereby maintaining an ice free surface quite easily. Long term maintenance includes making sure large leaves and debris are swept off in the fall and winter. Outside of that it is maintenance free!

Way to go Morton Arboretum, Presto Products, and Emerald Site Services! Showing the world how cutting edge “green” can really make a difference for your local community.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Recycle your CDs and DVDs – Keep Your Technotrash Out Of Landfills

Shockingly, 30 billion Compact Disc’s (CDs) and Digital Video Disc’s (DVDs) are created every year; many of them only to end up as landfill. The CD Recycling Center of America says it is time we recycled them instead!

Here’s the problem – it takes oil to produce plastics. CDs and DVDs are not recyclable because all products such as compact discs, videotapes, and computer discs are made from mixed materials which cannot be recycled unless first disassembled.

Retail companies across the United States are sending their products to special recyclers like CD Recycling Center of America. Another recycler to consider is GreenDisk, a group which record companies send their unsold product to. GreenDisk is focused on rewriting and reusing previously used disks before complete recycling is necessary.

This creative approach definitely helps to reduce the billions of CDs and DVDs which end up wasted. Imagine 30 billion CDs/DVDs stacked on top of each other and how much space that must take up if the discs were in a landfill.

What’s happening to the CDs and DVDs from the 1980’s which are no longer "current”? What happens to all that packaging – from the CD jacket to the cardboard and ink fillers? My guess is they are tossed out. If we continue to produce the number of CDs and DVDs we have in the past, there is a potential for trillions of these products to end up clogging our landfills.

Before you throw out a CD or DVD see if your local library or a community organization will take it first. Contact the above recycling centers. Better yet, find a creative craft you can do like the above CD fish made out of an old disc.

Think before you throw things in the landfill – make a difference today!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Car Trash – What Do You Do With It? Here’s a Green Recycle Tip!

 

See the photo above – that would be me at least 50% of my life – in the car. Just call me “The Taxi” It’s true; Americans spend a lot of time in their cars due to our hectic modern life. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, over 100 hours per year commuting to work alone. There are days when various members of my family eats, naps, and does homework in the car – modern American life is hectic.

While living a greener lifestyle in our family does include bicycling and walking, we are still trying to find ways to reduce our automobile usage. In the end, with urban sprawl and larger wide-ranging communities, the car has become a necessary evil to help our family to survive in a modern age. With all the travel and activities we have, there is a bi-product created which lives in our car; garbage from our adventures.

Before recycling existed, we would dump the garbage out at the nearest trash receptacle and leave it at that. However, what I have learned is a lot of what we collect as trash during our car travels can be recycled. Our family has begun to save everything we gather and bring it home so we can place it in the recycling bin instead of throwing useful things out in the landfill.

Next time you’re out and about in your car, remember to save all your recyclables and bring them home. Think before you throw them out in a trash bin and make a conscious decision to make a difference for our environment. Recycle!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

A Yellow Pages Rant – What’s With The Phone Book Company SCAM? Americans Go Digital and Save Our Resources and Our Landfill Space

Once again I have received the damned Yellow Pages Phone Book. I do not want these books - I have not used a phone book in nearly five years. Ever. Not even once in five years! Usually I toss the old book – which is still in pristine condition - in the recycling bin annually and accept the useless new book. But this year I have chosen to do something different – RANT!

Yep, I know I rarely rant, but this time it’s personal. Several times a year I receive pounds and pounds of unwanted phone book on my front door step. Because most of my referencing is done online, I find it a tremendous waste of paper. There are some people who might need or want the annual Yellow Pages distributions – but my preference is the distribution of phone books should be consumer driven. In other words, we should be able to opt-out of receiving this junk mail or better yet, if the books are wanted, they should be requested individually on an opt-in basis.

Think about that – how many people would actually take the time to phone the phone book company and request a free book? Seriously. Not a single person I know. This is surely why the program does not exist. IT IS A MONEY MAKING SCAM!

According to the Yellow Pages Association, consumers reference print Yellow Pages directories more than 12 billion times per year while Internet Yellow Pages sites receive 4.6 billion references each year. My question is where do these statistics come from? NO ONE HAS EVER CALLED ME FROM THE YELLOW PAGES COMPANY! EVER!!! Are they out there dialing up everyone in the United States to get a truly accurate number instead of an estimation?

Information from www.stopthephonebooks.com really puts the phone book scam into a green perspective:

Creating 500 phone books takes:

TREES -- according to a study in California 17 to 31 trees- depending on how much is new paper and how much is recycled paper .

ELECTRICITY – 4100 kwh (a 3 bedroom house in Colorado uses about 600 -1500 kwh per month-- so that about 3-6 months of electricity)

WATER -- 7000 gallons of water (that’s about 14 gallons of water per book - Gee, I thought we were trying to cut back on wasting water).

GAS – ????  -- how many gallons of gasoline for the delivery trucks? Gas for the trash trucks? Gas for the recycling trucks?

So-- how much did we use for 615 million phonebooks ? -- Well, that’s about 1.23 million times each of the numbers above -- in just one year (and we are not even including the electricity and water it takes to recycle these products yearly). Also, guess what? Only 15% to 20% of the phone books created are recycled annually. 

Of course, that’s an estimation, right? It’s just my opinion, but according to the Yellow Pages Association website, it’s okay to estimate, right? That’s how they got their 12 billion number. Apparently estimating how many people are actually utilizing their phone book product justifies how much of our natural resources we are destroying. With this mindset, estimating is a great way to justify tricking businesses into advertising in a useless, wasteful, out-dated, resource-sucking product also.

My thought is this is a SCAM to take money from business owners and is an utterly useless and ridiculous piece of advertising SPAM which we do not want. It’s time for all of us who agree with the this rant and opt-out of this insanity and do something kind for the earth.

I phoned the below phone book businesses today and tried to opt out but could not. ATT/Yellow Pages was impossible. I tried to opt out, repeatedly, but no one ever answered the ATT number so that I CAN opt out. I will try again tomorrow.

— ATT/ Yellow Pages: 1-800-479-2977

— Verizon: 1-800-555-4833

— DEX: 1-877-243-8339

— Yellow Book:1-800-929-3556

In my opinion, it’s part of the SCAM – they avoid you on purpose so opting out is not a consumer choice – how unprofessional. But then again, businesses which build scams really are not very professional are they?

Here’s the reality - most of the directory companies do not offer telephone menu options which include opting-out. It would be great if they provided an online way to opt out – I guess that’s just asking way too much from a bunch of scam artists!

This is an issue we should be contacting our government about. Contact your local representative and tell them you want something done about this outlandish scam built to steal good businesses money!

Please help come up with additional ideas to make a difference. Leave a comment below and let me know what you think -

Do you feel this is a giant underhanded SCAM like I do?

What can we do to stop this unprofessional practice from phone book company’s around the globe?

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

How To Install A Rain Barrel – The Conservation Foundation Helps Demonstrate How Easy It Is to Install A Rain Barrel

How easy is it to install a rain barrel?

REALLY EASY!

Jim Kleinwachter works with me in the above short video to demonstrate how easy it really is to install a rain barrel. Jim runs The Conservation Foundation’s incredibly successful “Conservation @ Home” program.

Rain barrels come in many forms and the particular rain barrel we are installing was used as a barrel to transport olives from the Mediterranean. Originally the barrels were thrown in the landfill. The Conservation Foundation rescues them and reuses them – a great way to reduce, reuse, and recycle industrial products.

For rain barrel installation you will need a couple tools. Specifically, a rain barrel, hacksaw, and flexible downspout. Aluminum downspouts: 6 screws and a screwdriver. PVC downspouts: PVC cement.

Connecting your downspout to your rain barrel

1. Place your barrel near the downspout you have selected, and measure the area you need to cut.
2. Disconnect your downspout from the sewer system by sawing the downspout above where the top of the rain barrel will be, leaving room for the elbow to be attached. Save all these parts you have removed for use in the winter.
3. Attach a flexible downspout elbow to the cut end of your downspout so that water from your downspout is directed into the rain barrel through the top screened hole.
4. If you have a PVC downspout, secure it to the elbow with PVC cement so it will not fall off during a heavy rain. If you have an aluminum downspout, secure it to the elbow with aluminum screws.
5. Place your rain barrel under the downspout elbow so the water goes directly into the top hole of the rain barrel.
6. Attach a hose to the overflow spigot, and direct the overflow into your own yard, but away from your home’s foundation.

It’s very important that when temperatures in your community get below freezing  you reconnect your downspouts. You can do this simply by attaching the downspout onto the downspout elbow that currently directs water into the rain  barrel. Keep your rain barrel spigot open so water does not accumulate in the rain barrel and freeze. You can also turn the rain barrel upside-down or bring it inside to ensure no water accumulates in the barrel.

It’s that easy – above is a view of my Conservation Foundation rain barrel installed on the side of my home. Get a rain barrel today and help your family and your community conserve water! Purchase a rain barrel from The Conservation Foundation by going to this link – Rain Barrels.

Thanks go to Tom Reid of Tom Reid Motion & Stills LLC for the fantastic video work!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

“WATER” – The Chicago Field Museum Educates on the Importance of Earth’s Most Precious Resource

Water. Earth’s most precious resource. With only six countries holding nearly half of the world’s fresh water supply, you can imagine the importance of our educating our children and neighbors on why we should be conserving water.

The Field Museum of Chicago does a fabulous job educating community about water in their special exhibition titled, Water. My 8 year old daughter and I went to the exhibit this week to learn more about how water really functions in the world. Above you see her studying a very cool reservoir simulating machine.

First, the exhibit addressed the basic properties of water. One of my favorite parts of this section was the amazing water sculpture (see below) that showed water in it’s three physical states – liquid, solid, and gas. Visitors can touch and feel all three states with a hands-on, water-cycle sculpture.

John Drengenberg, corporate spokesperson from Underwriters Laboratories (UL) (one of the sponsors of the incredible Water exhibit in Chicago) walked with us through the tour. While we talked about the importance of water, John explained UL’s involvement in testing water in over 7000 community’s nationwide.

John emphasized that having access to and keeping water clean and safe is important for the survival of our world. UL feels it is one of the most important roles they have in helping our communities live cleaner. Shockingly, more than a billion humans live without dependable access to safe drinking water. Imagine that GIANT number – one billion people - who suffer daily simply because they do not have clean drinking water.

My daughter experienced the difficulty of trying to lift a typical jug of water that millions of women and girls have to carry every day in developing countries. As you see in the photo to the left, she could not lift it easily, in fact neither could I - it was quite a humbling experience. These women and girls must forego school or jobs simply so they can spend all their time dedicated to the simple and basic task of carrying water for the family. This means their family must live in poverty.

Perhaps one of these women could have been the next Marie Curie or  Amelia Earhart or Georgia O’Keefe; important women in our world’s history. We shall never know because they must spend all their time dedicated to a type of slavery – water slavery – born out of necessity.

Water is organized by the many museums in a grand partnership with will have the exhibit touring around the nation and world. Please go see the exhibit if you can – it will show you a whole new perspective on a resource we simply take for granted. The link to more information detailing the water exhibit is here - www.fieldmuseum.org/water.

Make a difference in your community by not wasting water. Use less chemicals such as fertilizers and insecticides on your property as well. Do your part to keep the clean water we have. To learn more about your home water usage, please go to the online Water Calculator provided by the Field Museum - watercalculator.fieldmuseum.org.

This exhibit will be open through September 20, 2009 in Chicago – do not miss it!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Why Water Conservation is Important Plus a Look At A Tip On Double Rain-Barrel Installation

Americans have access to an abundance of water much of the time; having water available at the twist of a faucet so it becomes easy to overlook the importance of water conservation. In the United States, we use approximately 205 billion gallons of water a day for household, business/industrial, and agricultural purposes. Demands on our water resources increase as our population grows, and our population is growing at alarming rates. According to the U.S. Census Bureau the Nation's population is projected to increase to 392 million by 2050 -- more than a 50 percent increase from the 1990 population size.

Thinking about the future of our nation is important and we must put conservation measures into effect now. Individuals make a HUGE difference in this effort. By practicing water conservation on a regular basis you can prevent or postpone the building of new water supply infrastructure. This can save your community millions of dollars.

Water conservation can also reduce the amount of water that needs to be processed by wastewater treatment plants connected to storm water systems, again preserving infrastructure and also reducing the amount of waste which is discharged into our nations river systems.

By utilizing rain barrels, individual citizens are helping the larger community. Debra Shore, Commissioner for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago recently spoke with me and let me know that if every citizen owned a rain barrel, it would reduce the cost of storm water maintenance by millions of dollars.

Above you see a video demonstrating how I have connected two utterly fantastic rain barrels from Clean Air Gardening. It is a good idea to put your rain barrels near your composting bins too – compost needs water regularly and combining your tools to make a more sustainable system is always a positive.

Make a difference for your community and conserve water with a rain barrel!

If you would like to purchase the rain barrels and composter shown in the above video, please go to www.cleanairgardening.com.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Monday Whazzup – Attractive Rain Barrel Makes A Splash

 

Dear Gardening Nude Chick,

I cannot find an attractive rain barrel! Help!

Signed,

Frustrated in Frankfort

= = = = = = = =

Dear Frustrated,

Thanks for the email. I have a wonderful solution for you. Rain barrels can actually be quite attractive. Above you see a very beautiful rain barrel I have on the front corner of my home which I got from Clean Air Gardening . It looks like a real clay pot, but is actually made of a heavy-duty plastic.

According to the below statistics quoted from the American Rivers website, you can really save a lot of water by utilizing a rain barrel:

• 40% of the average homeowner’s water use [in the summer] is outdoors.
• 700 gallons of water runs off a 1,200 square foot roof after only one inch of rainfall. Using a rain barrel is an excellent way to conserve some of this water.
• A quarter inch of runoff from an average roof will easily fill a rain barrel. If you have five storms a season, that equals 275 gallons of free water.
• Rain barrel use reduces the stress on municipal water systems during the summer months and improves stormwater management.

Get a rain barrel today to help make a difference for your community – rain barrels can be functional and beautiful.

Here is a little video discussing the importance of having a rain barrel. It features the Clean Air Gardening rain barrel you see in the above photo so you can get an even better idea of how it looks attached to your downspout. Enjoy!

To order the rain barrel and diverter used in the above video, please go to www.cleanairgardening.com.

Oh yeah – and my name is Shawna, not “gardening nude chick” – LOL!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

How 14 Days In The Yucatan Made Me Realize The Value of Planet Earth – Part 3

Sweating from the 90 degree heat, we silently descend into another world – a deep cavern below ground. Gripping the rope carefully, we rappel forty feet down through a narrow hole in the ground, feeling the cold cave air assault us.  Bats dip and dive as we inch our way down through the dark abyss, ropes burning our hands, until finally we drop into the cold waters of the cenote.

Water is the most precious resource in the world. In no place is this more clear than when swimming in an underground cenote in the Yucatan Peninsula. While most of the world-over humans have access to extensive lakes and rivers, people living in the Mexican Mayan Riviera region do not. There are virtually no above ground rivers in the Yucatan –  all the fresh water comes from an extensive limestone cave system deep within the peninsula.

Cenotes are often surface connections to subterranean water bodies. Cenote water is very clear and clean because the water comes from rain water infiltrating slowly through the ground. All the cenote systems in the Yucatan eventually connect together. Because it is a major source of fresh drinking water for the Mexican people, it is extremely important to keep the cenote’s free of chemicals and litter. Warnings are repeatedly given from tour guides on the importance of keeping the water clean so the Mayan locals will be able to drink from it.

As we drop into the cold, black water of the immense underground cave, I look up at the ceiling and see a very thin crust of earth which covers the top of the cavern. An achingly thin layer of ground stands between the top soil and the fresh water below. Roots hang forty feet deep before they touch the water. Our guides provide inner tubes to float with because the water is an additional forty feet deep below us. Tiny fish swim and nibble the dead skin on our toes and legs. In that intense moment of touching nature, a shiver of understanding touches my soul. It occurs to me that we in the United States should be following the more cautious mindset which the inhabitants of the Mayan Riviera exhibit about our own precious drinking water.

Whenever you use pesticides and chemicals on your lawns, you are allowing these chemicals to eventually percolate down into our water system. If you live in a home which has its own well, that well water is being exposed daily to chemicals and carcinogens which we have put in the water ourselves by peppering our lawns and gardens with poisons which have a long life. Therefore it is possible to contaminate our water system over a period of many years, not just at the time when we apply the chemicals.

Next time you reach for a lawn chemical remember the caves and cenotes of the Yucatan. It took a trip to another part of the world for me to finally understand the connection and significant importance of my personal responsibility to our earth. Imagine if the chemicals I had put on my lawn several years ago managed to get into our eco-system and another human being somehow ingested it? Even in trace amounts? Does anyone completely understand what causes leukemia – a chemical triggered cancer? Does anyone REALLY know what is safe for humanity?

If you care about your fellow man, you have to see that this is not someone else’s problem. It is YOU who are responsible for caring for the water systems in our communities – not your neighbors, not your government - YOU. It is YOU who might be poisoning the child next door. Stop. Think. Use chemicals wisely. Now is the time to make a difference.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

You Can Reduce Crime In Your Community By Going Green With Landscaping and Sharing Plants

Want to reduce crime and encourage greener living in your community? Share your plants and help others to landscape in your neighborhood.

Research conducted by the University of Illinois Landscape and Human Health Laboratory team has been doing on the subject of human interaction with the natural environment. Most significant is the 2001 study on how Chicago public housing residents who lived in apartment buildings which were surrounded by trees and greenery had forty-eight percent fewer property crimes and fifty-six percent fewer violent crimes than identical apartment buildings barren of greenery. It is quite remarkable to note that even modest amounts of greenery were linked with lower crime rates.

The researchers suggested one of the reasons crime was reduced might be that exposure to greenery reduces aggression by helping people to relax and de-stress. They based this claim on prior research showing an association between viewing nature and less mental fatigue.

Another reason suggested for their findings was that crime was reduced partly because the green space around those buildings have encouraged more people in the community to come outdoors in nature, thereby discouraging criminals by increasing community supervision. They also suggested that buildings and communities that have a landscaped appearance might be more likely to show potential criminals that residents care about and watch over their property. Based on this research, taking a calming exercise break by gardening or walking outdoors in a green environment seems a more positive way to relieve stress and help a community become infinitely more social.

National organizations built to promote community improvement such as America In Bloom can help encourage crime reduction in your neighborhood and city, while also enhancing landscaping and neighborhood improvements.

Above you can see I am doing my part – this is a recent photo of the community garden I built on a public sidewalk behind my back fence. Helping your community look beautiful and have less crime is not the job for others – it is a job for you. Get out there and make a difference today!

(To learn more about the studies which I have based this article, please go here - University of Illinois Landscape and Human Health Laboratory.)

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Ladybird Johnson’s Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas – “Green” and Beautiful!

What do you do when you are in Texas, it’s 110 degrees outside and you want to see something green and get closer to nature? Go to Ladybird Johnson’s Wildflower Center just outside Austin. Above you see Tom Myer, President of the Austin American Marketing Association, smiling with me in front of a cool pool of water. I would have done just about anything to jump in that water – it is hot in Texas! Hot as heck - sweltering beyond imagination. With this in mind, it’s amazing to me that anyone even considers growing grass there. All grass in the region is brown and dead looking, while native plants and natural eco-environments are rich with green life and vivid color.

According to the wildflower center experts, “Lady Bird Johnson, former first lady, and actress Helen Hayes founded an organization in 1982 to protect and preserve North America's native plants and natural landscapes. First as the National Wildflower Research Center and later as the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, this special place exists to introduce people to the beauty and diversity of wildflowers and other native plants.”

What a perfect place to get in touch nature – most of the center’s public gardens grow prairie and xeriscaped plants as well as beautiful native woodlands and meadows. In 2006, the Center became an Organized Research Unit of the University of Texas at Austin and helps the national and international community understand more about its eco-system.

Grass is not very “green” or environmentally friendly because it takes tons of fuel every year to cut grass, and in most of the country grass also requires an unreasonable amount of water and chemicals to be maintained. Why not grow native and xeriscaped plants in your garden for a more sustainable and beautiful green environment? It’s the better choice! If they can do it it sizzling hot Austin, Texas, you can do it too!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

How 14 Days In The Yucatan Made Me Realize the Value of Planet Earth – Part 2

Visiting the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve was one of the most interesting and powerful experiences I have ever had with nature. Sian Ka’an is recognized under UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme and is considered a World Heritage Site. My eight year old daughter and I were able to truly touch this unique and beautiful reserve.

Definitively, UNESCO sees a biosphere reserve as an ecological area with three core needs and functions: conservation, sustainable development and logistic support for scientific research and education.

Natural World Heritage sites must be of outstanding universal value in accordance with the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage and indeed, Sian Ka’an is an absolutely amazing property.

Located on the Mayan Riviera, it is a large area - nearly 1.3 million acres. It has 23 known archeological sites with relics dating up to 2,300 years old, 103 varieties of mammals and 336 species of birds. Currently it is home to over 2,000 inhabitants who are mostly native Mayan Indians – one of which was our guide to tour the jungle and cenote lake system.

Jungles are noisy places. Birds, insects, wind, and the creaking of branches combine to make a beautiful symphony of sound. Our Mayan guide, Antonio, pointed out many medicinal plants and warned us away from treacherous ones.

Amazing canals stretched for miles through the system of mangroves and wetlands. On one side of the canal system is mangroves, and on the other side of the canal system is wetland savannah which is quite beautiful.

My daughter and I were plopped into a canal – without our guide or any protection beyond a life vest – and we floated in our bathing suits down a one mile stretch of canal. As Antonio dropped us in the water, I was concerned about crocodiles and predators – it left both of our hearts pounding with excitement. However, there was no need to be worried; the sound of the wind blowing the mangroves and savannah grasses was quite amazing. Touching mangrove roots while we floated and really feeling a part of this special environment was powerful for both of us.

Having all your senses tantalized by nature is something everyone should experience, particularly children. Understanding that the jungle helps provide earth’s inhabitants with oxygen, the mangroves help protect the coastline from eroding, and that key medicine’s and antibiotics needed for mankind’s survival are found in this diverse world is enough to humble even the most confident human.

By introducing your family to nature you are educating them on the world’s needs and therefore helping them to understand the value of our eco-system as well as the value of our humanity. It is the green thing to do – the right thing to do.

What are you doing to introduce your family to nature? Whatever it is – do it today.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

How 14 Days In the Yucatan Made Me Realize the Value of Planet Earth – Part 1

 

Summer is here and most of us are looking forward to a respite from our life.  The summertime getaway. Might I suggest a green solution? Take an eco-trip. You will see beauty, have an adventure, and learn about our world.

My family and I took the eco-journey of a lifetime this year into the jungles, caves, and ocean of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Above you see me getting ready to zipline across a jungle – note the giant grin – it was a blast! I wrote and posted a blog every day for fourteen days about our journey using greening and eco-nature information as a tool to educate readers about environmental concerns in the world.

Understanding the fact that we impact all of the world, not just our little corner is so important. For example, areas of coral are dying out in the Yucatan from our fertilizer run-off. If the chemicals do not go down into our water aquifer, they are whooshed out through the storm water system. All those chemicals then react with ocean life – ultimately causing green blooms and death where ever the chemicals settle. This is disastrous for coral.

Who taught me that? An amazing man in Akumal, Mexico named Paul Sanchez- Navarro who is the Director of Centro Ecological Akumal (Photo to the right). He explained how nearly one quarter of all marine species are believed to depend on coral at some stage of their development. Many fish live their entire lives on reefs, while others use them as nurseries; if the coral dies out it is assumed the fish will too. The economic impact of losing coral is also significant – in the billions of dollars worldwide.

There were so many questions I wanted answered when I returned from the trip. What will happen if we are unable to provide fish for the world to eat? Will people starve? Without the coral and fish, millions of people will lose their jobs and be unable to support themselves. Without smaller fish which inhabit the coral reefs will all the larger fish die such as tuna and shark – the very same fish we use to feed our nation?

We went to jungles, beaches, caves, and protected eco-parks throughout the Yucatan Peninsula area and experienced some incredible things in nature, but one of the most powerful messages I saw everywhere we went is that you have an impact on planet earth. What we do here in the U.S. directly touches the rest of the world.

Make a difference for planet earth – start paying attention to the chemicals, fertilizers, and products you use at home that might be making a difference half-way around the world.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Yo’ Green On Tuesday – Compost 101 – How To Compost

Food scraps and yard clippings make up one quarter of the United States’ solid waste piling up in landfills. The book, True Green, says, “When this organic matter ends up in landfills and decomposes without air, it produces methane, a greenhouse gas twenty times more potent than carbon dioxide.”

Composting is the way to cleanly convert kitchen and garden waste into productive soil matter without producing toxicity and it is one of nature’s best mulches and soil amendments. You can make it without spending a cent, which helps save you money. Which type of composter should you use? Above is a video which discusses two really fantastic composters – both different styles – sold by Clean Air Gardening.

When adding material to the composter, keep in mind the pile needs a proper ratio of carbon-rich materials, or “browns,” and nitrogen-rich materials, or “greens,” and moisture. Below is a list of browns and greens you might use in your compost pile.

Examples of browns:

• Newspaper, black-and-white print preferred.
• Brown paper bags from the grocery store.
• Shredded cardboard or cotton and paper-based tissues and towels.
• Floor sweepings.
• Straw.
• Aged grass clippings.
• Dead leaves. Do not use dead leaves from diseased plants.

Examples of greens:

• New grass clippings.
• Plant prunings. Do not add prunings from diseased plants.
• Spent flowers and pulled weeds.
• Coffee grounds.
• Tea bags with metal staple removed.
• Kitchen scraps. Avoid items that will root, such as potato skins and onions, unless ground completely. Do not add meat or bones or it will stink to high heaven!
• Barnyard animal manures such as cow, horse, chicken, goat, sheep, and rabbit. Do not use dog, cat, or human manure/feces as they may contain pathogens or diseases that could be harmful.

Managed composting involves active participation, including turning the pile occasionally. On average, it takes between three and four weeks to create compost. The speed is determined by the products you add, if they are chopped up, and how often you turn the pile. A good balance of carbon and nitrogen encourages quicker composting.

The temperature of the managed pile is important—it indicates the activity of the decomposition process. It should be warm or hot to the touch. If it is not, then the microbial activity has slowed down and you need to add more green materials. This heat can be encouraged if you place your compost pile in full sun.

Keeping the pile moist is also important as organic waste needs water to decompose. Gray water, in other words, old dish water or clothes washer water from your home can be drained into a compost pile regularly. The rule of thumb is to keep the pile as moist as a wrung-out sponge. If you actively manage the composting, within a few weeks you will have a rich additive for your garden.

To order the awesome composters used in the video, please go to www.cleanairgardening.com.

Today’s post is a “Two For Tuesday” – this blog is on both my greening blog – www.gardeningnude.com AND my gardening blog – http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com – ENJOY!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com.

Get Yo’ Green On Tuesday – Use a Rain Barrel to Save Money and Water Plus Help Our Stormwater Systems!

One of the most fantastic ways to practice conservation, save money, AND water is to use a rain barrel! Clean Air Gardening sells some of the best and easiest to install. Above you see an instructional video showing the basics for one of the rain barrels I have from Clean Air Gardening (and how it works with a rain diverter).

During the summer months, residential water use increases approximately 40% – most of it centered around outdoor water use. A rain barrel collects and stores rainwater from rooftops, preventing less strain on our stormwater systems. This water is non-potable, which means not-drinkable. It is stored and can be used later for watering your lawn or garden, washing your car, cleaning tools, and any other purpose you can come up with.

Typically, water from your roof flows through roof gutter downspouts and becomes stormwater runoff, ultimately moving onto paved surfaces and eventually into a storm drain. Many of our stormwater systems are over taxed. All the water from stormwater systems eventually ends up in the ocean. Stormwater runoff is the leading type of residential non-point source pollution and is a large concern for those monitoring our earth’s oceans and water systems.

Water conservation with rain barrels is important. Although it is a small percentage of water saved, every little bit counts. Instead of sending water to the ocean, we should be trying to replace the water in the water aquifer, thereby keeping our water in a more natural state of replenishment while simultaneously reducing stormwater system usage.  

Here are some easy steps for installation of a rain barrel:

1. Find an area under a downspout on your home that is flat and level.

2. Place cement blocks or a stand of some sort on the level ground where your rain barrel will sit. Keep in mind, most rain barrels weigh 400 + pounds when full. By raising up the rain barrel, it will allow a watering can to fit below the spigot and will also have more “gravity” pressure.

3. Place your empty barrel on the blocks and measure where you need to cut your downspout to allow for an elbow or a diverter to drain water into the top of the rain barrel.

4. Place the barrel aside and cut the downspout with a hack saw where you drew your line.

5. Slide an elbow or diverter over the downspout that will allow the water to drain into your barrel.

6. Remove the old downspout and save it for winter. You will need to replace it during winter since you cannot use the rain barrel during harsh winter temperatures.

7. Attach a short hose to the top overflow spigot and direct the hose away from your foundation. A hose can be attached to the bottom spigot too, however, I leave this as an option since I like to fill watering cans by using the bottom spigot.

8. Slide your barrel under the newly reconfigured downspout and you are done.

To order the rain barrel and diverter used in the video, please go to www.cleanairgardening.com. Below you can see the rain barrel and down spout system as it rests today. I love my rain barrel - it has been an awesome tool to help water the front yard vegetable garden I am growing this season.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Yo’ Green On Tuesday – Food Waste Is A Serious Problem – Do Something About It At Home

This is what I saw several weeks ago when I went to clean up breakfast. Wasted food. I am sure you are wondering why six or seven bites of bread crumbs really makes a difference, right? It makes a difference when you understand that a few bites of bread is just the beginning of a giant problem we have here in the United States: food waste!

According to Food Production Daily (FPD), Timothy Jones, an anthropologist at the UA Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology and an expert on food loss, says that American households waste nearly 14 percent of their food purchases.

FPD goes on to say, “Fifteen per cent of that [waste] includes products still within their expiration date but never opened. Jones estimates an average family of four currently tosses out $590 per year, just in meat, fruits, vegetables and grain products.”

Amazingly, FPD says, “household food waste alone adds up to $43 billion.” Imagine how eliminating as much food waste as you can might help our environmental problems. “Jones estimates that reducing food waste by half could reduce adverse environmental impacts by 25 percent through reduced landfill use, soil depletion and applications of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.”

With our economy in the dumps, it makes more sense than ever to SAVE MONEY as well as save food waste. It makes more sense than ever that parents must take on the firm responsibility to educate children about how to live more conservatively. They will learn good habits and maybe when they grow up they will be able to support themselves through difficult times because they have this knowledge.

My eight year old and I had a little talk about her bread crust plate and she agreed to only take what she can eat on to her plate and promised not to waste food in the future. Is it perfect? No. I waste, she wastes, we all are relearning that there is a better way to live which saves money and the earth. At least we are trying one small step at a time.

Help your children understand food waste and sustainability – a lesson learned at home with family will last a lifetime!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Yo’ Green On Tuesday – An Indoor Bokashi Meat and Milk Composter Review

Clean Air Gardening sells this cool Indoor Kitchen Composter which composts more than traditional veg material, it also composts meat and milk. While I have practiced outdoor composting for several years, I have never done indoor composting and was curious if this worked. You can see a video review in the above short video.

According to the package directions, composting happens directly in the 16” X 10” X 10” pail so it is perfect for apartments and condos. Bokashi composting uses a different method than outdoor composting. Essentially it pickles the waste, turning it into fertilizer using fermentation. It works in half the time of conventional  composting. Moisture released from food waste can be drained out through a spigot at the bottom of the compost bin and can be made into a compost tea for house plants.

Clean Air Gardening shipped out the composter and a 2.25 lb bag of a special Bokashi mix that enhances the microbial action of the compost and allows traditional veg material as well as meats and milks to breakdown. Bokashi is a Japanese word that means "fermented organic matter." It can also be used as a soil amendment to increase the nutrient level and microbial diversity of the soil.

According to Clean Air Gardening, here’s how to use the Indoor Kitchen Composter and Bokashi mix:

“Before putting any compost in your Indoor Kitchen Composter, start by laying down a layer of Happy Farmer Bokashi. Then, when you add fresh food waste in the Kitchen Composter it's important to add additional Bokashi on top of every layer of scraps. Once the container is filled to capacity, let the waste continue to ferment for two weeks and then transfer into your garden or planter.”

Overall, I felt this product works and is rather amazing in it’s ability to breakdown meat, bones, and milk waste. However, it can be smelly if you do not cover the food waste properly (note the look on my face in the video). It is a wonderful idea for apartment dwellers and for people who have a strong motivation to save landfill space. I do prefer traditional composting better because it is less expensive. To maintain the Indoor Kitchen Composter, you must repurchase the bokashi several times a year.

For those of you interested in really taking a bite out of the landfill space situation, I think this is a more than fabulous idea. If you are interested in purchasing this composter or others, Clean Air Gardening has a wonderful selection. Go to www.cleanairgardening.com for more information.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Monday Whazzup – I Have A Bright Idea - Use A CFL - Save Money and Energy!

This fabulously glowing light bulb lives in my bedroom. It’s strength is powerful enough to light my whole room, yet this light bulb saves almost $30 over its lifetime and pays for itself in about six months. Also, it uses 75 percent less energy and lasts about 10 times longer than an incandescent bulb.

Before all the “green” terms and “green washing” and hype came about, my family was utilizing CFL’s (compact flourescent light bulbs). Not because they are “green” – but because they offer a significant money savings due to lower energy consumption.

In these difficult economic times we need to take every advantage we can to save a penny. To save electricity, turn off the lights when you leave the room and switch all your light bulbs to CFL’s as soon as you can. Both money and energy can be saved if you practice these two simple tips.

According to the Energy Star website, “If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gasses equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.”

Make a difference today!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Six Tips to Save Money and Conserve Water

Saving money is especially important in these difficult economic times. Below is a short video demonstrating six easy and simple tips to conserve water – and money - at home.

Every year Americans waste hundreds of gallons of water both at home and business. It is an unnecessary waste. Surprisingly, 97% of the water on earth is salt water, with only 3% being fresh water. Out of that 3%, 2% is unattainable – frozen as ice or in unreachable aquifer’s beneath the ground. That leaves 1% of reachable water on our planet for all of mankind to share.

Not only is it expensive to waste water; it is depleting our globes most precious resource. Make a difference and follow these six easy tips, three indoors and three outdoors, to conserve water on your property and do your small part to make a great difference:

1. Turn off your water while you are doing the dishes.

2. Turn off your water while you are brushing your teeth.

3. Utilize water saving toilets and appliances.

4. In the garden plant sustainably by positioning plants together that have similar water requirements.

5. Mulch your gardens so less water will be required for landscaping.

6. Utilize compost in your garden to enhance the soil’s ability to hold water.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

How To Plant A “GREEN” and Water Conserving Flowerpot or Container Garden

Every year millions of people plant flowerpots. Although beautiful, one problem with flowerpots is that you sometimes have to water the pots every day, particularly during the hot summer months.

My secret for potting plants insures you do not have to water as much, plus you are able to reduce, reuse, and recycle household products in the process. Last year I watered perhaps once a week, maybe twice a week during the hottest time of the season. (Video demonstration above.)

CONSERVATION CONTAINER PLANTING 101

STEP ONE -

Find a container with a drainage hole and place plastics you cannot recycle or light weight recyclables like milk cartons and water bottles in the bottom of the pot. Make sure you have about five to six inches of space left at the top of the pot for soil. Top your plastic/recycle filled area with sheets of newspaper, a pizza box, or some cardboard to prevent soil from leaking down through the cracks of the pot and being lost from the plant roots.

STEP TWO -

Add growing mix. I prefer a mixture of 3/4 traditional potting soil, 1/4 composted manure (I am using Buff Stuff – a “buffalo” manure), organic time-release fertilizer, and Soil Moist or Soil Moist Mycorrhiza water crystals according to package directions.

STEP THREE - 

Pot your plants. First arrange your plants to see if they all fit. Then plant according to your plan, making sure you plant them up to the crown of the root area. If you utilize a mix of drought tolerant perennials and annuals, you will have to water the pots much less. This year I have used a mixture of Proven Winners annuals and perennials because they have come out with a line of “heat/drought” tolerant annuals which help conserve water usage. Some of my favorites (seen here) include the Proven Winners Supertunia Mini-Silver, Diamond Frost Euphorbia, Graceful Grasses Red Riding Hood, and the Jolly Bee Geranium

STEP FOUR -

Water regularly with a thorough soaking at the base of the plants. Make sure you completely wet the soil with a heavy watering less often instead of watering lightly, but inadequately, more often. This will help the water crystals to obtain and hold water for their “time release” effect and you will spend less time tending your container garden.

Give this reduce, reuse, and recycle planting technique a try and you will see the benefits as less water usage, more money savings, and less plastic products thrown away in the landfills!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Yo Green On Tuesday – Native Plants Conserve Water

According to Jim Kleinwachter, a good friend who runs the “Conservation @ Home” program through The Conservation Foundation, native plants are the only way to go. Judging by the gorgeous photos seen here of native Bluebells and other flowers in his woodland garden, I can understand and agree with his mindset. Do the right thing - use native plants in your gardens and help your environment.

The “Conservation @ Home” website gives some wonderful reasons for utilizing natives; “Native plants grow natural without supplemental watering or fertilizers. Once established, native plants thrive on their own and do especially well during drought conditions because their deep roots hold the soil and allow water to filter down deep into the ground where it belongs. Yards with native landscaping reduce local flooding and clean pollution from rainwater before it reaches our rivers, lakes and ponds. And, perhaps the best part is that they attract dozens of species of beneficial wildlife like butterflies and songbirds.”

Consider native plants for your landscaping purposes and you will be surprised how easy, rewarding, and GREEN they are to grow. Best yet, they utilize less water and attract local wildlife which will help make your yard a haven of beauty. Without chemical use and excessive water use it will cost less to maintain. Contact your local nursery to find out more about native plants for your region.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Me Thinks I Need A New Royal “Water Saving” Throne – ‘Cause My Toilet Stinks!

My toilet stinks!

Although it’s shiny white porcelain glow, unique design, and lovely matching accessories made it a fashionable find, the real reason my husband and I bought the very special Crane Plumbing toilet from Menard’s was because of its beauty as well as its advertised water saving, money saving, and all around GREEN qualities.

Imagine a toilet with grandeur and “green” attributes; a royal throne fit for a Green Queen. Ah yes… this was indeed the dream. It took weeks of negotiation, preparation, and research before we purchased the toilet. Thrones are special, after all, and purchasing a toilet special enough for this Green Queen did not come cheap.

What a shock we received when it takes three, sometimes four, flushes to get the unmentionable contents to go down the plumbing. We must plunge several times a day to keep everything unclogged. Having purchased this toilet several years ago, I can now say, no – SHOUT - my irritation and disappointment with this horrid bit of porcelain. It is not water saving. It was a rip-off.

Sounds of irritated cursing can regularly be heard from behind the closed bathroom door. Mostly repeated refrains of “OH CRAP!” In fact, Mr. Crapper would be embarrassed that his name should ever be associated with this plumbing reject. Water saving? How is it saving water to flush two, three, sometimes four times instead of a single flush?

Our old toilet; now fondly remembered as “Old Faithful,” never missed a flush. Never clogged, not even once. Compared to the amount of water we are forced to use now, our old toilet (although not labeled “water saving” like the new one is) was definitely saving us water. And what did I do? I threw “Old Faithful” out in the garbage like an old candy wrapper. He’s buried in the landfill now. Lonely and missing our warm bottoms I am sure. Oh the tragedy!

My advice to you is do not buy a “water saving” Crane Plumbing toilet from Menard’s unless you have a guarantee and double-check their return policy. In fact, do your research on what you really get when a product is advertised “water saving.”

Next time you pray to the porcelain god, please put in a good word for me. Why? Because my toilet stinks!

How is your “water-saving” toilet? Is it really saving you water? Is there a better solution? Would love to hear what you have to say - I need some serious toilet help.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

The Great Coffee Cup Challenge

Here’s the coffee cup truth – our landfills are filling up with disposable coffee cups. According to the Sustainability Is Sexy website, Americans use approximately 16 billion disposable coffee cups per year. In 2006 alone, Starbucks used 2.3 billion coffee cups. Most cups including Starbucks current coffee cup design (as of 4/2009) only use a small percentage of recyclable material and are NOT recyclable themselves due to plastic content used to protect the cup from liquid leakage.

This quote from Sustainability Is Sexy really says it all; “In 2006, it is estimated that paper cups accounted for 252 million pounds of garbage resting in landfills.  Paper cup use in 2006 also accounted for 4 billion gallons of water wasted, 6.5 million trees cut down, and 4,884 billion BTU’s of energy used.”

When I found out these statistics I was blown away. Lots of people on the internet are complaining about it, but very few people are doing anything. Let’s DO SOMETHING!

If we can’t recycle them, why not reduce and reuse them?

The Great Coffee Cup Challenge

1. I challenge you to bring your own coffee cup to the local coffee house.
2. I challenge you to ask the manager of that shop to use recyclable cups every time you visit.
3. I challenge you to show my readers a creative way to reuse the coffee cups via video or photo.

Above is a video I made showing you what I do to reuse disposable coffee cups. I challenge you to make a difference by finding creative ways to reuse these cups. Send your videos, photos, and write-ups to blog@thecasualgardener.com and I will post your ideas and suggestions.

Let’s do something to make a difference together!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

GREEN AND SIMPLE TIP: Harry the Pug says, “Wash Your Laundry In Cold Water!”

Harry the Pug says, “Wash your laundry in cold water!” What a great tip to conserve energy.

That’s just the beginning of how you can save energy AND MONEY when doing laundry.

Front-loading washing machines use 40% less water than top loading machines. Quite often they have a superior spin cycle as well which helps pull more water out of the clothing. This ensures a quicker dry time in a dryer machine.

If you do not have a front loader, use the suds-saver cycle. Suds-savers reuse most of the soapy laundry water for a second use. Some suds-savers can cut water use by 30-50%.

My family has severe dust-mite – and yes – dog allergies. Therefore, we have to wash our bedding on the “extra-hot” setting to kill any dust mites trapped in the blankets. All clothing gets washed in cold. If the proper detergent is used, hot water is not needed to get your clothing clean.

This summer I want to take the Coronado family laundry to an all-time “green-diddy-green-green” height and start hanging my laundry on a clothes line to dry just like my Grandma used to do. That will eliminate even more energy waste. The goal is to save energy, but also to SAVE MONEY. Why are we spending all this money on energy in a difficult economic time when we do not need to?

Harry the Pug is all about conserving energy – so remember his advice (and mine) – wash in cold and try to hang the laundry once in a while to help make a difference!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Yo Green On Tuesday – Composting Kit And A Way To Save Kitchen Scraps From The Landfill

One of the greenest things you can do is save anything you can from a landfill. Food scraps are particularly difficult for landfills to deal with because when the scraps “melt” into mush they turn into a toxic bacterial soup that runs out of landfills like a river. We, as taxpayers, must clean up this “river” of ick with our tax money. Nice, right?

It seems to me that there’s an easier way to handle the problem: composting. If we compost our own kitchen scraps we are saving energy and money for taxpayers. Compost has the added bonus of being “gold” for your garden. Good deal.

Here’s the catch – last year I failed at composting. Something went wrong and my well intentioned kitchen scraps, leaves, and yard waste did not turn into compost. To help solve the problem I ordered a very cool kitchen scrap composting kit from Clean Air Gardening. It has a cool kitchen countertop pail with a filter so it does not smell, compostable bags, a compost thermometer,  and a “Home Composting Made Easy” book.

What did I do wrong last year? After reading the instruction guide carefully I think my compost pile was not wet enough. This year I put the compost bins right next to my newly installed rain barrels. Seems like it will be a lot easier to transfer water into the compost bin and all will be well.

Meanwhile, I have fallen in love with the awesome non-stinking kitchen countertop pail. Quite a change from the old bucket I was using. If you want to order your own composting kit, it is easy to get online at Clean Air Gardening. Go here - http://www.cleanairgardening.com/composting-kit.html.

Today’s post is a “Two For Tuesday” – this blog is on both my greening blog – www.gardeningnude.com AND my gardening blog – http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com – ENJOY!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com.

Monday Whazzup – Learn About The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Today I bring to your attention someone absolutely incredible – Captain Charles Moore - who has discovered and is tracking a horrific, devastating environmental issue of such grand proportion it dwarfs most states in size, and indeed, is as large as two Texas’s put together. Watching the amazing TED coverage of Moore and his discovery is something both you and your children should do. Why? Because Charles Moore really discusses something important - the world needs help and it is up to us to provide it.

Charles Moore’s story is that he discovered, while participating in a yachting competition in the Pacific, a huge section of floating plastic garbage in the ocean the size of two Texases. This plastic garbage is trapped in the Pacific Gyre, which is a swirling vortex that rides on the North Pacific ocean currents. Gyres are caused by the Coriolis Effect which is based on planetary vorticity combined with friction which causes giant circular water currents.

Critical to the North Pacific Gyre is Moore’s discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. According to the information on the TED website, “this Great Pacific Garbage Patch in some places outweighs even the surface waters' biomass six-to-one”.

Devastated with the way the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has touched the environment, Moore has been analyzing the giant garbage whirlpool and its negative effects on the ocean he has spent his life living and working on. With the help of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which he founded, he hopes to make a difference.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! http://www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - http://www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Evil Lurks Where You Least Expect It - The Danger of Six Pack Rings And How You And Your Family Can Make A Difference

Danger lurks where we least expect it in life. Even Darth Vader would be surprised that the danger I am discussing today is not from “the dark force” or giant industrial conglomerates. This danger comes from  the simple six-pack ring and is a serious threat to many in our environment.

According to www.nature-magazine.net, “During a beach cleanup along 300 miles of Texas shoreline in 1988, 15,600 plastic six-pack rings were found in 3 hours.” Hundreds of photos of animals trapped in plastic six-pack rings inundate the internet and the message is clear: six-pack holders are virtually invisible underwater, so marine animals of all sorts get trapped in them regularly. It’s often a death trap.

While doing a search on the dangers of six pack rings, I came across a great story on the www.jrcompton.com website. It’s about the rescue of “Six Pack,” a poor crested duck who got trapped in a six-pack ring. J.R. calls it the “Great Six-Pack Duck Rescue” and tells the photo story of how they rescued the duck. Here is his photo.

The message on six pack rings? YOU AND YOUR FAMILY CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE - Before you toss six-pack holders into the garbage, snip each circle with a scissors. Find other ways to recycle and utilize six-pack holders.

Harry the Pug – defender against evil and wrong-doers everywhere, says, “Please send me your ideas for creative ways to reuse six pack holders and help save a life!”

Harry and I look forward to hearing from you!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Monday Whazzup – 2009 Chicago Flower & Garden Show is More Sustainable!

Saturday I got lucky and nude. Well… metaphorically. As a member of the Garden Writers Association, I was allowed to go to the 2009 Chicago Flower & Garden Show as a preview reporter. This was a wonderful experience as I was able to scope out the main floor before the show opened.

Imagine my complete surprise when I saw a generous amount of green and sustainable solutions being demonstrated to the public at the garden show. More importantly, I saw ways that green solutions can and should be incorporated into our neighborhoods and daily life. Finally the world is starting to get it – greening is not just about recycling or about gardening; it is about a community taking care of each other.

My first view of the day featuring the Chicago Flower & Garden Show’s theme “Our World in Bloom” was from the catwalk high above the show floor and the above shot is what I saw: pergolas and structures built with “green” roofs. Many people have never seen a green roof in action and seeing how very beautiful the green roofs are as well as what important tools they are for reducing heat and therefore energy use in our homes and work environments is a fantastic resource.

Many displays were sustainable in nature, with strong showings from the Chicago Park District and City of Chicago on encouraging people to conserve water and resources which I find particularly important in these difficult economic times. My only desire for improvement would be that there would be even more demonstrations of rain barrels and other water-centric savings ideas. However, this was a fantastic start – I hope there will be lots more next year. Below is a great example of a home with a green roof which utilizes rain barrels and recycled materials to make water features and other sustainable gardening concepts.

THIS is the type of garden show the average homeowner needs to see to help define what water saving and sustainability can mean to the individual homeowner. It IS possible to strip away the excuses and get straight down to energy and money savings. 

Going to see the show for the gardens as well as the sustainability is fantastic, however, it was the gorgeous displays of “greening” examples that will really educate the homeowner about better green lifestyle practices as well as better horticultural practices. Please go to the show and have a look for yourself this week!

To learn more about the show and how to get to Navy Pier for your advanced peek at spring, go to the website – www.chicagoflower.com. Be sure to get there before March 15th or you will miss the excitement.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Yo Green On Tuesday – Teach Children To Shop With the Brilliant, Amazing, and Beautiful “Reusable Bag”

Last week I wrote about my experience with Borders – that I was overjoyed about their new “no bag unless requested” policy. Why? Plastic bags are made from ethylene, a petroleum byproduct. In the United  States, approximately 12 million barrels of oil is used annually to make plastic bags that Americans consume.

With the great “greening” push many think it is the government’s responsibility to educate consumers on the basics of living a more sustainable lifestyle. I say, “poppycock!” Okay, honestly, I don’t normally say “poppycock,” but today I am saying it loud and clear: it is our responsibility as parents and caring people in the community to educate each other and our families on a less-wasteful lifestyle.

While it is still important for our governments and communities to set a positive green example, it is even more important that we teach our children these examples ourselves as well.

By educating our children on conservation oriented practices we are teaching them to be more caring citizens. When children learn a life-lesson at an early age, it becomes an intricate and important part of their lifestyle – lessons like not throwing trash out the window and not physically hitting others. These are important things to learn. So is greening and conservation.

A surprising benefit of practicing conservation techniques is most basic conservation practices helps us be less wasteful AND saves money. What a great lesson to give our children which they can use for the rest of their lives – a way to save money and help the world at the same time.

Teach children to bring reusable bags to use for grocery’s and your other shopping needs as well as caring odds and ends needed in daily life.

Reusable bags are sold everywhere and most only cost penny’s. I got the Whole Foods “I Used To Be A Plastic Bottle” bags for $1.00 and $.50. Online, a great reusable bag resource is www.reusablebags.com. Some stores give away the bags and all are a fantastic idea to get started educating our family’s about a greener lifestyle.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! http://www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - http://www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Gardening Nude Naked Winner of the Week: Organic Farmers – Janet Brown and Marty Jacobson – Co-founders of All Star Organic Farm

On most Friday's, Gardening Nude The Blog features a special person or organization for the day. This person or org is the "Naked Winner of the Week." All people featured in this category are winners for doing great things for the community and trying to make a difference for the world. You can make a difference too.

- - - - - - - - -

The naked winner of the week for 02-27-09 is ::drum roll please::

Janet Brown and Marty Jacobson and their entire family for living the life they believe in. Allstar Organic Farm is making a difference in their community of Marin County, California and doing it’s part to change the environmental world in a positive way. Inspiration for us all!

Janet Brown and Marty Jacobson live the organic life they advocate. They have built Allstar Organics, it includes a two acre farm filled with aromatic plants and antique roses in Lagunitas, California and ten acres of over one hundred and fifty varieties of certified organic, specialty and heirloom crops grown in Nicasio, in Marin County, California.

Their efforts to create and live a greener lifestyle benefits both the environmental and neighborhood community in wonderful ways. Allstar Organics brings locally grown product to Californians – fresh vegetables, herbs, spices, herbal salts, body sugars, and artisnal botanical essences. Janet and Marty bring their “green” products and family-oriented mindset to their local efforts, and in doing so have made a true difference for their neighbors and their world.

They understand that the freshest chemical free products will help families grow healthier. Setting an ecologically sound example is important to their family, Janet says, "In the 16 years Allstar Organics has been in operation, we are proud to have been a part of a growing network of organic and sustainable farms that practice ecologically sound, socially integrated, and economically viable renewable agriculture. We manage our farming system to improve soil fertility, encourage biological diversity, and create year-round food production for local consumption. The result is that we are able to produce an annual, diverse harvest of wholesome, nutritious, and delicious fresh foods."

Below is a short but interesting video featuring Janet discussing the importance of locally grown foods and organic farming to the large scale problem of climate change. Small scale solutions can really make a difference.

Thank you, Allstar Organics, for educating the public and bringing and organic lifestyle to your community. Your efforts are making a difference so more people understand the importance of buying local and buying organic. You win a big pat on the back and lots of applause from the Gardening Nude blog – thank you for your continued efforts to make a difference in the world!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! http://www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - http://www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com