Keep Your Plants Happy & Lower Your Waterbill (Part I)

With record-breaking temperatures many gardeners are looking for ways to keep their garden from wilting in the heat and keep their water bills low. While mulching reduces the need for watering and rain barrels reduce the amount of municipal water you're using, you can reduce your dependence on municipal water even further by watering more efficiently. This involves using systems like drip-irrigation, soaker hoses, and water timers. In the first part of this series I will go over the basics of drip irrigation.

Hay Bale Gardening

Want to grow vegetables or flowerings, but not keen on digging around in the dirt? How about if you have a bad back, or use a wheel chair? Hale bale gardening may be the answer for you. The idea is simple, all you have to do is properly prepare the bale, then plant your veggies and/or flower right in the intact hale bay, keep it well watered, and watch them grow!

No Work & All Play Garden

How would you like to spend less time and money on weeding, watering, and fertilizing your garden this year, and more time enjoying it? No, I haven't been eating the mysterious mushrooms growing in my yard...All this and more can be yours with a mulched garden using the Ruth Stout method. Ruth Stout (1884-1980) is known as the person who made the magic of mulch famous among gardeners. This method is fairly easy to start small and build upon. Not only can you often find freely available materials for mulch, but this method could actually save you money, by having to water and fertilize less!

Darkness Falls for Earth Hour

Saturday, March 27 from 8:30 - 9:30 p.m. is Earth Hour, when hundreds of millions of people from around the world will turn out their lights and unplug appliances. In 2009, over 4000 cities in 88 countries officially switched off during Earth Hour to pledge their support for the planet, making Earth Hour 2009 the world’s largest global climate change initiative (EarthHour.org). This event gives people the chance to reflect on their personal energy usage and the large impact we can make on the environment with conserving energy for just one hour. Toronto, Canada managed to save 900 megawatt-hours of electricity, which is a 8.7% decrease if measured against a typical March Saturday night (Wikipedia).

Just remember, small changes can make a big difference! You can follow these tips every day to be sustainable every day:

• Replace incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent ones.
• Recycle paper and plastic, instead of using the trash.
• Read news online, instead of buying paper copies.
• Grow vegetables during the summer.
• Bicycle or walk to work or to run errands instead of driving.
• Take the bus or train, instead of driving long distances.
• Unplug appliances when they are not in use.
• Lower the thermostat to cut back on heating during the winter.
• Insulate and eliminate drafts to get the most out of your heating and cooling.
• Plant a tree to help filter your air and to provide shade.

Badda Bing, Badda Bloom Box

"It's about seeing the world as what it can be and not what it is" K.R. Sridhar, inventor of the Bloom Box says. Any company who starts with that kind of philosophy has my backing. Originally designed for NASA, the Bloom Box was re-engineered to be a stand-alone power plant in a box. The goal is for consumers to be able to purchase a single Bloom Box for about $3000 for their backyard or basement, which could then power an average American home. Bloom Energy, the manufacturers, estimate that customers could make up the initial purchase cost in 3-5 years with money saved in energy production by the Bloom Box.

The Bloom Box takes in oxygen, and combines it with a fuel of your choice to produce electricity. Fuels can be fossil, like natural gas, or renewable, like gas produced from landfills, or solar power. I'm still a fan of the Bloom Box even when using fossil fuels, as they use half as much fuel to provide the same amount of energy as conventional methods. See the full story on 60 minutes here.

Viva la Transit Revolution!

I'm so excited about bus rapid transit for Richmond, VA! GRTC wants to put in a rapid transit line on Broad St. starting between Rocketts Landing and Willow Lawn, eventually expanding to Short Pump. There are also plans to establish a transit hub with train, bus, taxi, limo, airport shuttle etc. at Main St. station - sweeeet! The first public meeting is tonight:

Public Meeting #1:  Will introduce the project to the public, explain the study process, and introduce the concepts that are being studied.

6-8pm, February 24, 2010

Children’s Museum of Richmond

2626 W. Broad St.  

There's also an identical meeting at the same time Thursday evening:

6-8pm, February 25, 2010

Thomas Jefferson High School

4100 W. Grace St.

Even for those of you who will still need to use your car on a regular basis to commute, this will mean in the long term:

1) Reduced traffic volume, less traffic jams, potentially less accidents

2) More time saved during commute to spend with your family and friends

3) Less CO2 emissions into the air from vehicle traffic, less smog, better air quality

4) Less traffic means less wear and tear on the roads, hopefully better quality roads with less necessary maintenance and less taxes spent!

Energy Vampires

Unlike large appliances that have become more energy efficient in recent years, many small appliances have not. Your TV, DVD player, and coffee maker, for example, are costing you money even when you aren't using them! According to the California Energy Commission, nearly 20% of energy used by small appliances is used when these appliances are plugged in, but not in use. Check out their website for the low-down on these energy vampires:
http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home/appliances/small_appl.html

Here are 3 different kinds of stakes to put in the heart of these energy vampires...

Green Power Turns Me On

I had just moved from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and was living in Richmond, Virginia for 6 months before I discovered that my electricity was being generating by coal. And here I thought coal power was reserved for 3rd world countries! I guess I just took it for granted that people in North America don't burn fossil fuels anymore. My bad. So I was pleased to see that Virginia Dominion Power offers a program to purchase sustainable energy.

Build Your Own Rain Barrel

Here is a YouTube video by Lowes that helped my husband and I build our rain barrels. We didn't end up using the exact parts they did, but it was useful none the less. We combined the ideas from the Lowes video and this website to come up with the cheapest, most effective design for our needs. There is also a video that shows how to make one using the parts on that website.



You may also find this video helpful:

Warm Up to Savings

If you live in an older house or apartment, you know the pain of Winter heating bills. It's either freeze or starve. Until now. You could try wearing of a ridiculous amount of winter layers...Or you could try a space heater!

Space Heaters
By turning your thermostat down and only heating the room you're in, you can conserve mega mula this Winter.

Rain Barrel Bananas

I went a little crazy last year with the rain barrels...I currently have 4 hooked up (but not in use over the winter), and 3 more assembled, but waiting to be hooked up. Wait a minute...you don't know about rain barrels? What you don't know could be costing you money!

Send Junk Mail to Junk Hell

Stupid junk mail, having to sort through mountains of mailings to get to more important memoranda! What's that you say? There's a solution? Stop junk mail before it starts?

Visit: http://richmond.bbb.org/article/6373

In under 10 minutes, you can be virtually junk mail free! By visiting four websites you can stop the majority of junk mail, and guard your sanity against the endless sorting through mail. You can also tell your mail carrier to stop delivering flyers and coupon books. Businesses that participate constantly update their mailing numbers, so if less people receive flyers, less will be printed! And don't forget to recycle those errant straggling junk letters that still get through.

P.S. For those who value their privacy and don't like being interrupted during dinner, put yourself on the 'do not call' list for telemarketers at https://www.donotcall.gov/

Fluorescent Potpourri

In the past few years, the variety of fluorescent bulbs has skyrocketed. Chances are, if you use it, you can find it in fluorescent. Best of all, fluorescent equivalents can be much brighter than incandescents. Many also come in natural daylight varieties.

Check some of these out...

Fluorescent Bulb Mythology

Ever notice how hot incandescent bulbs can get? You would have if you ever tried to change a bulb without letting it cool first. Well, that heat is costing you money! The energy that should just go into producing light in incandescents is actually being wasted a good deal as heat...But most of us know that fluorescent bulbs are cheaper to light our homes with. The cost of buying the bulbs seems to be what's stopping most of us from switching.

What many don't realize is that besides being cheaper to run, fluorescent also last for about 5 years with standard use - about 2-3 times longer than incandescent!!! How can you get around footing the big bill to switch?

1) Consider buying fluorescent as your incandescents burn out, so that you only have to buy a few at a time.

2) Try switching all your bulbs to fluorscents after you get your income tax refund

3) Participate in bulb swaps, where local organizations or businesses will sometimes trade a fluorescent bulb for each incandescent you bring in

4) Put fluorescent bulbs on your birthday/wedding/baby shower registry

5) Look for good old-fashioned coupons in your local newspaper