Eco Friendly House And Garden

Why Not Make Even More Out Of Your Eco Friendly House And Garden This Year?

Rather than just living in your house as normal - why not consider a few of these ways to no only improve the eco friendly qualities of your home - but to make it work for you too.

I mean, why should a house just sit there doing nothing? Make it more useful than it already is by making some small changes or concessions….

Here are a few ideas for you to consider with regards to ’sharing’ your home with others for the benefit of others - as well as your bank balance in some cases!

Empty Rooms Are A Waste:
Even if you turn of all heating and seal up all windows - an empty room is a waste of resources!

It’s already in a home filled with energy and bodies - so why leave rooms empty when you could make them work for a living and keep the worlds ‘footprints’ smaller - after all, the more people living in the same house can save on so many levels!

If you aren’t into a full time tenant and live in a busy town or city, why not consider a Monday-to-Friday tenant instead. No huge commitment, less belongings and they are usually a reliable adult too!

Or the other end of the extreme - if your house is too big for you but you don’t want to downsize for whatever reason, then why not eco renovate and create a self contained unit in the basement or whatever and rent this out as as a permanent let or holiday home depending on your location.

Hotel Rooms Even More So:
Why not treat your home as a swap for a hotel room - either as a holiday for yourself or while you are away.

Firstly, you could take a holiday swap this year instead of booking a hotel. let a family move into your home while you go live in theirs! Not everyone is looking for an equal swap either - you might get a cute cottage for your family home, or a spacious farmhouse for your city flat!

Secondly, if you live near a local attraction or event (like Wimbledon or a show ground) then why not time your holidays to coincide with a huge demand for lettings! Signing up with an agency could bring you up to £2000 a week depending on your home and the event you are close to!

Parking Spot Or Tennis Court?
Same goes for the outside of your home - why not rent out unused space to others at virtually no cost to you or really any effort either!

If you have land that people could park on and you live in a busy location - why not let someone park there? You aren’t using it - and they probably waste time and petrol every morning looking for a spot!

And the same goes for your tennis court, trampoline, pool, piano, climbing frame or anything else you have sitting around that you aren’t using 24 hours a day. You might not want to charge your closest friends - but a few quid for a game of tennis for some young kids or keep-fit oldies won’t go amiss - basically paying for it’s own maintenance.

Your Skills Too:
It’s not just physical things that can help out others and bring in a few extra pounds - what about your own skills?

Music lessons, language lessons, discussion groups, Body Shop parties and product research groups. All could use your skills and your lounge, conservatory or kitchen - and of course - you!

Or if you are on a country walk or in a cute village, why not sell cakes and tea or garden veg and flowers in your front garden for passers-by!

House In The Country

Get Your Home On TV!
If you live in a city, your home has a great garden, great views or great architecture, or you have some great internal features - you could ‘model’ your home!

Let a photo or TV agency know about it and you could rent your house and garden out for magazines, TV or even movies!

You don’t even have to do anything, they set it all up and then take it all away again - pain free and you won’t be in any of the shots - unless you want to be!

I can’t believe we have finally got a Green MP in parliament - what a magnificent step!

It shows that there are more people out there who are serious about making some changes - and of the eco friendly kind!

Brighton Pavilion constituency helped the leader of the Green Party in England & Wales - Mrs Caroline Lucas - to a majority victory in yesterdays election.

I can’t wait to see what changes are brought about in the next few months and years!  Just take a look at their Core Policies and maybe you will start to wish you had voted for them in your area too!

Congratulations Mrs Lucas!

And, if you want to make a difference by joining the Green Party (for as little as £32.00 a year) then choose your membership package, and start changing the future!

All around me I see baby trees that are never going to become beautiful oaks or great maples!

In lawns, grass verges, church yards and driveways, I see little trees that have spent all winter putting all their effort into growing - only to be guaranteed to last only a short time more.

With the closing in of the lawn mower season - many of these little survivors will have their tops cut off and live no more!  Yet more can be found growing in ridiculous spots - like a crack in the concrete or up against your home - and will never be allowed to grow to full size!

But, you can help them!  You could give a tree a helping hand - in the same way that we need them to clean our air and feed and protect our wildlife in return.  And it won’t cost you a penny - nature has given you them for free!

So why not move them to a better place while why they are still only tiny, and give them a better chance at growing up!

But How Do I know What A Baby Tree Looks Like?
Luckily for you, spotting a baby tree is so very easy as they nearly all look virtually identical at the moment - growing about an inch or two high out of the grass - see the picture below:

All baby trees grow these same 2 leaves as their first leaves so once you have seen one you will know what they all look like!

It’s only the following set of leaves that are the same shape as their adult leaves - so in a way it is sometimes a little surprise to find out what it is exactly that you have saved!

It could be a mighty oak, a quivering willow or a festive holly tree - but either way - it is a tree that now stands a much better chance of survival if you move it to a flower border, by your hedge or wherever.  As long as it’s not on the lawn!

Watch Them Grow:
Now don’t worry about there being too many trees in your garden if you save them all, as these little babies take years before they will affect your garden - and many of them will become lunch for bunnies and deer or die naturally.

And it will take something like an oak about 30/40 years before it’s big enough for you to climb!  However, they could make a great hedge to make your garden more secluded.

Some of these trees will be smaller trees anyway, like holly, and so will actually look great as they grow up - as well as feeding the winter wildlife!

Maybe take photos of them growing over the years to see your work being rewarded.  And pictures of their first leaves can help you to identify them - and maybe help you decide where the best spot to move them to is.  

I mean, you wouldn’t want a great pine tree right next to the house, and a holly bush close to a path or garden bench could be quite uncomfortable! But an elderberry tree could be great near the kitchen to make some great summer drinks!

Have fun saving your free trees - and our environment!

An eco friendly business doesn’t just talk about it - it acts on it!

Depending on the type of business that you run, or the company that you work for, there could be a certain amount of long-distance travel involved.  And long-haul means wasted time, staff not working and carbon emissions!

So Climate Care Day is asking: ‘Why not consider a ‘travel free’ day as part of your current business plan?’  This initiative supported by the WWF is trying to give you the opportunity to look at the alternatives, and make businesses more eco-friendly.

By asking you not to travel as part of your working day, they are trying to get businesses and individuals to think about the impact that their decisions can have on not only their business itself, but also on the wider environment.

What Are They Asking?
Basically, the idea of Climate Care Day is to get businesses to not arrange any long distance travel for that 24 hours.

So, on the 26th of March 2010, they are hoping that corporations will communicate via other means rather than face-to-face.

Whether this means individuals will communicate verbally by telephone, digitally via the internet or virtually with live video conferencing - it doesn’t matter.  As long as they haven’t flown or driven hundreds or thousands of miles to do it in person!

There are plenty of technological alternatives available to businesses today that can eliminate or reduce the need for business travel - and can save a lot of money in the process!

However, a lot of people are not thinking of these alternatives as they plod along doing everything as they have always done it.  Added to this is the problem of the changing market, where something that wasn’t really a viable option a few years ago is now readily and very often cheaply available.

Sometimes things that have always happened a certain way are seen as static - with no real reason to change it - well, if it has always worked like that - why change it?

But we have seen with the impressive speed with which cell phones have morphed into a huge array of handheld mobile technology gadgets that make phone calls, give you directions, display whole journals, film events, take pictures, search the internet and even play games.  Why would you still want to do all these things separately and as slowly as we used to do it?

Would you rather go to a library and scan through the paper index and individual paper journals to find a certain fact, when you could use the internet instead?  And why would you want to carry a camera, your cell and a laptop to review new products for your company, when a smart phone could do all 3 jobs in 1?

The same could be true for your business if you worked smarter - and it makes economic sense.  Save time, save money and reduce carbon emissions - but also create a better work environment and help society change for the better.

Why Do It?
Climate change is said to be the biggest threat to nature and humanity in the 21st century, and has now become a serious business issue.  Ignoring this could have detrimental effects on not only your own business itself, but on the way we work as a planet at the moment.

Coastal cities are having to make 25-year plans to move whole industries away from threatened coastlines.  You can’t just change the country’s infrastructure overnight!

And supplies and raw materials are changing - for example landfill sites are being raided for their raw ingredients which were buried in the past decades, and old computer parts are being harvested for the precious metals they contain.

We also know that in general things that stay the same are left behind.  I mean if you ran a business today that was based on using only dial-up internet- you would not be able to compete with others in the same market.

You don’t always need the newest inventions, or the most expensive - but you need a viable alternative that suits your business needs.

So, even if you can’t take part in this event, consider looking again at some business improvements - and become more eco friendly along the way.

These little critters will eat 100’s of garden pests and help to pollinate 1000’s of plants.
 
By encouraging these little understood bugs into your garden could really improve your success in the plant world, helping to kills off pests, help generate seeds and fruits throughout the year.

So lets find out about these very different little insects and see what they can do for us - and what we can do for them.

Bumble Bees:
These are the first things we think of when we talk about bees, and we often see them in the garden as a big, furry bumbling bee, humming loudly as it moves through the plants in our yards.

Bumble Bee

These bees are not kept in hives and actually live in holes in the ground, compost heap, disused bird houses or old trees.  At the end of the summer the queen is mated and heads of alone to live out the winter before producing offspring the following spring.

She generates plenty of offspring and a colony could number up to 300 individuals as it lives out the summer feeding on and pollinating our garden plants and trees.

They have a sting, but rarely use it.

Honey Bees:
These are the ones that are kept in hives and produce plenty of honey - which bee-keepers use for human consumption.  They don’t need human intervention and can make their own hives in trees and roof spaces if necessary.

They are similar in shape and size to wasps rather than bumble bees, but don’t have the pinched-in ‘waist’ of the wasp.

They always live in large colonies and cannot survive alone for very long.  They can, however, travel and arrive in your garden in a huge swarm of up to 20,000 individuals!  Quite a site to witness as they settle as one writhing mass on a tree or building.

They are rarely ever dangerous to humans unless you antagonise them - although they will sting you.  Experts can be called in to move the swarm quite easily to a less populated environment if you don’t want quite that many in your garden!

Solitary Bees:
The other types of bees live in loose groups but do not swarm or form colonies.

They are similar in appearance to honey bees, and can be used commercially to pollinate crops just like the more popular honey bees.

There are about 250 types on solitary bees in the UK, and many live in small holes in the ground but stay close to other solitary bees spread out over some distance.

Wasps:
Although they send us into a fear frenzy on site due to their habit of stinging us - they can be very beneficial to your garden or allotment.

The queen will set up a nest of mushy paper and fibres in the spring and start to produce larvae to build up her colony - which can reach 20,000 in a few weeks if the conditions are excellent!

Intricate Wasps Nest In Trees

Adult wasps eat nectar and sugary liquids, but they feed their young on insects, so can be seen feeding off plants and killing aphids too! 1 worker wasp could catch around 100 aphids a day off your plants to feed their young.

However, if the colony becomes too large the adults may require more natural food than your garden can supply and so they will turn to other sources - like our kitchen for jams, bee hives for honey etc. and this is when they come into conflict with humans.

But as with all the different bees, if you can tolerate them around your homes and gardens you can get yourself some free insect control and some free fruit and flower generation!

So what are you doing to encourage them to your garden?

Did you find that you got better at identifying any birds because of it?

I can now tell the difference between a house sparrow and a tree sparrow, and my little niece can now identify a magpie!  I know about the different stripes on the greater and lesser spotted woodpeckers and the different ’spots’ on the breast of the song thrush and mistle thrush.

And I found out how much easier it was with binoculars and a small guide book!

I had great fun doing the bird counts with my family.  I helped my mum in her tiny urban garden (12 species), my niece in her huge suburban garden (7 species) - and helped myself in my woodland garden! (9 species).

We saw great spotted woodpeckers, pied wagtails, wrens, song thrushes and bullfinches - as well as the more common blackbirds, robins, magpies, crows and starlings. 

However, to my suprise, the tiny urban garden had the most different species of all 3 sites, with the huge garden not having any unique species - they shared half of their 7 species with both the other sites!

And it didn’t even have the largest number of 1 type either - mum’s got 26+ starlings in hers!

I was glad to see the wrens and the house sparrows at my mum’s as well as they are not common where I live at the moment.  And the starlings chirping away in their ‘alien’ fashion took me back to my childhood!

However, I’m not too bothered about them being ‘missing’ as I get all sorts of other amazing species like red kites, buzzards, jays and woodpeckers here - and I even saw a woodcock the other day!

How did your counts go - and have you entered your results on the RSPB website yet?

Take a trip to RHS Wisley in the UK for an amazing butterfly experience - you won’t forget it!

RHS Wisley is one of the largest gardens in the UK - with an absolutely huge temperate and tropical glasshouse - and they are going to fill it with butterflies!

I have visited many smaller scale butterfly houses when abroad - but this is on the scale of something magnificent - and will have species from all over the globe including the absolutely huge Blue Morpho butterfly from Central and South America which can reach up to 8 inches across!

Native UK species don’t grow quite that big and none are irridescent blue - but we do have some very colourful and delicate species that you can attract right into your garden like the bright yellow Brimstones, the highly decorative orange and black Marsh Frittilaries, tiny blue Hairstreaks and the huge black and white Swallowtails with a wingspan of over 3 inches!  

So, all you need to attract some into your own garden, are the right garden plants - and help is at hand.

Butterfly Conservation, UK:
This UK based charity are the best source of information on butterflies you can get for native species - and their president is none other than the great Sir David Attenborough.

Members of the Society are going to be at Wisley in the glasshouses to help you identify the different species in the display - but also those that you find in your gardens year after year - or want to find in your garden from now on!

There will be information boards all around the site helping you to identify the essential plants that butterflies need as adults, but also as caterpillars.

Why Butterflies?
Many people forget that caterpillars are a huge food source for many of our garden wild birds - such as blue tits and robins - and that the more adult butterflies you attract to your garden through the year - the more birds their offspring can feed keeping you garden filled with life at all times.

Also, butterflies are an important pollinater for plants too and they are the second largest pollinaters after bees.  Plants such as sunflowers, asters and daisies all depend on butterflies to create seeds - and they are in the second largest group of plants on Earth, so it’s an important link.  And a key one if you want your plants to set strong seeds and spread across your gardens.

Visiting this one off spectacle could be the spark that generates a keen interest in butterflies and back gardens in yourself or your children - and could really make a difference to struggling species in your area.

After all it is the International Year of Biodiversity - so why not get things started with a great day out!

Details:
RHS Wisley is in Surrey, England and is open all year round as one of the UK’s largest public gardens, with woodlands, water features, flower-filled avenues, sculptures, a library, and a huge garden centre. 

The butterfly display is on now until the 28th of February 2010 and is free as part of the normal entrance fee.  Children under 6 are free, and pre-booked groups get a discount - so make sure you take the whole family with you - and some friends thrown in.  Get everyone involved.

Planning to lose weight and give up smoking - 2 perfect eco friendly resolutions!

Every New Year there are thousands of people vowing to give up smoking and lose weight for the new year - so why not do it for real this time rather than just putting in a little bit of effort in front of the friends!

We know the reason we manage to eat a bit healthier in January is because we have eaten so much junk over the winter that we would rather not face another strawberry trifle or fried leftovers! 

And the symbolic start of the new year makes us decide that it’s a good time to be a bit healthier - but when you go back to work and the month end bills start to come through after the longest month of the year - it virtually always has 5 Fridays - you are stressed enough to just keep on smoking!

So why not make these 2 count seriously towards your new eco friendly lifestyle for 2010.

Losing Weight:
This has 2 sides to it’s eco benefit; eating less and exercising more, so lets look at these in detail.

Eating Less - we all know that we buy, cook and eat much more food than we need - and much of the food isn’t nutritious enough to make a difference.  So by restricting your meal size and number of meals, you can reduce the pressure on farmers and local stores to grow so much in the first place.

The food has to be grown and transported to the stores too which uses valuable energy and petrol or gas as well.  In a larger scale example the advantages become clear: if the average person buys 20 sprouts from the store, and a lorry from the farm can only fit in 1000 sprouts in it’s hopper - that means one journey feeds 50 families. 

But what if each of your 3 dinner guests only really eats 5 sprouts each and you throw the leftover 5 away?  That means that that lorry carried 250 sprouts for nothing.  And if people only brought what they actually ate - that original lorry could have fed nearly 67 families (17 more than before).

And who says we should be eating until we are stuffed anyway?  Buy less, eat less, waste less.

Exercising More- Clearly, if you are exercising more then you may well be walking or cycling a lot more than before - both of which have massive eco benefits.

By spending more time out of your car, you are saving on fuel and emissions - but you are also making your local area richer.  If you visit local parks and other amenities you are making them worth keeping and maintaining - and you could become involved in local projects.

And by taking a bit longer to get somewhere or exploring somewhere in closer detail you could become a bit more knowledgeable of local species and habitats - and even see places, buildings or wildlife that you haven’t seen before (as you fly at 50 mph down the link road!).

Also, more exercise will make you a healthier person, delaying the signs of aging and reducing your need for routine medications and treatments - all saving you and the community money and energy.  Which leads us on to the other resolution….

Stop Smoking:
Not only is smoking bad for your health on it’s own, it is also bad for your health in terms of the reduction in exercise your may well be having due to being so out of breath.  It has been scientifically proved that smoking causes lung damage - and your lungs are what helps you to be active and exercise more.

However, buying you cigarettes is a never-ending job.  Unless you are a very light smoker or stretch out your roll-ups beyond the meanest student - you will be having to visit a store several times a week.  Smokers never seem to buy them in bulk, they go back and forth all the time, just buying another 20. and I bet the don’t always walk there?

The packaging, the transport, the ingredients - all bad for the environment and your body.  So make an appointment with a hypnotist and get over it!

There are many other ways to help improve your eco friendly lifestyle - so maybe instead of New Year resolutions - have New Month resolutions where you can improve your lifestyle throughout the year!

How can a plant seeds when I can’t even see my garden!

Like many people, I am hoping to start planting some seeds in my garden shortly - but the ground is frozen, and under about 3 inches of snow!

I also have some plants that I want to tend to as well, but they are still covered in the white stuff!

It has been several weeks now since I have been able to even think about getting back out into the garden to check on things already out there and getting ready for the new seasons crops and plants.

Just before the ‘big freeze’ there was a period of wet weather, and primroses, daisies and buttercups were all flowering in my garden at the end of November - I dread to think what they will look like when this snow all melts - and whether they will have the energy to flower again by March!

Problems In The Garden:
Well, I should be out there pruning back some of last years branches and shoots as well as clearing old leaves but that is going to have to wait - as is turning the compost!  I tried to do this before the new year, but it was too heavy with all the snow, and then clearing it a bit actually melted the snow turning it into a huge pile of slush - washing away some of the nutrients I had packed inside!

The thought of digging out the beds for the early potatoes is not sounding too appealing either - and I have been putting off adding the manure as I can’t face driving all the way to the stable yard in this terrible weather.  My driveway is still snowed in - so I am sure the access to a private yard won’t be faring much better!

The weight of the snow on my greenhouse has moved some of the panes downwards into the gutters leaving gaps in the roof - and I noticed a new crack in one.  I can’t attempt to slide them back into place when the temperatures are so low as I may well end up cracking another!  And my footing isn’t going to be the best!

My ceramic water butt has all but frozen over, so I am relying on my plastic one on the other side of the garden to keep things going.  I have had to completely rearrange my porch and spare room window sill to take on all of my early seeds and delicate plants.

Cold Weather Gardening Tips:
There are however, a few things you can do to take the edge off the worst of the weather for your seedlings and garden plants, and they include making things warmer (or not as cold as usual), changing varieties and changing locations.

Use a mulch to keep the ground from freezing.  If you have built up a nice layer of mulch (possibly using the leaves that you are only just starting to clear up), the actual earth your plants are going to be sown in will be just that little bit warmer than the ‘new’ surface, which should help them start out.

Use heat lamps or heat pads if the temperature is too low for your plants to get started.  I have just begun to use a low level low-energy heat pad in my porch where I can have many plants resting part on it and therefore giving them that extra warmth they are not yet getting from the sun!

Sow less seeds at a time to increase your chances of germination.  By only sowing a few seeds every few days, you are staggering your growth needs and therefore giving each seed more of a chance to do well. 

If you sow 50 seeds at the same time they will all need care and attention - and heating - at the same time almost guaranteeing a heavy loss if conditions don’t improve.  Whereas sowing only 5 every 3rd day or so will mean that each batch will get 100% of your attention as it grows.  The first 5 will be nice a warm and germinating before you move them aside to start the next batch.  This also means that your flowers or vegetables won’t all flower and fruit at the same time - perfect for a longer season!

Change varieties to make the most of the cold.  There are many varieties of flowers and vegetables that will do better in these cold and wet conditions (when the snow melts there is going to be a lot of water in the ground).  Make sure that you use these instead of particularly fussy varieties that are going to take up a lot of your time and energy growing - if they don’t fail you.

The Next Few Months:
The weather isn’t looking like it’s going to get much warmer over the next few weeks - so be prepared for a hard time through to February.

And, if your garden plants aren’t doing so well, then why not consider planting some wildflower seed this year.  By selecting native and local wild flowers for your garden - you will be giving them the best start in life.  They are hardy little things and will no doubt look great in the spring - just as they will carpet your local woods and parks in the wild.

Nature has a way of getting things moving - and plants that have evolved for years to live in your area will be no exception.  They need little help to grow, will suit your garden perfectly and will attract plenty of birds and insects for the summer!

I know it’s still 2009, but like your veg - you need to plan ahead!

The Royal Agricultural Society of England and the National Society of Allotment & Leisure Gardeners Limited are sponsoring an event that you won’t want to miss. 

In March 2010, there will be the first ever ‘grow your own’ event in Warwickshire, UK. For 3 days, you can learn about everything from chickens to cabbage, bee-keeping to bread-making and even a sausage seminar!

Even if you have already been growing your own fruit and veg - you can still learn some more.  All those things you have been doing for years could be getting results - but what if someone else’s tip could double your production or half your growing time!

What if you have been thinking about baking your own bread, making your own honey or rearing your own livestock and just need to speak to someone who has already been there and done that?  Well, here is the perfect place to visit.

They even offer advice on what to do with all your food when you have grown it!  There are plenty of stalls and seminars about culinary delights.

So, whether you grow it, feed it, brew it, bake it, or just love it - you want this show!

Want to know more?  Then sign up for their newsletter to keep on top of things as the show gets closer…..

Maybe I’ll see you there?