Local Living Green
By Dennis Burton
When nature calls, listen to how she can save you money and improve your life. By creating a place that favors nature, home owners can open a world of creativity and entertainment and save two-fold what they would pay to maintain their property.
The birds and the bees are not just a figure of speech. Along with the butterflies, trees, and wildflowers, they are our beck-and-call back to Eden. A place never lost, but a hard to find, sincere appreciation and personal communication with the natural world. Eden is displaced and obscured by our busy lives.
Worry not! Nature is alive and well. She wants to be your friend. Whether you have a two acre property with a wooded lot or a small patch with a flower pot, you can be in tune with nature. You can rekindle your relationship with Thoreau, Emerson and Muir with only the effort it takes to think about it and by using resources that you already have.
Consider that the average lifestyle reader has property with a lawn. Annually, a quarter acre lawn costs around $1200 to maintain. The cost is not the overarching issue, but it can help rationalize going au naturel. Enhancing your home with nature costs about the same, and after the first season, it costs little to nothing to maintain.
What do you get for this? A naturalized landscape with paths, a few benches, a couple nooks and crannies to get lost in with a good book, birds, butterflies, toads, maybe some fox and owls, priceless.
An excellent beginning reference book for this is Bringing Nature Home, by Doug Tallamy. This is a literal how-to guide for sustaining wildlife and reinvigorating your sense of wonder about nature.
Seasoned experts can also give advice. Locally you can contact me, Dennis Burton, Proprietor of Design by Nature, www.DesignByNature.us.
Green Cleaning
By Debbie Goetz
There is no better time than now to purge outdated and unneeded equipment and put you on a path to a cleaner, healthier and more productive work space. Items such as printers, fax machines, computers, flat screens, laptops, modems, routers, servers, PDAs, cell phones, office telephones and telephone systems, cables, and wiring can all be recycled.
“Everyone knows about recycling paper, aluminum, glass, and plastic, but most people don’t know that there are many commonly used office products that can be properly recycled once they become broken, outdated or obsolete. By properly recycling these items, in accordance with EPA standards, we are keeping potentially hazardous waste out of our landfills,” says Court Ebeling.
An additional benefit is the reduction of stress people feel once they have freed up space and made it easier to find things in the workplace. Ebling adds, “It’s amazing to see how much more productive people become once they have de-cluttered their workspace and found a safe way to dispose of unwanted equipment.” It helps busy people sort through years of household and office accumulation and determine what they should keep, donate, discard, recycle and sell.
To find out more about electronics recycling, visit www.cartershd.com
Debbie Goetz is a Public Relations Consultant and freelance writer.
Trash Talk
Kicking Compost
By Jennifer Hetrick
What could be more fun and de-stressing than kicking a compost bin around the backyard with the family?
While large open bins aren’t always doable in suburban settings, making your own kickable composting bin out of a plastic ‘food grade’ drum is a creative way to make the task more affordable. It’s functional in limited spaces, exercise-friendly, and exciting for the little ones and adults who are still kids at heart.
Craig’s List is a great resource for seeking inexpensive ‘food grade’ drums with convenient lids made to twist-on-tightly-till-closed. So, the worry of food and yard debris spilling out mid-kick has no place in the picture.
Here’s how: Drill a few small holes in the bin to allow oxygen to enter; this keeps the compost brewing into new garden soil for spring. Small metal screens can be placed over the openings, on the inside, with the use of a strong adhesive.
A great part of composting is teaching kids, while they’re young; show them eco-kind lessons. Dinner scraps and fallen leaves aren’t the only materials well worth throwing in the bin before footwork glee.
Hair from a brush, eggshells, what you sweep up with your vacuum, food scraps (except meats and bones) and even fingernail clippings can be composted. Anything that decomposes can go into the bin and will break down over a few months. Kick weekly for best results.
For more insights on building a composting bin on your own, visit www.instructables.com.
Jennifer Hetrick is an independent writer.
D.I.G. Do It Green
Organic Gardening
By Lyn Hicks
The true wonder of organic gardening is how it is done. It allows nature’s ways to do all of the work. A collaborative way to befriend nature’s process is by creating a respite in the world of around you. It is your mark, your gift, and honor for engaging in the growing process.
Soil is the most important part of organic gardening. It provides nutrients for the plants to flourish. Add compost to mulch and continually layer it to achieve different types of soils. These act as protective layers which add different nutrients to the soil. The key to growing organic is having healthy soil; it is food for your plants – healthy plants equal fewer issues.
As a flower grower and gardener, an important first rule to consider is inter-planting. Many plants work for free, reseeding naturally. Varieties such as dill, Queen Anne’s lace, fennel or angelica are plants with the umbrels which are important to have in your garden. These umbrels attract the most beneficial insects that help control pest problems. There are all kinds of companion planting ideas that are helpful; Alyssum around the base of roses will keep out the bugs and offer a very pretty look!
Another way to manage organically is by not putting all of one type of flower in one area but instead, create patches. Dahlias, zinnias, and lisianthus are great choices. If one area gets affected, disease gets limited to the patch rather than ruining your entire crop. Diversity is key so mix things about as you would see in nature. Many insects, birds, and bats will visit your eco-system to help keep it balanced for you. There will be years that no matter what you do, bad seeds, soil that is too wet or too dry, or certain bugs will kill a crop. That is the reason for planting many varieties of plant and flower species.
Try to mimic the way things grow in nature. Blending will invite all animals and creatures to be part of a healthy eco-system. This is more natural and requires less hassle to grow this way. It is an easier process to let the system work for you and your garden. Nature has a leg up on all of us with its perfectly occurring system.
Lyn Hicks is a Living Green Expert for Harmony Hill Gardens and freelance writer.
Local Environmental Not-for-Profit Restores the Musconetcong River
Heritage Conservancy, a not-for-profit land conservation organization based in Doylestown, Pa., recently teamed up with Trout Unlimited for a restoration project aimed at restoring the Musconetcong River on one of the Conservancy’s preserved properties in Northwest New Jersey. The Musconetcong River’s waters empty into the Delaware River. It is part of a major bird migratory route in North America and an important wildlife corridor.
Over the years, the river channel has widened and been filled in with sediment. The goal of the project was to restore aquatic habitat that had been degraded by the effects of upstream development. The project helped narrow and deepen the channel. Boulders were brought on site to stabilize the structure of the channel and provide additional habitat for aquatic insects and native brook trout.
During restoration, the river was dug out where needed. Pools were created; boulders were added to keep the river flowing and transporting sediment during low water periods. Point bars were also installed. Composed of sediment, point bars are low, curved ridges of sand and gravel along the inner bank. They reflect the overall capacity of a flowing stream or river.
“The end results of this project were truly remarkable,” said Jim Thompson, Senior Conservation Steward at Heritage Conservancy. “The channel is back to its historic width, and sediment transportation has been restored in all flows. Habitat for indigenous aquatic life was reestablished and enhanced.”
For more information on river conservation planning and watershed restoration, contact Heritage Conservancy at (215) 345-7020 or www.HeritageConservancy.org.
RECYCLING FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!
Ken Glynn, Founder of the GreenSmart Store at the Flemington MarketPlace, Route 202 Flemington, NJ, announced recently that they’ve expanded their product line to include the GreenSmart Store Cannectors™ that are used to build large Lego-block-like structures by connecting soda cans. The concept is especially green because a blend of recycled plastic is used to make them, and they employ recycled soda cans for the structures. Eight or fewer soda cans may be used to create basic building blocks that are then snapped together like Legos. As a bonus, these are 100% made in America by Pop-Blox of Texas.
Not only may these fun Cannectors™ be used as big toy play blocks, but they can also be used to make coffee tables, end tables, headboards, bookshelf columns, chairs and other permanent structures. Cannectors™ may also be used to make interesting sculptures and can overhang as needed. Ken challenges every family to have a family meeting and put their heads together to design and build a family Cannectors™ project. He requests that you send or bring photos to the store for the Great Cannections Contest! Winners’ submissions will be used in product advertising and the winning families will receive $200.00 in store gift certificates.
In addition to the Cannectors™ and hundreds of other green products at the GreenSmart Store (recycled, natural, organic, energy savers and solar powered), the biggest seller and most important products in the store are the Teflon-free nonstick nanoceramic frying pans and cookware. The store is trying to get the toxic Teflon pans off the burners and is asking volunteers to donate their Teflon pans for recycling by bringing them to the store in exchange for a $5.00 discount coupon. The store has made clocks from the old frying pans and is asking everyone for other recycling ideas! The GreenSmart Store is located next to Cold Stone Ice Cream. Ken’s recommendation: Bring the whole family out for an ice cream and then visit the GreenSmart Store.
The Beekeeping Buzz
By Nicole Reggia
Beekeeping has always had a sweet spot in Pennsylvania. But with Philadelphia’s embrace of green roofs, planted medians and gorgeous parks, you can also add rooftop honeybees. There is an increasingly young urban beekeeping movement in the city, in addition to many domestic hives in the ‘burbs.
Although keeping honeybees is scientific and advanced, hives require very little to maintain. Beekeeping increases pollination, provides a healthier environment and provides a micro business opportunity for many. The products of beekeeping (honey, wax and bee pollen) are profitable and in high demand.
Honeybees are disappearing across the country and putting most fruits, nuts and vegetables at risk. Nearly one-third of all bees in the country have vanished due to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The list of plants that simply won’t grow without bee pollination is a long one. One in three bites of fruits or vegetables you eat is pollinated by honeybees and their pollination is critical to our food supply.
What can you do to help honeybees and improve the environment? Consider housing a small hive with sweet results! The agriculture beekeeping industry is a 16 billion dollar per year business.
Not too bad for an insect.
Nicole Reggia is Director, www.NowThatsWild.com.
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