The Green Home – and Yard

So surely a garden is always green – it does not need to be made environmentally friendly? Well, yes and no; while we read much information about how to create green housing, less is written about the yards. Some yards are green, but some are not. Many of us still add to the pollution by spraying pesticides on our fruit trees and vegetable patches.

Apart from avoiding this harmful action, there are actually ways to be proactive and to improve the environment, just by using your own back yard. One easy way to be proactive is to start your own compost, and this will mean that you will be improving your own earth by keeping your own bio-degradable scraps. Eventually composting these scraps will produce microorganisms that will enrich your soil with nutrients. There are many informative articles on the Internet which will tell you how to start composting.

Another way to help the environment is by buying fruit trees. Trees emanate oxygen into the atmosphere, and so help to offset carbon emissions. Many buyers have been swayed into a house-sale by the fact that a garden already has fruit trees and an established vegetable patch on it.

Could having your own beehive be a plus when selling a home? It is certainly an environmental plus in today’s world. Scientists are alarmed at the lack of bees to pollinate flowers and vegetables; if more home-owners kept a small hive, they would not only have their own honey, but the vegetables and flowers in the local neighborhood would also be pollinated and would therefore produce a harvest.

Bee-hives do not need to very big, and they can be positioned in a spot where they will not bother the neighbors. They should not alarm the public, but if you position the hive so that the flight path into it (of about ten feet) is all on your land, there will be no worries. After the first ten feet, your bees are up and buzzing just like everyone else’s. Starter sets for beginner bee keepers and various instructions for setting up are all listed on the Internet.

Of course growing vegetables is another ‘green garden’ habit and can be indulged in at any time of the year. Winter vegetables are being planted now, and brusselsprouts, broccoli, squash, turnip; lettuce and green onion can be planted now in readiness for the winter. If you are wary of green fly or black fly forming, you can always be organic and spray the plants down with diluted washing up liquid

Other ideas to be green in your garden include switching from a gas lawn mower to an electric one and not watering your lawn, but just letting it fade from lush green into muted amber!

Many sub-divisions have been lobbied to allow (or re-instate) clothes lines back into the back yards where they can dry with that outdoorsy smell. If you are unsure of your rights, an umbrella clothes dryer is usually allowed as it is lower than the fences and therefore not easily seen. Line-drying clothes can save quite a bit on your energy bills, and on your ‘scented freshener’ bill!