Gardening is a fun hobby.  It can be an environmentally friendly hobby as well.  It is important to think responsibly about what happens in the garden.

One of the first thoughts about environmentally friendly gardening should be the use of safe fertilizers and pesticides.  Fertilizers should be organic in origin.  Fertilizers should not be produced by big chemical companies.  That is not organic or environmentally correct.  Pesticides should be eliminated from the garden completely.  They are dangerous nerve toxins that harm the environment and the person who applies the pesticide.  They work only in the short term and cause major long term biological damage.

Another thought that should be considered when having an environmentally friendly garden is water usage.  Only 2% of all the water on our planet is fit for drinking.  This is not only due to pollution, but only due to all the oceans.  That salt water is not appropriate for plant life either.  Wise water usage is important to make sure there is enough drinking water for our communities.  Rain barrels are a great way to safe water for plants and conserve water for people to drink.

Spring has sprung. Birds are chirping. Flowers are blooming. What a perfect time to be outside! Whether your choice of outdoor activities is tending a garden, walking the dog, or riding a bike – it’s a beautiful time of year to spend as much time outdoors as possible. Recently my wife and I bought ourselves bicycles to get some exercise and enjoy the sunshine. Nashville, the city where we live, has a greenway system. The greenways improve environmental quality by protecting plant and animal habitats. Greenways also help clean our water and air through dedication of sensitive areas like wetlands, forests, and flood plains. They also facilitate alternative travel. By providing bicycle and walking routes between homes, work, and other destinations, the greenways become part of the infrastructure necessary for an integrated approach to transportation planning.

The city has also been working on adding bike lanes in multiple areas of the city. Biking is not only great exercise, but is also a very “green” mode of travel. One of the benefits of living in an urban area is that many of the businesses in which we encounter in our day-to-day lives – grocery stores, post office, banks, are conveniently available in a relatively small radius. With the cost of oil back at over eighty dollars a barrel, sending gas prices up, riding a bike not only helps your waist line but your bottom line as well. Trips via the bicycle versus your vehicle saves not only the gas it takes to go there and back, but also the gas for the air conditioner and the wasted gas it takes to idle at the stop light. Bike riding is as efficient as it is fun.

If you had a real tree this year for Christmas, one of the best things you can do for the environment is to recycle your tree. Almost every community has a program these days of some sort where you can “donate” your tree for mulch. Some of the programs are sponsored and carried out by the Parks & Recreation Departments while others are taken care of through the cities Sanitation or Recycle Departments. Go online to your local government website and see if they have such a program.

If not, another place that sometimes takes trees this time of year is your local nurseries, if they are set up to create mulch. You will want to call ahead of time and make sure they can take your tree so you don’t waste a trip or the gas. Next year you may want to think about getting a live tree that you can plant after the holidays so you can “recycle” the tree into your landscaping. It all makes for a wonderful holiday season as well as an environmentally sound one.

A CSA is Community Supported Agriculture and is a way for the community to create a direct relationship with a local farm. Most CSA’s provide and box or basket of food on certain days that come directly from the farm. Some farms only have fruits and vegetables while others also provide meats and if you’re lucky you can find one that also have dairy as well. The farm normally agrees to bring you whatever they are producing in exchange for you agreeing to purchase whatever they can provide on an ongoing basis.

There are many CSA’s popping up all over the country and the vast majority are great! They provide a wonderful service to the community and, in exchange, the community supports and keeps the local farms going and making money. You can also find CSA’s where several farms have come together to provide the many different food products so you can actually order meats, baked goods and dairy along with the seasons fruits and vegetables. Some of these farms also welcome you out to see where your food is being grown and can make for a wonderful day trip for you and the entire family.

As we start paying more and more attention to the planet, the animals we eat and how they get to our table as well as the way our actions have consequences in regard to pollution, water and health, there is also something else that is happening; a religion is being born. And just like in other religions throughout history there are those who have gone overboard in their zeal and are turning some people off, which is having a negative affect on some and it would be wise to rethink this attitude.

This is the time to educate, not push an agenda on anyone. That’s because there are more people than ever before looking into changing their lifestyle either for the sake of their health, the planet, to save energy or because they have found out about the cruelty to processed animals and don’t want to add to it any longer. This simply means that many people are coming to the same conclusion without any pushing, whining or guilt trips. With so much information flowing on the internet and documentaries being done for the betterment of our world, people are naturally listening to what is being said because they know deep inside their souls that nature is the best way for us all.

The term “organic” was first used in the 1940′s when it appeared in a book by Walter James. He used the term talking about how a farm should function “within itself a balanced organic life”. While most people these days have no idea what that really means since most of us have not lived or worked on a farm. However, a farm is a simple system of checks and balances, an eco system within itself where everything is used and reused and recycled to work for the greater whole.

Within this system, there is no need for man-made pesticides and fertilizers as there is manure and other ways of ridding or sharing the food yield with the rest of nature in their natural habitat. As wonderful as it sounds, it is not always easy to maintain these days, especially on some of the larger farms that are trying to get in on the organic movement and higher prices. Some animals are outside all of ten minutes a day and are still said to be raised out in a pasture. I was raised on a farm and I don’t think that is what the term “organic” is all about. But as long as there is money to be made, if you choose organic products you need to be aware of what you are purchasing.

I recently sat in on a conference of Realtors that were talking about the use of green technologies in homes and how many people label things “green” when they are not. It seems that the term green or sustainable gets tossed around like a badge of honor but the reality is that there are a lot of products on the market and are being labeled as good for the environment that really are nothing more than high dollar add-ons; especially to the uneducated homebuyer. Since I am not a Realtor and am just an interested bystander, it was very disheartening on one hand to see that this was such as issue, yet very encouraging on the other hand that there were those who were policing, if you will, builders who don’t know what they are talking about!

Green is not a religion, not a political party (though there is a Green Party) and it is not a phase that will be going away. Instead, it is a way of life that simply asks that we do what we can; our part to make our world a better place. If that means growing some or all of your own food, using less gasoline, hanging your clothes outside instead of using a dryer so be it. Whatever you can do, do it. Green is also not about a “look”. If you dress like a hippy or wear a three piece suit, you can and should educate yourself about what is and what isn’t considered energy efficient or energy star quality, or at the very least, hire a consultant who does know the difference.

If the auto industry had not fought the increase in fuel efficient cars back in the 70′s and 80′s, we may not have the dependency on foreign oil that we do today. I can say that with some authority if the information we are getting from the current administration is true about what the new standards will do for America’s dependency on foreign oil. So the new standard is to increase the average fuel efficiency of light trucks and cars to 35.5 miles per gallon by the year 2016. This reportedly will save over 1.8 billion gallons of oil over the lifetime of autos sold in those five years.

To pout a different perspective on it; that is more oil than the US imported from Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Nigeria all together last year! At the same time oil and gas has gotten and stayed cheaper (even though we are paying over $2 a gallon again) and I wonder if this time we can stay on course and plan our own path out of being dependent on foreign countries for the fuel we need to run the nation and our lives. Stay tuned and see what happens!

It seems these days that everyone is attempting to “cash in” on everything green.  It’s amazing at how many things really aren’t that green as well as how many things that are really green go unnoticed.  Just because an item says its green doesn’t mean it’s so.

You really have to do some research to make sure what you are doing are the best possible things to reduce energy costs at home and greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.  Some of the things we know work are changing your light bulbs to the new florescent types; keeping your filters cleaned and unplugging phone chargers, laptop chargers and anything else you are not using as it is still pulling energy if left plugged in.

It’s those other things that we all don’t know about that throw us.  It is good to get some information and benefits from both community organizations and/or the green community, both of which will need to depend on each other for mutual success.  We must be diligent and dedicated to cutting carbon emissions to secure our long history and continue our story.