Our Best Advice

GREEN TIPS – Ways To Go Green

Thursday, January 14th, 2010 | Our Best Advice

Be Water Wise

When you turn on the shower, place a container under the showerhead. In the few moments it takes for water to heat up, you can gather enough for the dog’s bowl and the houseplants. We’re on water rationing in California so don’t waste a drop!

A leak is not just annoying, it’s losing water and energy bills with wasted gallons until a plumber comes to fix it. While you’re waiting to get it fixed on ASAP, use this old trick: Tie a string on the faucet allowing the drops to flow silently down into a cup or small bowl. Use this collected H2O to water your houseplants or outdoor garden.

A simple hardware store filter called an aerator added onto your kitchen (or bath) faucet cuts down on water consumption. Without sacrificing water pressure (or very little), and less than $15, you can install one yourself, and save up to 500 gallons per year. That’s a huge savings.

Growing Kitchen Greens

Try your gardening hand at going green by growing herbs & salad greens in the kitchen. There are ready made kits you can find at your local nursery or online. Bringing in a natural element adds coziness to your home’s busiest room while naturally cleaning the air you breathe. Nothing beats adding your own fresh basil to pasta or mint to tea, and you get the kudos too.

Many Chefs we place raise organic herbs at our clients homes to season and garnish their nourishing and delectable meals. This saves on energy, makes food deliciously more meaningful, and provides added control for what you actually put on your dining table. It also allows kids in the household to participate as a means to teach them how to be more conscientious, enjoy their food, and an easy lesson on how sustainable living environments can be brought home.

A great children’s book on gardening published by the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens has over 40 hands-on activities and ideas (for all regions in the country), to share with kids you may work with for childcare, family members, or your kids to grow. Giving kids value and relationship to nature at an early age lasts a lifetime– forging a relationship early on to green. Explore the Table of Contents here.

Missing these days for younger gens is the cultural knowledge of how to grow, to make our own food with your own bare hands. We’re not talking about fancy gardening here. Back 2-3 generations everyone knew a little about it, if you needed advice, you could ask your neighbor.  Better yet, you could ask the farmer himself, because he was local. Now we’re deprived of food that tastes like real food (before GMO took over US produce and related legislation). We all lament why European produce is so much more delicious when traveling abroad. Having life skills that preserve knowledge of growing your own food is imperative, along with being able to refine taste buds to learn when food has lost its nutrients, esthetic, and social bonding value.

HANDMADE SEED STARTER KITS are a great gift for almost anyone. You can customize a planter by covering or painting an aluminum can, a yogurt cup, or any other container with a bottom that can be punctured for drainage. There are great tips for types of soil and seeds to use for a starter kit online at organically grown food websites. To make it even more special, you may want to add a few plant markers to the kit. Design your own or use a template inserting the words sustainable design, green design, green eco gifts, or edible gifts. Enjoy our GREEN TIPS at home and gift them to others, Tell A Friend

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Tags: Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, California, CHEFS, childcare, children, dog bowls, dogs, domestic help agency, faucets, garden kits, Gardening With Children, green design, green gardening, green gifts, Green Tips, home cleaning, Household Care, housekeeper-childcare, Houseplants, ISA Staffing, kitchen garden, natural cleaning, organic food, organic herbs, outdoor garden, raised bed gardening, Saving Water, Seed Starter Kits, sustainable design, Water, water conservation

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