Eco Friendly House And 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?

It really is a light for your garden powered only by the wind!

Imagine sitting outside in your garden or on your balcony and you are being mesmerised by your spinning light! Sometimes it is a solid tube of color and other times it is a pulsating spiral of energy!

How Does It Work?
Well, there are 14 LED lights embedded on the edges of the product which are powered by the spinning of the FireWinder in the wind.

The Firewinder itself is made of 100% recyclable materials and is moulded in the shape of a helix. This way it can catch the wind from any angle and any strength.

Any breeze over a few miles-per-hour will spin the helix around - giving the illusion of a rising edge and in daylight this is more like a mobile than a piece of cutting edge eco-technology!

However, what makes it light up are the 14 LED ‘bulbs’ or ‘patches’ spread out all up the outside edge of the spiral which are powered by the tiny turbines inside.

As it is the outer rising edge of the FireWinder that has the lights on it - when the wind picks up, these lights spin around really quickly forming a continuous band of rising light around the lamp: See Light Spinning.

In slower winds the light pattern is mesmerising and moves upwards around the FireWinder at differnt speeds, sometimes throbing in the breeze. But at higher wind speeds, the lights stay solid and so you will have a what appears to be a static column of light 14 bands high!

It really is something to just stare at for hours!

Is It More Of An Ornament Then?
I suppose you could say that. I mean it is not going to be bright enough for you to read books by or offer home security features - but it will be a welcome edition in gardens during those warmer summer months.

FireWinder is I think the first and only wind-powered outdoor lighting product - all the others on the market are solar-powered - and offer a less fun form of lighting! However, if you don’t get a lot of wind then you best opt for these!

One great eco-friendly product for garden lighting are the solar-powered ‘rock’ lights. As their name suggests, they are plastic ‘rocks’ that have a tilted and so hidden solar panal on the top. By day they look like a simple stone and by night they emit a quite powerful beam of light.

These come in a range of different sizes and offer a more continous and reliable solid light in the garden than the Firewinders, but are not so amazing to watch!

There are of course plenty of more light-looking solar powered lights for your garden - some white, some colored and even some color changing lights - but you can’t beat the spiral effect!

Did you know that honey bees make onions and carrots grow?

Bees pollinate a huge number of plants, fruits and vegetables, and help to improve the yields of so many others. So without them, there may be less, smaller or no fruit and veg for us to eat!

Don’t Plants Just Grow Themselves?
Well, yes. All plants will grow into an adult plant or tree from a seed in the right conditions, but most will not fruit without pollination.

Pollination is where the male parts (the pollen) are moved from one plant to another by a bee, another insect or the wind (the pollinator) and join with the female parts (the ova) and make the babies if you like - and the babies in this case are the seeds. Most seeds are normally encased in fruiting bodies like apples, pears or nuts.

So, if for example, you enclosed an adult apple tree in a bee proof environment - it would produce blossom - but not any apples. The apples only grow once the flower has been fertilised, and the apples then grow from where the flowers once were. No pollination = no fertilisation = no apples.

The same is true for any flowering plant.

Can’t Something Else Pollinate Our Food?
Well, yes of course - some are pollinated by a variety of birds, insects or mammals - and many by the wind, but certain plants have evolved over thousands of years to work best with just 1 or 2 types of pollinators.

You may have seen the incredibly long flower tubes that only certain birds can reach into to feed, or the incredibly intricate ways that plants transfer pollen onto butterflies heads. Did you know that some plants will only release their pollen if stimulated by vibrating bee wings!

We can stimulate pollination ourselves if necessary, but it takes a lot longer and is nowhere near as effective long term. There is for example a town in China where villagers have to rub feathers across all their pear trees to make sure that they produce fruit - as they killed off all their own bees with pesticides.

This is all well and good for 1 small location where everyone chips in a bit of time for their own rewards, but imagine how many people you would need, how much time it would take and how much money it would cost to pay people to pollinate - by hand - the 60 million almond trees in California alone?

And this is just one crop. We farm a tonne of other more important crops - all of which will suffer if there are no bees.

What Can I Do?
Firstly, you can make sure that you limit or stop your use of pesticides or garden chemicals for ever and garden more organically. Bees are insects and so an insecticide used to kill those pesky aphids could well be killing bees too as well as butterflies and ladybirds - and possibly even birds and mammals.

Ladybirds which eat poisoned aphids could build up the toxins inside themselves before getting eaten by birds and passing these poison on up the food chain to larger birds or mammals! So insecticides can poison sparrows, falcons and even domestic cats!

Secondly, make a home for them! Now I am not suggesting that you need to set up a hive - you can easily make a home for a single bee in a tree or a hole in the ground and help to encourage wild bees (domesticated bees in hives cannot survive without human help) into your garden.

Make sure you leave wild areas in your yard - and make sure it has flowering plants in it so the bees can eat the nectar. A garden filled with decking and concrete isn’t going to make a good home for any animal!

Wild bees are just as good if not better at pollinating some plants and foods, but they live singly or in much smaller groups and don’t always want to live in the same hive. Your garden could supply the next home for some travelling bees - helping to keep your plants alive at the same time!

Thirdly, you could support local bee keepers by buying local honey - after all - their bees could be helping to pollinate your garden and local parks. They could also be creating all the yummy fruit you keep buying from your local farm store!

Nationally, Hagen Daz have made a Vanilla Honey Ice Cream to help highlight the plight of the honey bee (bees pollinate vanilla orchids if you didn’t know). By buying some of this delicious product - I have tried it myself - you can help fund research into what is causing the massive bee losses across the world - and hopefully prevent the honey bee as we know it ceasing to exist.

As a result, you will be keeping (excuse the pun) all those apples, pears, melons, cherries, blueberries, pumpkins, carrots, onions, broccoli, soya beans, almonds and sunflowers on your table!

Here, we continue from yesterday, with the final 3 tips on making those small steps to running a healthy eco friendly house!

5) Don’t Do Disposable!  Try to reduce your consumption of disposable items - they are everywhere.  Pens, sticky note pads, razors, toothbrushes, cotton-buds, cotton wool balls, facial pads, tissues, baby wipes, hygiene wipes, even personal ‘lady’ items.

Try to find the longer lasting equivalent - it’s not less hygienic if you do it properly.  For example facecloths instead of wipes or cotton wool is perfectly clean and gets the job done - then gets washed - and does the job all over again!

Toothbrushes with changeable heads and razors with replaceable blades all go towards reducing waste - and reducing your consumption of new materials.

Feminine hygiene products now come unbleached, and in smaller sizes to help reduce waste and resources - but now even come in washable versions.  There is even the menstrual cup today (a small insertable item that will ‘contain’ rather than ‘absorb’) that does away with the need for cotton products altogether!

Similarly, the contraceptive device known as The Coil (an IUD) works perfectly well as a contraceptive device for most women - reducing the need for wasteful alternatives.

In sexually active individuals and couples, one Coil could reduce the need for a continual supply of ‘the Pill’ - filled with either/or both oestrogen and progesterone (which eventually leave our bodies and enter the water system and affecting animals and plants) and could stop the rising tide of used condoms filling landfills or floating down the beach!

6) Buy Big!  Make sure that you buy the largest pack size of your products that you can.  Not only does this reduce packaging per unit - it should also save you money and reduce your weekly trash pile! 

Therefore, not only will you need to shop less as a result, the container is more likely to be re-used for storage.  (You can keep a smaller bottle for decanting into if space is an issue).

Don’t be tempted by promotions or buy-one-get-one-free offers for the smaller products.  They usually work out the most expensive way to buy your products, weight more with the extra containers, use more ink and labels with their individual wrapping or information, take up more room in your house and create more waste.  Therefore their overall ‘cost’ is not actually any cheaper!

And Finally (7):
Try something new if it’s eco credentials impress you.  Remember that advertised brands in commercials and magazines, pay $$$$$$$’s to advertise - and it’s you who pays for it.

You pay for that model to walk along tropical beaches for an ice cream, or that famous person to fly a plane for some anti-aging cream, or a mountaineer to climb a high mountain for a washing powder.  That must mean that they are making a huge profit from you somewhere - and that means that their products are made a lot cheaper than the price you pay!

Unadvertised products usually put a lot more into their products as they sell by word of mouth saving advertising costs.  And, in all honesty - noone recommends a product that doesn’t work, taste good or fit properly. 

So trust a brand that has been recommended by people you know sometimes instead of just believing what you are told on the TV!

Let me know how you get on, or have any other tips…….

Several continuous small steps are better than one big single one.

I have put together some simple steps in the ‘beauty & fashion’ department that can help you make a move over to more environmentally friendly products without too much hassle.  And it can be a bit of fun too.

Many people are worried about which brand of this they should chose or what brand of that is better - but really the answer is to change bits of your lifestyle not just swap one thing for another.

It is always easiest to Reduce - this is the key to sustainable and eco friendly living.  Reuse comes a close second and of course never forget to Recycle - but focus on the life cycle of the items you are buying or thinking of buying and follow it from production, through use and then to disposal.

This brings me to the first fashion tip:

1) Stop Shopping!  The greenest products and clothes are those items you already have.  They have already been made - and it’s up to you to use them or recycle them.

If you decide to become ‘green’ overnight and go and buy something ‘organic’ or ‘bio-degradable’ instead - you are wasting all the energy, transport and ingredients that have gone into the one you already have, but are going to leave on the shelf.  Wasted.

We need to Reduce our consumption, so make sure that you keep wearing all your old clothes, use the last of that old shampoo or bubble bath, and don’t throw something away because you want something new.  Or, try Tip 2:

2) Have A Swap Party. There are many people like you who grow tired of the same shoes/top/beauty products/etc - so why not give them to your friends in exchange for something they ‘don’t want’.

You could come away with a whole new outfit, and change of facial regime or some household ingredients that your friends would otherwise have wasted.  Similarly, your ‘waste’ finds a second life!

3) Simplify Your Life.  Another things to consider when going to purchase a new item, is whether you actually need it right now.  I mean, rather than buying some nutritional supplements - why not actually consider eating more healthily instead!  Buying fresh local fruit and veg produces far less waste that factory-made tablets in tiny plastic bottles!

Similarly, technology out-dates itself overnight it seems - so rather than make that rash purchase - think about ways you can make do with what you have until you really have to upgrade.  Otherwise, you could be disposing of something that was perfectly usable for something that will be out-of-date in 3 months anyway!

And, most technology and appliances come ‘eco friendly’ these days.  With low energy rating listings and reduced-chemical electronics readily available and at a similar cost to the short-use energy-hungry models we brought last time!

4) Back To Basics.  Why do we need everything so perfumed and highly specific these days?  Can’t we just use unscented nappy-sacks, hygiene products and ‘exotic’ air-fresheners?  Use natural instead: tea-tree oil, lavender, along with other plants and herbs all have their uses - and without the chemicals!

Try Aloe for sun care, oats for facial scrubs, cucumber slices for eye recovery - and many many more.  I have seen quotes that ladies apply, on average, 126 ingredients and chemicals in daily beauty regimes!  That’s amazing really - and seeing as so many of those are potentially harmful to us.

Babies are particularly sensitive to chemicals yet we use an array of man-made (and potentially hormone-affecting) toiletries for them without any real reason - other than ‘we saw the advert’ and it said ‘this does this…..’.  Well warm water and an organic cotton cloth cleans even the dirtiest of bottoms!

See Part 2 tomorrow for further eco friendly tips…….

Walk To Work Week - Go On, Give It A Try!

It’s the first ever Walk to Work Week - organised by Living Streets, and why don’t you become a part of it?  It’s planned for the week of April 27th to 1st May, this year.

We all know that driving short distances to work adds to the rush hour traffic, costs money and isn’t great for the environment - so why not change to walking.

I don’t mean you have to walk all the way to work from home - and we all know that this isn’t even possible for many people these days - but using a combination of walking and public transport can have a huge impact on the environment - and your health!

Why Do It?
Well, I walk to work along the canal and through a park at the moment - although I also have to walk past a building site - I arrive at work after having had my own little adventure!

And my route is a shorter distance than the equivalent drive, so it doesn’t really take any longer to walk!

And driving to work adds to the endless traffic we see in towns and cities - which no-one wants to sit in it - yet many of us choose to drive and ultimately cause it!  I hate being stuck in traffic, so I try my best not to cause it. 

My theory is that everyone should work close to home anyway, so walking to work shouldn’t be a problem!

Can you walk to work all year - not just the one week?