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How Green Are You?

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As gardeners we have the ability to grow a good portion of our own food items. Just by growing our own food and or by eating locally grown unprocessed food items we can save 2,268 kg in CO2 emissions over the course of the year? Let me correct that … just by eating these types of foods once a week you can save that amount of C02 emissions. Just think of how much more you could do to help protect the planet if you ate home grown or locally produced food daily?

How did I come up with that figure? Well I was reading an article about reducing C02 emissions and it had 20 great tips that are easy to follow and that I’m sure many people would be able to follow. If you were able to do even some of the suggestions listed in the article you’d not only reduce a substantial amount of C02 emissions, but you’d also lower your energy consumption and save a lot of money. Perhaps savings in the $1000’s each year.

When you don’t eat food that you’ve grown in your own garden, or that’s unprocessed and locally grown, you have to add in the toll on the environment that processing food items, and then transporting them, sometimes as much as much as 2,500 km costs in C02 emissions, not to mention fuel and energy usage as well.

I know that not all of the gardeners who read this blog grow vegetables or fruit as well as their flowering plants and perennials, but if you don’t, please think about supporting your local agriculture. If you do have room, you can grow some veggies in containers, or in a small area of your flower beds. I grow strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes, peppers, carrots and some leafy greens between many of my flowering plants and you know what? They blend in just fine and oh … they are so tasty! I also grow beans, cucumbers and tiny tom tomatoes in containers on my patio, herbs and even more leafy greens, radishes, and peas in window box like containers on a platform outside my back porch.

I have purposely utilized my gardening space so that I can grow food and lovely, lovely flowers. You can too!

Now that it’s getting warmer in most areas there are other ways to reduce C02 emissions such as washing your clothing in cold water and putting them out on a clothes line to dry. Almost all of the appliances in our home are new and built to save energy, but we still need to get a new washer and dryer. We’ve still got the same ones that were here when we moved in and they were said to be 25 years old when we got the house so I guess our elderly appliances are going on 31 years of age! There’s no way that they are energy efficient. I know that. So I always wash in cold water and a good portion of our loads go out on the clothes line to dry. Not in the dead of winter, but we do have a clothes line set up in the basement so we still save some energy and C02 emissions in the winter that way too.

The clothes that I do hang out on the line always smell so nice and fresh when I bring them in. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do this more often.

The dryer is apparently one of the worst household offenders as far as C02 emissions go, and ours being so old must be the worst of the worst. Just by hanging the clothes out on the line for 6 months of the year you can save 318 kg in C02 emissions, and at least €55 (£37 or $73 USD). By hanging our clothes outside and not using our ancient machine I probably save three times that!

Please do take a look at that article and see what you can do to cut the C02 emissions that you produce in your home. Remember, many of the suggestions will also lower your energy bill and save you money too. It’s worth taking a peak at.






April Gardening Tips

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April is here and it’s the ideal time for planting summer vegetables and flowers. Here’s a few April gardening tips for you. Keep in mind that those of you living in cooler zones might delay some of these tasks until May.

Begin planting summer annuals, bulbs and vegetables such as cucumber, melon and zucchini seeds. Transplant the potted tomatoes and peppers that you started earlier in the year towards the end of April or in early May. Gladiolus and Lilies can be planted now too.

If your plants have been frost damaged don’t cut them back just yet. They may look dead but given time the stems and branches may still prove to be alive. Wait until the end of the month watching for new growth or for the stems to green and perhaps you won’t have to prune very much.

Prune spring blooming plants once they have finished flowering. Plants that fall into this category include acacia, forsythia, philadelphus, lilac and viburnum.

April is the perfect month to reseed the lawn. The temperatures are still on the cool side and there’s usually plenty of rain. Apply grass seed over the lawn or in bare patches and then cover with a thin layer of top soil. Water twice a day if it’s not raining regularly. New growth should begin within about two weeks.

April is also the perfect month to apply mulch to your garden beds. Turn old mulch into the soil and apply a new layer that is about three inches thick. Mulch will help to keep the weeds down and will reduce water usage in the hot summer months.

Elderly neighbor already tending her garden?

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I’ve mentioned my “stalker” neighbor Sofie before haven’t I? She’s the little old lady that lives next door who stares at me from her living room window when I sit working on my desktop computer, or who rushes outside the moment I try to get any work done in the garden. Are you remembering her now?

Don’t get me wrong. She’s a nice enough lady, but she’s very lonely, and clingy and well, uhm this kind of creeps me out sometimes.

In an earlier post I had said that our weathers been warmer this week and that most of the snow that we got a week and a half ago or so is almost gone. Well this seems to have spurred the gardener in little Sophie because I saw her outside earlier poking through the earth in her garden. It’s 0 Celsius outside … too cold to be outside without a coat on!

I wouldn’t doubt that she’ll be out turning her soil daily soon. It’s not like she has anything growing in her garden, or that there’s really any tending that needs to be done on this day in the middle of March. It’s just soil. When she gardens she grows vegetables – tomatoes, peppers, leeks, mint and that’s pretty much it.

It’s not like weeds are likely to start growing this week. We are set for cooler weather again and maybe even some snow. It will be below zero most nights and perhaps a few of the days in the next week.

Looks like I’ll have to try to persuader her to stop puttering outside in the freezing cold.

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