Category Archives: Green

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Compost (stuff to use)

Greens (quick to rot):

Grass mowings

Poultry manure (without bedding)

Young weeds and plants, nettles of any age

Intermediate:

Fruit and vegetable scraps

Rhubarb leaves

Tea bags, tea leaves, coffee grounds

Vegetable plants

strawy animal manures

cut flowers

soft hedge clippings

Bedding from herbivorous pets

perennial weeds

Browns (slow to rot):

Old straw

Tough plant and vegetable stems

old bedding plants

fall leaves

woody prunings, evergreen hedge trimmings

cardboard tubes, egg cartons

crumpled paper and newspaper

DO NOT USE:

Meat and fish scraps

dog and cat offal

disposable diapers

coal ashes

plastic, polystyrene, glass, metal

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Organic Soil Improvers

Garden Compost:  MEdium fertility.  Dig in or mulch.

Green waste compost:  Low fertility.  Dig in or mulch.  Available from large-scale municipal recycling centers, likely low in nitrogen but high in potassium.

Commercial bagged compost:  Variable fertility.  Dig in or mulch.

Worm compost:  High fertility.

Strawy animal manures:  Medium to high fertility.  Must be well rotted before being dug into the soil.  Unfortunately, getting organic animal manure is difficult.

Spent mushroom compost:  Medium fertility.  Tends to be alkaline, so choose which plants to use it on with care.  Can be sourced from organic mushroom growers.

Leaf mold:  Low fertility.  Mulch or dig in, depending on age.

Straw:  Low fertility.  Source from an organic farm if possible.  Best as a mulch.

Bark chips and shredded prunings:  Lower fertility.  Best used as a mulch only, and on ornamentals, rather than food plants.  If dug in, they can rob nitrogen from the soil.  This caution also applies to horse manure with wood chips.

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Green Cleaning

Ideas collected from a variety of places.  Some I have tried, some I have not.  However, it is absolutely amazing what you can manage to clean with things you likely have in your kitchen for other purposes, rather than reaching for the bottles of chemical nastiness we have been taught are necessary.

Stainless Steel Sink:  Wet it down, sprinkle with baking soda, scrub, rinse.  Use a retired soft-bristle toothbrush and the same paste to clean the rim and caulk, and the rubber around the garbage disposal.  Line the sink with paper towels or rags that you have soaked in white vinegar.  Leave for 20 minutes.  Clean down again, this time with sponge and soapy water.  Rinse.

Garbage disposals:  Pour a half cup of baking soda down the drain, then a cup of water.  Boil a kettle, and pour the water down the drain.  Add two cups of ice and one cup of rock salt to the drain, turn on the disposal until it goes down.  Take a lime or lemon, cut in half, and send each half down the disposal.

Faucets:  Soapy water and a sponge, or vinegar soaked paper towels.  Using newspaper to polish them works quite well.

 

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Vinegar

Name:  Vinegar

Latin:

Other Common Names:

Family:

Parts Used:

Vitamins/Minerals:

Used for:  Vinegar can lower cholesterol, improve skin tone, moderate high blood pressure, combat osteoporosis, and improve metabolism.

Use in tandem with:

Directions & Warnings:

Other Uses:  To clean countertops and get rid of mildew, mix a 1 to 1 vinegar and water solution and use in a spray bottle for cleaning.  To use as a fabric softener, add 1/2 c to the rinse cycle.  Clean your toilet with straight vinegar to get rid of rings and other nastiness.  For a window cleaner, mix a 1 to 4 vinegar to water solution, and stick in a spray bottle for cleaning.

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7 Steps you can take to detox/green your house

1.  Remove the carpet.  Even without taking into account some of the nasty things that go into making most carpet in the first place, they are a dust and toxin and….  trap.  Wood, tile, or stone can be kept much cleaner, and don’t have the tendency to collect and hold onto everything that comes into your house.  If you want to keep the floors (and your feet) a little warmer, you can use throw rugs, the mobility of them getting around the cleaning issue.

2.  De-chlorinate the water.  Fairly straightforward.  Put filters on your taps and on your shower.

3.  Insulate.  With one of the newer greener variants that don’t outgas.

4.  Replace your mattress.  Typical foam mattresses are treated with things that are…  questionable, and can assist in loading up our toxicity until you find yourself standing on the road to Chemical Sensitivities-ville.   There are organic options.

5.  Dump the artificials (fragrance, cleaning products, personal care, etc…).  There are alternatives in each area.  I’ve actually noticed a lessening of my allergic to the world issue just from dealing with the bath products and cleaning supplies, and in most cases, vinegar and water and possibly some safe dishsoap covers my cleaning needs.

6.  Bake out the bad stuff.  If you can’t replace some of the nastier materials in your home, there are ways to speed up the outgassing of the toxic stuff.  Making sure, of course, that you and yours aren’t in the location while doing so.

7.  Clear the air in your house by ventilating from time to time.  Open some windows, let air circulate, and thus waft out some of the bad and refresh the air.

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Steps to help your energy bills

1.  Slay the vampires.  Sounds strange, likely, but a lot of things that are left plugged in all the time draw a lot more power than you might think.  (TVs, VCRs, etc..)  Even just plugging all of that sort of thing into a power strip and turning that off when you aren’t using them can save you (on average) $75 a year.

2.  A computer consumes (again, on average) as much energy as 3 100 watt light bulbs.  Turn it off when it isn’t in use.

3.  Vacuuming your refrigerator coils twice a year increases the appliance’s energy efficiency by quite a bit.

4.  Keep your freezer full.  A full freezer functions more efficiently and uses less power.

5.  Keep your hot water heater set at no more than 120 degrees.

6.  Train yourself to turn off lights in rooms when you leave them.  This measure alone can cut your energy bill by 5-10 percent.  (Again, this is something I’ve seen in practice.  Once we managed to make it habitual, the savings were immediately visible.)

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