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Early Organic Gardening Planning – Fast Green Gardens

February 16, 2009 in Organic Gardening by Jennifer | No comments

If you’re planning an organic garden for spring, I hope you’ve been gathering ideas for non-toxic, healthy landscaping. If not here are a few eco-garden starter ideas.

Make your own non-toxic weed killer: Mix 1 ounce orange oil and 1 teaspoon liquid soap (I’d use natural) with 1 gallon of 10% white vinegar. Put some in a spray bottle and use it to spot spray weeds that pop up. Shake well before use.

Start collecting egg cartons: Use these for seed starting vs. plastic cups. You can also try composting or biodegradable seed starting pots.

Plan for crop rotation: Crop rotation is important for an organic garden. This keeps soil at a fertile level and inhibits disease and insects. So, if you’ve been planting your lettuce and carrots in the same places year after year, this season, sit down with a notepad and sketch out a new planting plan.

Save your coffee grounds: During the planting season you can sprinkle used organic coffee grounds into the soil to both enrich the soil content and keep pests like slugs and snails away. You can use non-organic, but organic is better due to the rich mineral content.

Get a better bag for leaves and debris: Snag some 100% biodegradable cornstarch-based leaf bags to gather the leaves and other debris from your yard then toss it straight into the compost bin.

Need more organic garden ideas?

Choose the Greenest Plants for Home Landscaping

February 3, 2009 in Organic Gardening by Jennifer | 4 comments

You can plant almost anything when it comes to landscaping – BUT that doesn’t mean you should plant any old thing. Part of using environmental landscaping for your home means focusing on plants that make sense for your location and site. Right now is a great time to consider which plants to choose – before you buy organic seeds or plant starts.

Why bother choosing the correct plants?

  • Your landscape and garden environment is more likely to thrive on its own. This cuts down on evasive care and nurturing.
  • You’ll reduce fertilizer, water, and pesticide use if you choose plants that naturally thrive in your specific environment.
  • Your plants will attract the helpful bugs, birds, and butterflies you want in in your garden and eliminate the pests you don’t want around. Native plants are much better at this task than weird non-site specific plants.

Tips for choosing the right plants:

I suggest starting at your local nursery. The folks at a local site know the area, know the weather, and know the water. A pro can help you find the best native plants and flowers.

Read Heat-Zone Gardening: How to Choose Plants That Thrive in Your Region’s Warmest Weather. This book will help you choose plants that will thrive in your area and is not only handy for warm weather regions but everywhere.

Better Homes & Gardens has an extensive regional gardening section, as does the National Gardening Association, and Gardenplace.com. You can also use basic Plant Hardiness Maps. All of the above resources allow you to make smart plant decisions – i.e find the best plants for your landscaping needs that cause the lowest eco-impact.

Tree Planting Where You Live can help you decide which trees to include in your landscaping plans.

What’s your gardening region? Does your region make it harder to plant what you like?

Organic Gardening Planning – Helpful Tools for Organic Seeds

January 12, 2009 in Uncategorized by Jennifer | No comments

In the last post we looked at getting a jump on your organic gardening with organic seeds. Here are some more helpful tools…

Organic Seedstarting Mix: 100% Organic Germinating Mix with sphagnum peat and perlite for a fine texture, and the addition of compost, protein meal and trace minerals for healthy growth.

Garden Starter System: Reusable vs. plastic seed starter bins. Other ways to start seeds include recycled egg cartons, yogurt cups (cut a hole in the bottom), or real planters that later will hold flowers.

Sun-Mar Continuous-Use Auto Flow 200 Composter: If you don’t have a composter yet, it’s time to get going with that. You still have time to start recycling your food scraps into healthy soil for the summer gardening season.

Grab a great organic gardening book: Read the rest of this entry »

12 Green Living Tips for the Whole House

January 2, 2009 in Green Your Home by Jennifer | No comments

Some green living tips are fairly room specific. Other green living tips, once enacted benefit your entire household. Some all-over green home tips include…

  1. Use plant-based, natural, organic, and biodegradable soaps, detergents, and cleaners. You can make your own products, or look for these aspects on green cleaner labels.
  2. Green clean the air in your home.
  3. Make it a goal to use cloth everything – cleaning cloths, napkins, and if you’re up for it, cloth diapers.
  4. Go one step further with the above tip and purchase only organic textiles.
  5. If all cloth is too big a step, purchase recycled, unbleached paper products.
  6. Use LED lighting where you can and install energy saving bulbs in other light fixtures.
  7. Reuse items in your home instead of tossing them.
  8. Buy sustainable furniture when you can.
  9. Scale down and buy and own less stuff; which might even free you up to live in a smaller house.
  10. When remodeling, remodel green.
  11. Paint your rooms with earth-friendly paints.
  12. Turn all the thermostats in the house down a few degrees.

What other green tips can you think of that benefit your entire house?

Tree Planting Where You Live

October 30, 2008 in Green Your Home, Organic Gardening by Jennifer | 1 comment

We talk a lot about tree planting here. In case you missed it, the following two posts are good places to start reading:

Planting Trees for Your Home and the Planet

Using Environmental Landscaping at Your House

Now, we all know trees are good. Trees can help guard against weather elements, improve air quality, create nice aesthetics, and lots more. However, the wrong tree or a tree planted incorrectly won’t help you or your home all that much – worse, you’ve just wasted a tree seedling or seed. To get the most out of tree planting follow these tips:

Look around your neighborhood and city – which trees thrive best? Which trees are plentiful? Trees that are local to the area almost always work better than imported trees. In fact, if you plant trees from other areas they can even create pollen issues and introduce problems into the local environment.

If possible aim for low maintenance trees. Trees that don’t need much care or water to thrive will usually do well, even if say, you go on an extended vacation.

Plant in the right place. If your goal is energy conservation, plant trees according to American Forests’ recommendations – they have a handy image you can follow (plus more tips).

Consider the canopy. A little seedling may not look like much, but eventually this tree will not only grow up, but out. Do you really need a massive canopy knocking into your home?

Consider the roots. Like the canopy, roots will spread and can even uproot sidewalks and gardens. Check with the right tree in the right place before planting to learn about roots and planting depths.

Learn more:

How to plant a tree

Care for a Tree

Types of trees

Planting Trees for Your Home and the Planet

October 5, 2008 in Organic Gardening by Jennifer | No comments

I always hear green skeptics say things like – “You tree huggers, always talking about planting trees!” Which of course is far from true, there are plenty of green actions you can take that have nothing to do with tree planting.

That said, tree planting (not to focus on green stereotypes) is one great way to green your house, and the environment, all at the same time. Here are some benefits of planting more trees near your home…

It’s easy: Of all the green action steps you can take, tree planting has got to be one of the easiest. Anyone can plant a tree. To learn specifics visit Arbor Day (if you join you even get 10 Free Trees) or How to Plant A Tree.

Trees save energy: Using smart landscaping, the average home can save $150+ a year on energy costs. Trees add as sun and wind blockers, create natural awnings, and more. Trees also help reduce water needs on plants planted nearby. To learn about earth-friendly, energy saving landscaping read: Using Environmental Landscaping at Your House.

Trees create, restore, and promote habitats: Birds, animals, insects, and people all need trees to enjoy. As habitats are destroyed, as we fill in land with concrete, we’re making the world a less nice place to be. Planting trees helps to restore balance.

Trees promote human health and well-being: Trees are relaxing. I always feel better in say, Oregon than the middle of Albuquerque, where large trees are rare. Trees reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, and a newer study shows that neighborhoods with plenty of trees have reduced instances of youth asthma.

Trees protect land: Besides cleaning the air, which is great for animals and people, trees stop massive erosion and create natural shade for other shrubs and plants. In fact less mulching is needed for plants who live under trees.