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Author Archive | Jennie Lyon

How To Make Sure Your Garden Is Eco-Friendly

February 15, 2022 0

If you have an outdoor space you’ll want to make it as beautiful as possible. When you’re making improvements to your garden, it’s important to keep sustainability in mind. These five tips will help you to improve your garden while keeping things green.

1. Permaculture gardening

If you’d like to create an eco-friendly garden, you should focus on permaculture gardening methods. The method focuses on reducing waste, utilizing dead plants, and growing crops, all using natural processes. The approach relies on several key principles such as:

  • Create a zone for wildlife.
  • Choose plants that suit the climate.
  • Rainwater will nourish the plants.
  • Consider where shade and sun fall in your garden.
  • Let Mother Nature do her work.

2. Grow your own foods

Growing your own food is the best way to create an eco-friendly garden. When you grow fruits and vegetables you’ll improve your diet; reduce your carbon footprint; and create a sustainable garden. The first thing you’ll need to do is to check out a few tips and tricks. Read books about growing vegetables, download apps, or check out podcasts. According to Simply Gardening, some of the best vegetable growing books in 2022 include:

  • The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible By Edward C Smith
  • The Suburban Micro-Farm by Amy Stross
  • Epic Tomatoes by Craig Lehollier

3. Choose the right garden furniture

Creating a beautiful garden isn’t just about plants and flowers, it’s about choosing the right garden furniture and accessories. When you’re choosing garden furniture, here are several things to keep in mind:

  • Choose comfortable and eye-catching furniture; deep corner sofas are the best way to create a beautiful outdoor living room.
  • Make sure that you are choosing eco-friendly materials (bamboo, hemp, reclaimed wood, etc).
  • Making your own garden accessories is a great way to keep things green.

4. Make your own compost

The best way to create an eco-friendly garden is to make your own compost. Start by recycling your food waste, then you can add garden waste too. It’s best to purchase a compost tumbler, to store your compost. A compost tumbler allows you to keep your compost pile out of the rain, plus it’s easier to aerate your compost. Here are a few tricks to help you ensure that you create healthy compost:

  • Make sure that you balance green and brown materials in equal measures.
  • Prevent your compost from becoming too moist.
  • Use a tumbler or a garden fork to aerate your compost.

5. Eco-friendly pest control

If pests are attacking your plants and flowers you’ll want a fast and effective way to get rid of them. If you can help it, it’s best to stay away from chemical-heavy pest control solutions. Opt for something natural. There are many natural pest-control solutions for plants including:

  • Neem oil
  • Diatomaceous earth
  • Garlic spray

If natural pest control isn’t working, and pests are making their way into the home, you may need to look into different solutions.

Using these five ideas you’ll create the perfect eco-friendly garden space. When you make the best of your garden you’ll create an extra living space to use for your leisure. Gardening has so many health benefits, from exercise to relaxation. When you keep things green, you’ll create the best garden possible.

Here’s Why You Should Finally Ditch Your Car This Year

February 9, 2022 0

Cars are a combination of convenience and trouble for the environment, essentially becoming a necessary evil for the most part. However, something has to tip the balance. With the state of the environment growing more dismal by the day, you may have a few new reasons to ditch your car this year, and here are some of them.

You Can Carpool

There’s a chance that everyone else you know owns a car. If you know someone who works in the same place as you or even close by it, you can carpool with them and someone else. This makes it possible to live without a car because work is the main reason that many people need to have a car in the first place. Ask around from your neighbors to find out which one among them is willing to carpool, and you will enjoy not only saving resources but also leaving a smaller carbon footprint as a group.

The Environment Will Thank You

With the United States roadways averaging over 5,891,000 motor vehicle accidents a year, this is clearly due to having a large number of cars on the roads. While people may do their best to drive safely, car trouble and unforeseen issues like extreme weather can lead to accidents that are unavoidable to a large extent. When you ditch your car, you will not only help put one less possible accident on the highways, but you will also decrease the carbon emissions you’re responsible for, and for this, the environment will be grateful!

You Can Work Remotely

A few years back, there was a small fraction of jobs and employees that would allow working from home. It’s becoming the norm now, and so if you bought your car to get to and from work like many other people, there’s a chance you won’t need it. It’s possible to make your next position a telecommuting one and spend a majority of your time in and around your home. Even if you will need to go to an office physically on one or two days of the week, you can manage to do so without a car as you simply need to find means for those days.

There Are Many Ridesharing Apps

In this age of ride-hailing apps like Uber, you can enjoy the convenience of a taxi service that will pick you up from your home and drop you at the doorstep of where you need to be. This means that you need not worry about living too far from public transport stations as you can hail a car from wherever you are. This is especially true if you don’t need to commute daily, and even if you do, hailing these car services will be a lot cheaper for you than keeping a car. With around 125 oil rigs currently in operation in the Gulf of Mexico, there’s a lot of oil around, but it’s still a costly commodity. Rather than fuel your car every time you need to go somewhere and maybe get poor value per gallon depending on your car, you can rideshare.

You Will Be Healthier

Finally, not having a car will mean that you will need to walk a bit more than you would have otherwise done, and this is a form of exercise in itself. If you keep this up for a while, you will get into good shape without needing to sign up for a gym membership. Breathing the clean, fresh air as you enjoy the scenery will remind you what a great decision you made too!

If you were wondering whether it’s worth it to get rid of your car, the reasons above should make it easier for you to decide. The benefits outweigh the perceived downsides, so go ahead and ditch it this year and start your journey in green living.

Learn How to Budget Your Green Lifestyle

February 2, 2022 0

Many people want to live a greener lifestyle. However, they may think that it is too expensive. When they see the expensive equipment and food, they get discouraged, thinking they can’t do it. About 38% of respondents to a Harris Interactive poll said they’d be afraid of eviction, showing that people need to put their money toward important things. However, it is possible to budget for a green lifestyle. Here are some ways to do so.

Take Care of Your Body

Living sustainably includes caring for yourself physically and mentally. Green living should involve healthy food, lots of exercise and rest, and regular doctor’s appointments. Everyone should see a doctor once a year to make sure that they are doing well. By maintaining your health, you use fewer resources and avoid expensive medical bills.

Buy Used

Shopping at secondhand stores is a great way to live a sustainable lifestyle. Green living involves reusing things, something you might already be doing if you are on a tight budget. Many of the items at secondhand or thrift shops are still perfectly usable. They may even include some of the trendier green living items you’ve seen on social media. Do some or all of your shopping secondhand and you’ll be contributing to keeping the environment clean and healthy while also staying on a budget.

Involve the Whole Household

If you live with other people, get them involved in your green lifestyle as well. Not only will it be easier to sustain with their support, but it will also be financially beneficial. This can work for any living situation, including roommates and families. Half of American adults are married, meaning they likely have the emotional and financial support of their spouse. By combining resources, your household can afford the more expensive aspects of green living. It also means you can support each other as you establish new ways to live healthily, keeping you motivated and on track.

Shop Local

Whenever you can, buy as locally as possible. Not only will you support small businesses, but your purchases will also require fewer resources to get to you. This is a great way to get involved in sustainable business practices. However, local shops can sometimes be more expensive too. If you’re on a budget, don’t try to buy everything at your local farmers’ market or small shop. Instead, make a cost allowance list and buy what you can.

Have Realistic Expectations

Having realistic expectations of what you can do is an important part of green living on a budget. You shouldn’t try to live a perfectly sustainable life. It is not a realistic prospect, especially if you also have to pay attention to your budget. Instead, do what you can. Be realistic about your abilities and prioritize the things that mean the most to you. If you go into green living with the expectation of perfection, you’ll burn out. By doing the best you can, you accept that you will still have to do some non-sustainable things to survive. Knowing this as you begin will help you avoid the guilt and burnout that can come from not reaching your idealized expectations.

Green living is possible for everyone, even if you have to do so on a limited budget. If you go into this new lifestyle knowing what to expect, you’re much more likely to succeed. So make sure you prioritize where you’re spending your money and taking care of yourself. Consider these tips and apply them to your life, either gradually or all at once. Either way, they will help you take steps toward a green lifestyle.

Natural Healthcare Options That Don’t Cost The Earth

January 20, 2022 0

Oftentimes it can feel almost impossible to locate earth-friendly healthcare, and this may discourage you from actively seeking out a solution when you fall ill. There are far too many chemical and artificial medications that have a disastrous impact on your long-term health, and the manufacturing processes that they go through to create such medications are never carbon neutral. Rather than dicing with potential side effects and funding earth-destructive operations, there’s no time like the present to find more natural alternatives that can help you to take care of yourself and the planet at the same time. Fortunately, there are many natural healthcare methods that won’t cost the earth, and it couldn’t be easier to utilize such eco-conscious methods today. So, if you’re interested in finding out more, then simply read on. 

Plant-Based Medicines

For many thousands of years, humans have used plants as a form of medicine. Each species or strain has its own unique benefits that will alleviate symptoms of specific illnesses or issues, and up until around 100 years ago, these were the only treatment methods that you could expect to find when you’re under the weather. Utilizing these natural plant-based medicines is far kinder for the planet, as brewing yourself a mug of ginger tea to reduce pain and inflammation or dropping some Simply CBD oil under your tongue to manage anxiety symptoms and improve sleep is going to be far less damaging than popping out a chemical pill from a plastic covered container. Plant-based medicines can be extremely effective when used in the correct way, so be sure to perform your own research into each option you might like to explore so that you can get the most out of your healthcare.

Avoid The Gym, Get Outdoors

Driving in your car to the gym just so that you can walk on a treadmill machine is one of the most ridiculous concepts, yet it’s far more common than you could ever imagine. It’s vital that you can take the opportunity to exercise every day if you want to take great care of your health, but you don’t need to use any kind of fuel or electricity to feel the burn. Cancel your gym membership if you want to stay healthy without harming the planet, as it’s far more environmentally friendly to head outside for a run amongst nature! Exercising outdoors is actually better for your health, as you’ll be breathing fresh air while getting vitamin D from the sun. To further reduce your carbon footprint while boosting your well-being at the same time, ditch your car and walk or cycle to your intended location instead! 

Utilizing these natural health care methods will help you to keep control of your carbon footprint, ensuring that you can stay happy and healthy without having to harm mother nature in the process. There’s no time like the present to transform the way that you take care of yourself (and the planet), so what are you waiting for?

Is Giving Up Alcohol The Best Thing You Can Do For The Environment?

January 10, 2022 0

Giving up alcohol is a common change people make when they’re trying to be healthier. We all know that alcohol contains a huge amount of calories, so cutting it out is a quick and easy way to drop some excess weight without making too many other changes.

Alcohol also has a big impact on mental health and can lead to addiction in the long term. Many people that suffer from alcohol addiction find themselves in need of a rehab center to help them manage their intake, so giving up before you reach that point is a good idea. But cutting out alcohol isn’t just good for your physical and mental health, it’s good for the planet too. Here’s how quitting alcohol can reduce your environmental impact.

Water and Pesticide Use

The environmental impact of alcohol starts with the crops that are used to make it. Lots of grains, grapes, and hops are grown to make alcoholic drinks and that requires huge amounts of water. There is also a lot of pesticides used on these crops, which causes further environmental damage. Alcohol is not a necessity, so all of this water consumption and pesticide use is unnecessarily damaging the environment. 

You also need to consider the water that is used to make the drinks themselves. Beer and wine require a lot of water to be put in before the fermentation process. In fact, it takes around 60 liters of water to produce 1 liter of beer. Water scarcity is becoming a big problem around the globe, and alcohol production is contributing to it in a big way. People often talk about the impact of bottled water, but they don’t think about bottled beer and wine.

Energy Consumption

Next, you have to consider the energy produced in the huge factories that make alcoholic drinks. These factories are big energy consumers, and they use the power to distill alcohol, bottle it, and transport it. This process uses a lot of non-renewable sources of energy like coal, oil, and gas. Although some companies will use renewable energy sources, many of the largest alcohol producers in the world are not. 

There is a lot of energy used to ship alcohol products around the world too. When you add up all of the emissions from factories, as well as ships and lorries to deliver it, you start to see the true impact of alcohol on the environment.

Packaging Waste

Alcohol is traditionally sold in glass bottles or aluminum cans. These are very recyclable, but they will often end up sitting in a landfill for decades before being broken down. Although a lot of companies are looking for alternatives at the moment, many canned beers still come with a plastic ring around the top. These are known to cause a lot of problems in the ocean because animals are easily trapped inside them. If you’re trying to cut back on plastic packaging, be mindful about the alcohol you buy.

Many people decide to give up alcohol because it is better for their health. But even if you aren’t concerned about that, you should think about how it would benefit the planet if you cut back on your drinking.

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