Home and Garden

Green your Abode with our Easy Green Lifestyle Tips for the Home and Garden

Green Lifestyle Tips for Your Home and Garden

A Greener Fixer-Upper: Green Remodeling Tips

As the average U.S. home size increases, demanding more energy and materials, living smaller is a surefire way to reduce your ecological footprint. It's also an opportunity to enjoy thoughtful design and a simpler lifestyle. Here are tips for making the transition:

A bigger house is not always better. Notice how you use your current dwelling and where you spend your time. For example, do you really need a formal dining room?
When removing old cabinets and countertops, carefully disassemble them and reuse the materials elsewhere in your home, or donate them to an organization like Habitat for Humanity.
Save energy by going double-paned when replacing windows, and installing solar panels the next time you redo your roof.
Go vertical; cathedral ceilings make rooms feel more spacious and can hold sleeping lofts.
Finish your small home with details you'll love - stained glass or walnut filigree, for example. In smaller spaces, they're more affordable.
For more ideas and tips, visit the Small House Society, or TinyHouses.net.

Be Wise About Water: Water Saving Tips

Use a broom instead of a hose to clear your driveway.
Your lawn only needs .5 to 1.5 inches of water per week, so use an empty tuna can to measure when you've reached the limit.
Air drying uses 15 to 50 percent less energy in practically the same amount of time, so use your dishwasher's air-dry setting instead of the heat-dry option. If it doesn't have an air-dry setting, simply open the door once the final rinse is complete.

Fast Fact: If each U.S. household installed one low-flow sink faucet or aerator, it would save more than 60 billion gallons of water annually.

Green Kitchen Tips

Here are a few simple tips for cutting down on waste in the kitchen.

Reuse glass jars: Glass jars are great for transporting soups, smoothies, and other liquids to work. No more exploding plastic containers!
Take the no paper towel challenge! Use one cloth towel for counters and another for clean dishes. Once either is spoiled by perishables, just toss it in the laundry and grab a clean one. Your wallet and our nations’ forests will thank you.
Try a multitasking soap, such as Dr. Bronner’s all-one soap. Its gallon jugs, made of 100 percent post-consumer recycled materials, are actually less expensive than the smaller bottles, and can be used on everything from your dishes to your body to your laundry.
Reuse old bottles: Keep old squeeze bottles from your kitchen to use as bottles for your hair-care and cosmetic needs. Plastic salad dressing and cooking-oil bottles can be cleaned and refilled with soap, lotion, or shampoo.

Protect Plants Without Pesticides

Connect with local gardeners to determine the most common problems in your region, then look for organic fixes. Many pest control solutions can be concocted from household items:

Garlic and cayenne pepper can be used to deter pesky aphids.
Used coffee grounds make a great fertilizer for plants that thrive in acidic soil, like rhododendrons or azaleas. Sprinkle coffee grounds and eggshells around the base of plants to repel ants (who can exacerbate an aphid problem), snails, and slugs.
Before you apply organic treatments, be sure to research their effect on beneficial insects like ladybugs.

Composting: Turn Food Scraps into "Gardener's Gold"

Reduce waste and give your garden a healthy dose of nutrients by composting food scraps and yard clippings.

Vermicomposting - using compost, or "worm tea," is a great way to fertilize your garden naturally.
Get to know your neighbors by starting a community compost pile. Most horticulturists recommend that open compost piles be at least 3ft x 3ft x 3ft, which is a lot of space to fill for the average backyard gardener. Invite your neighbors to contribute whatever raw material and hard work they can to the compost pile in your backyard.
Short on space? Not to worry: compost bins and worm condos come in a variety of sizes and shapes.
New to Composting? Check out Sierra Club's own Owen Bailey for easy ways to get started:

Grow Your Own Herbs

A small indoor herb garden adds greenery to a home while providing fresh, flavorful accents for winter recipes.

Basil, thyme, oregano, sage, and parsley are great herbs for beginning gardeners.
Place your plants in a spot where they'll receive at least five hours of sunlight. Keep the soil moist and enjoy your locally grown herbs all winter.