1. Buy a water bottle and fill it from your tap. A stainless steel Kleen Kanteen water bottle starts at $15.00–the same price as 15 units of bottled water you might buy at the ball diamond or gas station, golf course or county fair. We have the right and the obligation to drink tap water because it’s healthier and less expensive than water for sale in petroleum-based packaging. Bring Your Own Bottle of water and do right by the planet!

2. Install a clothesline. For less than $10 you can buy a clothesline and pins and dry your laundry for free every load. Clothes dryers are among the least energy-efficient appliances and line drying is a great way to go green.  Bonus: you’ll save on your electric bill and on fabric softeners and dryer sheets!

3. Invest in a solar battery charger. In the summer whether you’re camping or listening to your radio, you can power up your flashlights or ballgame without feeling guilty about using batteries. Solar powered electronics have really come down in price and a 4-battery charger for D/C/AA/AAA batteries costs as little as $25.

 4. Skip the lawn chemicals. Use full-strength white vinegar to kill weeds (.70 a liter vs. $10.00 a liter of Round-Up) and let your lawn grow a little higher to keep the weeds at bay. Enrich your soil with worm castings or compost instead of poisonous blue granules. Your pets, soil’s helpful microorganisms, water quality and wallet will all thank you.

5.  Skip the yard spray.  Targeted pest control is better for the environment–and using personal insect repellent will keep the bugs off your body without creating population imbalances that result from using yard sprays.  Plus, consider the economic benefit:  a can of Raid on your yard every weekend costs much more than a can of OFF!

6. Leave your car parked and walk or bike your way around. Enviro Girl lives in the country, but even she can adhere to this rule. When she drives to town, she parks in a central location and walks from place to place instead of driving between errands. It’s good exercise and better on the environment.

7.  Eat the local bounty.  It’s the season of farm markets and gardens.  Eating locally produced food is good for your body, the environment, the local economy and your wallet.  You can stock up on fresh fruits and vegetables from a local farm and spend much less than you will at the grocery store for the same food.

Sun, dirt, water. You know you want your garden to get at least 8 hours of sunshine.  You hook up sprinklers or find rain barrels to keep your plants watered. But what about the dirt? What can you do to provide the best nutrients for healthy roots and plants in your garden?

First, test your soil. It’s easy–many colleges, universities and county seats have soil testing labs where you can drop off a sample from your garden and have it analyzed for pH and nutrients. Soil testing ranges from $8-$25 depending on where you live, and doing so can give you a LOT of information about how to fertilize and enrich your soil for maximum gardening benefits. Most labs will offer suggestions for improving your soil, too.

Second, if you garden near a roadside, you should get your soil tested for lead. Lead was added to fuel until 1990, leaving a heavy residue from exhaust concentrated beside roadways. If you’re stuck against a street, it’s best to use raised beds or containers to grow your vegetables and avoid lead contamination. Lead is heavy and concentrates in an area and several studies in other countries have shown the extent of roadside contamination from auto exhaust. And tires are made with lead wheel weights for balancing. These lead weights often fall off and end up in roadside ditches–leaving lines of lead contamination criss-crossing our country. (On a happy note, Congress is working on banning the use of lead in wheel weights, thus eliminating this source of lead contamination.)

Third, don’t blindly spend money on that Evil Blue Chemical (AKA “MiracleGro”) or any other over-the-counter-fertilizer to make your tomatoes bodaceous this season. The best and least expensive soil additive? Compost. Any decomposed natural substance will make your soil more nutritious for plant growth, hold moisture better and allow for the best air circulation for root growth. Compost will add structure to sandy soil and break up heavy clay. Compost does NOT smell and is NOT toxic–it’s dark, crumbly and earthy-smelling. If you aren’t into making your own compost, you can buy it nearly anywhere these days.  If you prefer a liquid fertilizer, you can purchase compost tea at most greenhouses or garden centers.

Fourth, all gardens benefit from the addition of worm poop. Worm poop (AKA “Worm Castings”) provide the very best fertilizer for plants. Rich in nitrate nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, worm poop is the digested dead plant matter that worms eat. Worm poop as fertilizer does NOT smell, will NOT burn out your plants and will NOT harm anyone since it’s totally nontoxic.

Finally, the easiest way to amend your soil and retain moisture around your plants is to mulch.  Enviro Girl spreads grass clippings raked off her lawn on her garden’s surface, tenderly nestling it around the base of her tomato and pepper plants, between the rows of beans and peas.  When the growing season ends, Enviro Girl leaves the grass clippings in her garden and tills what’s left into the soil the following spring.  What results is loose, rich, wonderful dirt that will feed the roots of plants that will feed her family.

In case you need some incentive to make some changes to your paper use, did you know that we could save more than a half million trees if every U.S. household replaced just one roll of virgin-fiber paper towels with a roll of 100% recycled ones? Now imagine how many trees could remain standing if everyone switched to cloth rags for spills and cleaning! Throw some cloth napkins into the mix for even just one or two dinners a week and you’re really saving trees.

Recycla hasn’t bought paper towels in a few years and her family hasn’t missed them. She has cloth rags stashed in various places around the house for quick clean ups and more intense cleaning sessions — they add little to her laundry load and she’s thrilled to know that she’s not using trees to wipe up messes. The savings to her household budget aren’t huge, but when you start calculating all the little changes — not buying paper towels, not buying as many paper napkins, not buying Clorox wipes and the like — then the savings start to add up.

So if you’re looking for one easy thing to do this week, this is it.

1.  Wool Sweaters–you can save the planet and some money by ignoring the “Dry Clean Only” labels, but you still need to wash them because dirty clothes attract bugs.  Hand wash in cold water with a gentle detergent, lay flat on a towel to dry.  Easy-peasy.   Your wool can then be folded and stored in a safe spot–with a cedar block if you’re concerned about moths doing damage.  (NO MOTH BALLS–they are very toxic!   For more specifics on clothing moths, click here. )

2.  Wool coats/blazers probably need a trip to the cleaners, but do not store them wrapped in that plastic bag from the drycleaners.  The plastic bag will retain moisture and eventually create more problems than you may have staved off by getting your stuff cleaned.  Remove from bag and hang up or store as you normally would.  Take those giant plastic bags, tie off the ends and repurpose them as garbage bags.

3.  Boots can get scrubbed with a soft brush and some laundry detergent–except for leather.  Enviro Girl makes sure the family’s boots are dry before stuffing them with old newspapers (to absorb any moisture/odors) and storing on a closet shelf.

4.  Leather boots need to be wiped down with leather cleaner–Enviro Girl likes old-fashioned Saddle Soap, and plenty of eco-friendly brands of leather cleaner can be found in stores and online.  She then stuffs boots with newspapers (to absorb moisture/odors) and stores them in a closet.

5.  Hats, mittens and scarves should get run through the wash and dried well before storing.  If you store dirty clothing, not only will you end up with a potentially funky smell, you increase the risk of pests. Enviro Girl gathers all of her family’s hats, mittens and scarves into an old pillowcase, adds a cedar block and shoves the whole works into a cupboard.

Where to store all of your winter things?  Someplace dry and well-ventilated.  Enviro Girl has a cedar chest in her bedroom for sweaters and such, but she hangs jackets and coats in a closet and sets the boots on a closet shelf.  Her family has enough closet space to use for all of their seasonal clothes, so Enviro Girl simply makes sure things are clean before hanging them up again.  If you’re pressed for closet space, storing clothes in airtight containers for the short term is okay, but she wouldn’t suggest it for longer than a year.  If you want to counteract musty smells when you unzip/unpack/unwrap your winter clothes next season, Enviro Girl recommends a bar of scented soap, a few sprigs of dry lavender or cedar blocks.  Lavender and cedar blocks help prevent pests, like moths, too.  You can stave off pests and preserve your wardrobe without resorting to chemicals if you take the time to store things right.

Part of a “Greener Consciousness” is having less stuff. A great way to achieve this end is by renting or borrowing. For minimal cost, you can enjoy all of the benefits of a rototiller, movie, party tables and chairs and even an RV. Since buying less stuff means a smaller carbon footprint, renting and borrowing is not only an economically sound choice, it’s environmentally beneficial as well. Many hardware stores offer a huge inventory of items to rent, and many cities have party warehouses where you can rent the necessities for any size of bash for any type of celebration. The concept of renting and borrowing has evolved far beyond video stores, time share condominiums in Florida and public libraries–you can even share ownership of a car through Flexcar and Zipcar.

Borrowing can be beneficial too. Two of Enviro Girl’s neighbors borrow her family’s rototiller every spring, in turn one lends her use of his full-size pickup truck on the rare occasion she has something large to haul. Another neighbor lends his tractor for field work. Their neighborhood generously lends out books, cake pans, card tables and chairs, extra rakes and pitchforks and shovels, garden hoses, sprinklers, serving trays and lawn chairs as freely as most neighborhoods exchange recipes. In this spirit of generosity, everyone has what they need when they need it, and most items are returned with a plateful of fresh-baked cookies. Enviro Girl thinks there is no better payment for use of a rototiller than warm chocolate chip cookies.

Sometimes it’s worth the money and hassle to buy something to own it.  But the next time you’re considering purchasing an item that you’ll use only once or twice a year before finding space to store it, rent it or borrow it instead. Your wallet and your storage cupboards will thank you.

Tell the Eco Women:  what do you rent or borrow?

Egg dyeing is something Enviro Girl’s sons take very seriously — they dye between 3 and 4 dozen eggs each year!  The set up is simple — glass or metal containers for the dye (plastic will absorb the dye and stain), old newspapers to cover the working surface (composted later), metal ladles or wire whisks to hold the eggs.   The boys have used white crayons, rubber bands and tissue paper scraps to design their eggs, but they’re most fond of straight-up rich color on their hard-boiled eggs.

A cup of boiling water and a teaspoon of vinegar will set any dye color into the eggshell’s porous surface.  To this you can add conventional food coloring — about 10-20 drops depending on the intensity of color desired.  But if you’re looking for a more natural approach to dyeing eggs, here are some options:

• Red/Pink — shredded beets, any red tea (rooibos or zinger will work), cranberries/cranberry juice
• Blue — grape juice, blueberries, chopped red cabbage
• Yellow — turmeric, saffron, chamomile tea
• Green — spinach leaves

Boil the “dye ingredient” with water and vinegar for 15 minutes, then strain.  You can mix batches of dye to create new colors or different shades.  The longer you let an egg rest in the dye, the darker the color.  Enviro Girl’s sons made one egg a deep shade of burgundy by leaving it to sit overnight in a bowl of red dye.

What to do with all those dyed eggs?  Make egg salad and deviled eggs, of course!

If you haven’t tried to dye your eggs naturally, Enviro Girl encourages you to do it — it’s a fun way to teach kids about colors and chemistry at your kitchen table.

The cleaning industry has pushed consumers into using disposable cloths and towels–it’s a huge money-maker for them, but it’s also a huge burden on our planet. The production, packaging and final toss into a county landfill take human “convenience” to a perfectly loathsome level of wasteful and toxic behavior.  Rags are free, reusable after washing and most fabric fibers decompose over time when you finally do retire them to your compost pile or the local landfill. Reincarnating old clothes as rags is a step closer to Enlightenment–and a step away from further global devastation.

Love your planet–reuse your old clothes when tackling cleaning chores. Put that “Lakeville Youth Soccer” t-shirt back in the game–it’s got several seasons left in it playing a new position!

That said, it’s a great time of year to plant inside.  From flowers to pepper plants, many gardeners like to start from seed a few weeks ahead of the season.  Whether you’re working in a sunny corner of your house or have a greenhouse, here are some ideas for starting seedlings indoors:

1.  Plant in compostable containers.  Those tiny plants have fragile root systems, so if you can transplant a seedling without removing it from the container, all the better.  You can buy biodegradable containers at most hardware stores and garden centers.  You can also make your own from toilet paper tubes, newspaper or cardboard egg cartons.  As long as you have a cup shape an inch or two deep, you’re all set.  Enviro Girl winds a strip of newspaper around a cup.  Then she folds down one end and sets that newspaper cup in a tray to fill with soil and seeds.  One Sunday edition will adequately prepare a garden’s worth of seedlings!  If you use compostable materials to start your seeds in, you can just plant the entire container into the ground when weather permits.

2.  Use the right soil.  Most hardware stores and garden centers sell “starter soil,” which is looser than regular potting soil.  This makes it easier for those roots to dig in and soak up all the good nutrients enriching the soil.  Enviro Girl recommends this investment.  If you want to use regular dirt from outside, Enviro Girl recommends s

3.  Provide your plants with enough sunshine.  If your seeds don’t get any natural sunlight, they won’t grow.  If you’re cramped for space, do what Enviro Girl has done:  keep those seedlings on an old cookie or baking sheet and move them near a window in the morning and back to a more convenient location in the late afternoon or evening.

4.  Water.  But with a light touch.  Enviro Girl keeps a spray bottle to mist her seedlings, because they will get root rot in WET soil, you must keep the soil merely damp.  If you cover your seedlings, it will help them retain moisture, plastic wrap or a clear lid of some sort will do the trick nicely.

The right container, soil, sunlight and water will help your garden plants get a head start.  This year Enviro Girl is starting peppers, zinnias, pumpkins, watermelon, squash and snapdragons indoors.

Looking for more extensive information on seed starting?  Click here!

Will you start seeds indoors this season?  What kinds?  What tips can you share with our readers at Eco Women?

She has studied many books about garden design to try to figure out how to flesh out the bare bones of her own garden.  Enviro Girl keeps coming back to those English Cottage Gardens.  She’s been hankering for the white picket kind of fence, but she has a lot of garden to fence around, so the price tag on such a project would be substantial.

Then she kicked around the idea of planting hedgerows, but they take eons to grow, and while she thinks she may plant some, she wants more immediate gratification. Like the kind that happens this summer.

While studying her garden-design books, Enviro Girl remembered (reminded by Jen on the Edge’s recent post) how Anne Hathway’s garden was framed out by very rustic-looking fencing and edging. Since Medieval times, gardeners have constructed wattle fences to provide structure, shelter and support for their plants.

Some research revealed that building a wattle requires a lot of “green” sticks, preferably live willows since they are flexible, durable, straight and don’t have too many excess branches to clip off. As it happens, Enviro Girl has a prodigious amount of willows growing on her property. To build a wattle you need sturdy branches for posts. As it happens, she also has enough fallen branches to heat an entire European village for two years.

So, the materials to build a wattle are plentiful and free if you live out in the country.  A person can build any size of wattle to suit their needs. All Enviro Girl needs is time–to gather the sticks and branches and pound/weave/shove/tie them all together. There’s hardly any snow on the ground and there aren’t any bugs or stinging nettle at this time of year, so this past week Enviro Girl began Project Wattle. Armed with a pruner, she attacked a berm of willows and dragged several loads up to the garden. Then she scavenged the woods and found a good supply of sturdy, straight branches and logs measuring at least 3 1/2 inches in diameter.

For the next month or so she’ll continue to cut willows and find fallen trees for posts. It’s great exercise tromping around back in the woods and dragging loads back up to the house, the fence will cost nary a dime, and the carbon footprint of a wattle fence is zero.  When the ground thaws, she’ll be ready to pound in the stakes and begin weaving the willows between them.

The same free materials Enviro Girl is gathering from her woods can be used to build trellises, gates, benches and other outdoor structures.  If you don’t live in the country, Enviro Girl advises you to ask a local farmer if you need brush and willows–they’d probably be thrilled to have you clear some of the undergrowth.

Read more about constructing your own wattle fencing at East Coast Gardener or Mother Earth News.

We’ve all been there–stinky situations abound in houses where food rots, kids vomit and drains plug up. Before you head out to buy dangerous toxic chemical fixes like Febreze or Glade Plug-Ins, check your pantry for these items that will naturally purify the air AND not pollute the environment:

* Equal parts distilled white vinegar and water will clean any carpets and fabrics, leaving them smelling like nothing at all once dried. Use this for pet stains, people stains, food stains and mystery stains.
* Bowls of vinegar set around a house will absorb any odors, including cigarette smoke, by the next morning.
* Baking soda sprinkled in a drain or in a garbage will take out the stink.  So will grinding up a chunk of lemon or lime in your garbage disposal.
* A box of baking soda will eliminate fridge odors–just keep another box in your pantry for baking needs.
* An old sock stuffed with coffee beans will keep coolers and freezers smelling fresh whether in use or in storage.
* Stuff shoes with newspaper to absorb odors and moisture when you’re storing them for any length of time.
* Chewing parsley will help fend off bad breath (on you, not on others!).

Each of these items cost less than a dollar, so they’re easy on both your budget and our planet.

It’s important to note that clean surfaces don’t carry odor, as in Enviro Girl’s kitchen, once she took out the trash and wiped out the inside of her garbage bin, that nasty kitchen smell was nothing but a bad memory.  You can layer good smells over bad–burn candles, spray air fresheners, sprinkle potpourri–but if you address the cause, you won’t have to sweat the smells.