A green home is one that is eco-friendly and is at harmony with the environment. You can help the environment by making your home greener. Here is how you can do so by adopting a more energy-efficient and earth-friendly lifestyle.

Read the following top ways to green your home.

1. Upgrade to greener appliances.
Make your home energy efficient by upgrading to greener appliances. Replace old appliances with energy-efficient models that are Energy Star rated to scale down your energy bill. According to the Energy Star site, use of energy-efficient appliances in just one in 10 homes is equal to planting 1.7 million new acres of trees.

2. Temperature control.
More than 50% of a home’s energy bill is from heating and cooling appliances. Moderating the thermostat according to the weather goes a long way in reducing energy consumption. Other energy saving methods include using a modern furnace, cleaning its air filter every month and the use of ceiling fans instead of air conditioners.

3. Saving water.
There are hundreds of ways one can save water and reduce energy consumption. A few include fitting faucets with aerators and installing water efficient low-flow toilets.

4. Clean with green products.
Buy green household cleaners that are made of natural, non-toxic substances instead of toxic ones. Carpet and window cleaners containing grain alcohol, detergents made of coconut or other plant oils etc. are bio-friendly.

5. Energy-efficient lighting.
Replace incandescent bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFLs). CFL bulbs use 66% less energy and last 10 times longer.

6. Use recycled paper.
Whenever you buy paper, get 100 % post-consumer recycled paper. These consume less virgin pulp and keep waste paper from ending up in landfills. You can also save more trees by opting out of junk mail lists. Using unbleached paper is more eco-friendly as the bleached paper process results in the creation of harmful byproducts. Also, eschew paper and plastic bags and carry your own cloth bags for shopping.

7. Bamboo floors.
Bamboo floors are more environmental friendly than hardwood floors. Bamboo matures in four to six years while it takes 50 to 100 years for typical hardwoods.

8. Shun plastics.
Plastics are not bio-degradable. They produce harmful greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming when processed, burned or dumped into landfills. The best way is to avoid plastics, the next best thing is to reuse and recycle them.

9. Eco-paint.
Use environmentally safe paints that are organic and solvent-free to paint your home.

10. Green your garden.
Avoid synthetic fertilizers and chemical pesticides. Instead use organic manure such as compost and non-chemical pest control methods.

by Real Estate Advisor
About the Author:

Poway Real Estate San Diego Condos Carmel Valley Real Estate

Buy the book: Green This!

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For some, figuring out where you can start composting can be a bit of a challenge. After all, there are a few things you should keep in mind, like how far the compost heap should be from your home, how to keep it hidden away from nosy neighbors and prying eyes, and how to keep rodents and wildlife from digging around in the compost. And while there are a couple options like keeping your compost under wraps in a compost tumbler or bin, there are consumers out there who look for other aesthetically attractive options. One such option is a bench that doubles as a composting bin.

Dual functional furniture is always a plus, and owning a bench that offers a composting bin option is a terrific way to hide your compost in plain sight. You may want to consider this alternative versus a normal compost bin or compost tumbler if you feel that composting out in the open may ruin or distract from your natural landscape. With a composting bench, you can fearlessly hide your compost out in the middle of your garden without it taking away from the landscape.

Some companies offer dual functional composting benches, but it you’re the do it yourself type, you can make a building project out of it. Just be sure to keep about 20 inches of height from the seat to the ground for a good sized composting bin. Another good design feature to keep in mind is to add hinges to the seat so that you can lift it up whenever you need to add water or turn the pile. It’s also important to keep in mind that your compost needs ventilation in order for it to decompose properly, so make sure that there’s plenty of slits all around the bottom bin. Be sure however, to make them small enough so that small animals can’t get in. And don’t worry about any smells coming out from beneath the bench; as long as you’re following the proper carbon to nitrogen ration (green parts to brown parts), and you’re regularly turning and adding water to your compost, it should smell earthy, not icky.

Composting is a fun process for everyone, and keeping it underneath an attractive bench is perfect for even the most discerning gardener. Literally, you can sit back and relax and let the compost do its thing!

by Duong Vicki
About the Author: For a wide selection in compost bins and rain barrels be sure to stop by Composters.com.

Buy the Book: Composting, A Step by Step Guide

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Red worms or red wiggler worms, which are different from earthworms, are the best worms to use for your composting process. You want to stay away from using earthworms because they weren’t made to be composting worms; red worms will take your food scraps, eat and digest them, making worm castings full of nutrients for your soil. Earthworms on the other hand, are burrowing worms; they’ll aerate the soil and take everything on the surface down with it. Therefore, they’ll be absolutely useless for what you want to do, which is compost!

In order to have a successful vermicomposting experience, always remember to feed your worms! Worms need food too, and they love food scraps, another reason why vermicomposting is so easy. Readily available, food scraps like wilted vegetables, fruit rinds, bread and coffee grounds are great sources of food for your worms. Just be sure to never, ever add scraps like meats, fats, oils, or dairy products because the worms will not be able to eat and digest these items properly. Another reason you do not want to put animal products in your compost is because they smell bad and attract rodents and other animals to your compost bin or heap.

Be sure to bury your food scraps in the dirt about a few inches deep underneath the dirt. This will keep the annoying fruit flies away, not to mention leaving some wiggle room for your little worms. It’s always a good idea to bury your food scraps in different areas of your worm bin so that the worms don’t get too used to convening in the same spot and so that all areas of the bin receives its fair share amount of worm castings.

After a few months you’ll notice that in place of the dirt bedding you laid out for the worms earlier, you have what we composters like to call black gold, rich fine worm castings that are ready to go into your garden. After that you’re ready to start over! A fun process that students, young children and adults will surely enjoy, vermicomposting is a terrific and acceptable way to get down and dirty with worms!

Author: Duong Vicki
About the author: For a wide selection in chipper shredders and lawn sweepers, be sure to stop by Composters.com

Buy the Book: Worms Eat My Garbage
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Organic lawn fertilizers have brought new options to homeowners who desire both a green lawn and a green lifestyle. Environmental issues continue to be a concern in our society, and good citizens everywhere are doing all they can to preserve the health of our beautiful planet. Using organic fertilizers instead of chemical products is an easy way to make a difference, and many would be surprised at the effectiveness of the organic solutions. Listed below are some of the many proven benefits of natural fertilizers and insecticides.

Organic Lawn Care is Safer for Your Family
The most obvious value to using an organic lawn fertilizer is to preserve the safety of your family members and animals. Commercial lawn treatments are a cocktail of dangerous chemicals and poisons that cling to shoes, skin, and hair. Even the most cautious application can result in an accidental poisoning. And if you can protect your family and pets from exposure, it is often impossible to prevent wildlife and other organisms from ingesting these chemicals.

Bio-Degradable
Scientifically engineered chemicals react with our planet in very unnatural ways. Almost every naturally occurring resource on earth has the capacity to break down and return value to the environment. Man-made chemicals on the other hand are much harder to dissipate, and often form more potent by-products in the process. Every commercial brand chemical fertilizer contains compounds that are not only initially toxic, but ultimately breakdown and multiply into more toxins.

Less Waste
A major flaw with chemical lawn fertilizers is their “kill everything” approach to lawn care. These herbicides and pesticides may indeed kill unwanted nuisances like dandelions and ants, but they also destroy thousands of helpful organisms such as bees, earthworms, and beneficial microorganisms. Even if your lawn was comprised of 50% weeds, then you would still poison the soil in the remaining 50% with unnecessary chemicals. With organic lawn fertilizers, there is no concern for toxic runoffs or harmful integration with other organisms.

Organic lawn care is not only the best choice in terms of safety for your family, but it is also an effective alternative to chemical fertilizers. The proper application of organic fertilizers and pesticides will keep your lawn green and disease free. And as an added benefit to “going green“, organic formulas can save a substantial amount of money. Many effective formulas can be created in your kitchen with inexpensive ingredients found at your local grocery store. For more resources on how to implement an organic lawn treatment schedule, visit http://naturallawnfertilizers.com and http://naturallawnfertilizers.com

Author: Xavier Gallery
About the author: Make your own natural fertilizers and pesticides by using the resources available at Natural Lawn Fertilizers

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Author: Cindy Heller

Setting up backyard gardens is the surest way to invite butterflies into your home. If you happen to have a big space at the back of your home, it would be a good idea for you and your family to start planning for your backyard gardens. Buy some books and magazines about backyard gardens to help you and your family to design your gardens in such a way that it will look inviting to different species of butterflies.

Designing Your Backyard Gardens
There are many things that you need to consider when designing your backyard garden. First, you need to take into consideration the present condition of your backyard. If you backyard already have existing plants, you need to take an inventory of the plants and decide which ones you are going to keep and which ones have to go.

The second thing that you need to consider when designing your backyard garden is your budget. You need to ask yourself how you can afford to spend on your backyard garden. To know how much money you can spare for your garden, check your monthly income and savings against your usual monthly expenses. Make sure that you do not drain your finances just to make your backyard garden look beautiful. Yes, a beautiful backyard garden is important but you don’t really have to go broke just to create a lovely picture at the back of your home.

The third thing that you need to consider when designing your backyard garden is the type of plant that you need. If you want to invite butterflies into your garden, you need to use plants that are attractive to butterflies. Some plants that are attractive to butterflies are milkweed, aspen, chokecherry, dill, parsley, marigold, aster, lilac, cottonwood, pansy, clover and others. To attract a variety of butterflies into your backyard, try planning different types of plants. Add native plants into your list of planting materials. Native plants are good at attracting species of butterflies that are endemic in your area.

“Butterfly gardens can be any size - a window box, part of your landscaped yard, or even a wild untended area on your property. When planning your butterfly garden, the following pointers will help. Learn the common butterfly species in your vicinity and include both their adult nectar plants and caterpillar food plants in the garden. Adult butterflies will visit for a longer period if they find plants to lay their eggs on.” Butterfly–garden.com

Nothing signals the coming of spring more than butterflies flitting through your yard. Watching them waltz from flower to flower can bring endless pleasure. If you want to entice more of these colorful guests to your yard, consider planting a butterfly garden. A butterfly garden that is planned and planted correctly will bring a wide variety of butterflies to your yard year after year.

Butterfly Gardens Are Diverse
There are many types of butterflies in the world and each type prefers specific flowers to gain nutrients, lay their eggs, and feed their young. If you want your butterfly garden to attract many different kinds of butterflies, make sure that you plant many different kinds of flowers. Scientists aren’t sure why, but they have found that certain color butterflies prefer certain kinds of plants. Perhaps they are drawn to like colors for their camouflaging abilities or perhaps certain colored plants taste better to them than others. Whatever the reason, you will see many different butterflies in you butterfly garden, if you plant many different plants.

Some wonderful plants to include in butterfly gardens are coneflower, blackeyed susan, marigolds, butterfly bush, lantana, hibiscus, verbena, lilacs, lavender, and rosemary.

Butterfly Gardens Provide Shelter
There are butterfly predators in your neighborhood and as a result, butterfly gardens should contain suitable shelters for your winged friends. A butterfly hutch is the perfect safe resting place for the butterflies in your garden. You can purchase one at a local nursery or even make one yourself. You can leave it plain or decorate it in a whimsical fashion. The main things to look for in a good butterfly hutch are slits that are big enough to let the butterflies in but too small for nasty predators to gain access and an interior that contains pieces of bark for the butterfly to nest on.

Butterfly Gardens Give Nourishment

If you want a butterfly garden that will attract many butterflies and nourish your soul make sure you provide food and water for the many butterflies that will descend on your yard. Many of the flowers you plant will provide nectar for your butterflies, but you can also help nature along by providing feeders full of sugar water. You can even leave out little bits of sugar water in saucers scattered around your plants or place a piece of over ripe fruit in your garden to attract many butterflies. Butterflies also need water, so placing a small birdbath in your garden is a great idea.

“Butterfly gardens are a great source for your own enjoyment, photo opportunities, or an outlet for artistic talent. These gardens can also be extended to interest youth in nature, by providing a small window of native inhabitants of the local environment. On a final note, it’s important to conserve butterflies when possible since their habitat is constantly diminishing due to the increasing needs and consequent development of roads and housing.” How to Make Butterfly Gardens

About the author:
Cindy Heller is a professional writer. Visit one stop gardens to learn more about flowers and gardens for preschool children and other gardens with flowers

You are what you eat. The sad fact is that as long as farmers are allowed to spray environmental toxins on the food they produce, they will be poisoning you and your family right along with the insects they are trying to kill. These pesticides are more than a simple residue on he skin of your fruit or vegetables. They are in the actual flesh of the produce, carried on the winds far from the field where they were originally sprayed, they are in the soil, in the groundwater, in the fish that swim in the water, in the animals that eat the feed that was sprayed and in your body. They are everywhere. That is why they are called environmental toxins.

Author: Bob Cotto
Back in the 19th and 20th century, canaries were used in the mines to detect contaminated air. Miners used canaries because birds are very sensitive to toxins and are affected by poisonous gasses much quicker than man, thus giving the miners an early warning to any poisonous gasses in the mines. The birds are giving us warning again. According to Audubon magazine, “each year, more than 67 million birds are killed by pesticides applied legally to U.S. farmland.” Sounds like it time for us to consider taking action.

Children are also more more sensitive to environmental toxins than adults are so the damage from environmental toxins often manifests sooner in babies and children. According to the National Cancer Institute, cancer incidence among children under the age of 15 increased 32% between 1950 and 1985. It has also been estimated by researchers that there is a large percentage of cancer occurrences caused by exposure to environmental toxins as well as the well documented fact that the man made carcinogens in our food supply which is a major source of toxin exposure to people in the US.

Today’s modern farmers have an estimated choice of about 50,000 pesticide formulas and about 700 different chemicals. The agricultural industry is not solely to blame because many United States homeowners poison the earth as well by applying around 70 million pounds of pesticides on their lawns each year. Did you know that many of the chemicals we use on our lawns and gardens have exactly the same affect on insects as nerve gas had on soldiers? Many of the compounds used in home pesticides were the forerunners of the compounds used in chemical weapons that were developed during Word War II.

Think it can’t happen to you? Think again. Pesticides are poisonous chemicals that have absolutely no safe place in a human body. They are designed to kill. Want to know what pesticide use is linked to? Here is a quick list: breast cancer, birth defects, weakened immune system, non-hodkins lymphoma, brain damage, fetal death and malformations, fetal brain damage and miscarriage, Parkinsons, prostate cancer, lung cancer, hyperactivity, ADD and other neurological problems, male infertility and long term infertility. Check out Chem-Tox.com for more detailed effects of pesticides with supporting studies.

Any insects and birds eating from treated fields suffer from symptoms like quivering muscles, excessive tearing and salivation, failure of the respiratory muscles and, ultimately, asphyxiation - which are the same symptoms as nerve gas poisoning. Because both insects and weeds develop a resistance to the pesticides it is becoming a vicious cycle. The more their resistance builds up the more chemicals need to be used. It has been estimated by some sources that farmers have been spraying 2 to 5 times more than they were 30 years ago.

When it comes to environmental toxins prevention is better than cure, the best way to help with eliminating toxins from your body is to make sure you have a diet that is high in organically grown foods and low in industrially processed foods. There has been an increase recently in organic farms, and although organically raised beef, health food stores and organic food sections in many supermarkets are more expensive, they offer a valuable alternative to the industrial processed foods. If you find that these natural organic foods are hard to find in your area, try searching for them and perhaps ask your local grocer to try to carry them if and when possible.

An important thing to remember is that although the human body has the incredible ability to detoxify itself, when it is not at optimum health this ability can be seriously compromised. So although organic foods like organically raised beef, health food stores and organic food sections in many supermarkets are much more expensive than normal foods they are well worth the extra expense. It is essential that your body receives the correct nutrients to achieve and maintain optimal health.

While the knowledge that these chemicals are all around us can be discouraging, it is also a very serious call to action for those in the know. This is the very reason that the organic movement has taken on a life of its own. If you are not fortunate enough to live near a Wild Oats, Trader Joes or Whole Foods, there are still plenty of organic options. A great alternative is to find a food co-op or local grower. Buying locally saves tremendous wear and tear on the environment and of course keeps your neighbors in business. Another excellent way to get more organic food in your diet is to grow your own. Just make sure to use filtered water and natural pest control methods. As a last resort you can purchase organic food on the internet from Diamond Organics and even Amazon.

About the Author:
Bob Cotto has over 35 years experience in Senior Sales and Marketing Management positions with a variety of companies, such as We The People, IRM, Live Marketing, Cigna Securities and many others. For each of these companies, he’s led the sales and marketing teams to triple digit record breaking growth year after year. If there’s one thing he understands, its business. And that’s why he KNOWS that the Ultimate Business In A Box has everything you’ll need to succeed.

Find a food co-op at Local Harvest.org
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Some of the most important organic fertilizers are fish emulsion, seaweed, earthworm castings, bone meal, kelp meal, and rock phosphates. These natural fertilizers will improve your plants, especially yield plants, and are great for the soil. Not only do they nourish your plants but the soil as well so that it is healthy enough to support whatever you decide to plant. It is quite easy to match the organic fertilizer to the plant you need it for thus improving the plants and making them healthier. They also tell you how often to use them so that you don’t overdo. Some fertilizers are longer lasting and do not have to be applied as often.

Fish Emulsion and Seaweed
This combination of organic fertilizer is just about as good as one can get. It is high in trace minerals that plants need and help to establish root growth. The joining of the two makes the best complete fertilizer so there is no need to add anything else. Fish emulsions made from fish or fish by-products along with seaweed, a saltwater plant can give you a very healthy plants.

Earthworm Castings
Earthworms are burrowers. While burrowing in the soil they swallow the soil that contains organic matter. It is then ground up in the gizzard and expelled as castings. These castings aerate the soil and have over 60 trace minerals that are needed by plants. Do not use chemical fertilizers near earthworms as it is toxic to them.

Bone Meal
Due to the slow release of this organic fertilizer it is safer when transplanting new plants and lowers transplant shock. It promotes a healthy root system. Bonemeal contains calcium, nitrogen, and phosphorus and is one of the best plant foods.

Kelp Meal
This fertilizer is made from dried seaweed and is used as an additive with other organic fertilizers. It is high in plant food growth hormones which will help your plants to grow bigger and stronger. It is also thought that plants that this is used on develop a resistance to pests and disease.

Rock Phosphates
It is not only a natural source of calcium, phosphates, and trace minerals but it improves the soil and is one of the best fertilizers for transplanting young plants since it does not burn roots. It is also a slow dissolver in water which makes it last a lot longer than most others.

Organic fertilizers are the best for your garden, flowers, and your lawn. They provide natural elements to the soil and plants which is very beneficial to the environment. Today when everything we eat and use is chemically altered in one way or another it is refreshing to know that we can get back to the basics and perhaps be healthier in the future. After all most of these elements have been around for centuries.

About the Author:

Jim’s articles are from extensive research on each of his topics. You can learn more of organic and natural fertilizers by visiting: Organic Fertilizers

Buy Urban Organics All Purpose Fertilizer

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