As the Garden Grows

What's blooming today?


You are here: Home / Archives for Sites and products / Great Sites

Great selection of hiking boots

by

As gardeners I’m sure that some of my readers love of the outdoors extends beyond their gardens. Perhaps some of you have cottages where you enjoy the great outdoors or maybe some of you visit hiking trails?

If you are an outdoors enthusiast or if hiking is one of the ways that you keep in shape you might be interested in taking a look at the Hiking Boots at Metboots.com. If you are a hunter or want to buy a great gift for a hunter their selection of Hunting boots is quite extensive as well.

I’ve always enjoyed hiking myself. There are a number of beautiful trails within Toronto and of course there are many outside of the city as well. I’m sure that now that we have a Labrador retriever we’ll be going out hiking even more than we ever have since it’s a great way to exercise the dog and to get some exercise ourselves.

You’ll find hiking boots from brand names such as Converse, Carolina, Danner, Dickies, Dr. Martins, Haix, Hi-Tech, Nautilus, Rocky Outdoor Gear, Terra, Thorogood, and Wolverine just to name a few. All are fine manufacturers of hiking boots.

As a Canadian I always check online store policies to see if they ship to Canada and other international locations and it appears that I’m in luck as they do ship internationally. I was also pleased to see that they accept Paypal payments! I love that! I’ve been using Paypal to pay for quite a few of my online purchases lately. Metboots.com also offers free shipping on orders over $100.

If you’re in need of hunting or hiking boots visit Metboots and check out their selection.






Use a rain water tank to conserve water

by

I think just about everyone these days does at least a little to conserve resources. Some do it to help save the planet while others might do it to save money or for other benefit.

Now I know that many of you who read this blog are gardeners. Some of you live in areas with little water for part of the year or you might have water restrictions during the growing season. Perhaps using rainwater tanks to collect the runoff from your house when it rains might help you keep your garden and lawn looking beautiful during times of water restriction.

By using rain water tanks you’d be helping to conserve the water in your area. I think you’ll also find that your plants enjoy a good dousing with rain water. The water in my part of the world is hard water – full of minerals, but I believe that rain water is usually soft water.

You can purchase rain water tanks at waterharvest.com.au for both residential and commercial use. They also carry grey water systems. If you’re not familiar with grey systems they take water from your shower, wash basins, washing machines and other sources in your home, treat it and store it for reuse in your garden, toilets, washing machines or even for washing your car.

You can visit the site to learn more about their above and below ground rain water tanks and grey water systems. They have several different tanks in various sizes to choose from. Just think, if you purchase a rain water tank you could save quite a bit of money on your water bill and do your part to conserve.

Cut your energy bill this holiday season by switching to LED Holiday lights

by

We had our first snow last week. That’s a little early for Toronto, especially to have snow that actually stayed on the ground for a few days.

I was taken by surprise by the early snow and it made me realize that we’d better get the Christmas lights out and start decorating the house before it snows again and makes it difficult to get the lights up.

Have you started decorating your home for the holidays yet?

We’ve pretty much switched over to LED Christmas lights. With the cost of energy these days it’s nice to know that LED lights are 90% more efficient than standard incandescent lights.

Did you know that this past Spring Toronto’s CN Tower, one of the tallest free standing structures in the world, got new lights? Yes, they equipped the tower with thousands of LED lights. Now at night the CN Tower is lite up with a variety of colors or pasterns. I think they change the colors and patterns daily. By patterns I mean that on Canada Day the tower might be light up with a flag totally made of LED lights or on the 4th of July there could be an American Flag showing. It’s beautiful. Plus, it doesn’t cost the city very much to light the tower. Only $1000 per month! That’s pretty good for a gigantic public building and tourist attraction.

So … if even cities are starting to use LED lights maybe you should too if you haven’t already made the switch.

A few other things that I like about using LED Holiday lights is the fact that the bulb is encased in a very hard plastic which makes them extremely durable. I’m sure you know how easy it is to break glass incandescent bulbs – especially the ones you use outdoors! LED lights are also long lasting. They’ll operate for 50,000 hours or more! That means years and years of use before you need to replace a string of lights.

As you know we try to be as green as possible with our gardening and the products we use around our home. I consider LED lights a green product because they are energy efficient and also because they last so long.

How many of you already use LED Holiday lights?

Meta