I put in a series of 4- 4x8 raised beds beside my garage for veggies. It supplies us (and some of the neighbors) with salad greens, radishes, swiss chard, tomatoes, snow peas, herbs for the kitchen, green beans, as well as cut flowers for the house.

A recycled wooden wine barrel collects rainwater from the garage roof so that I don't have to use the hose unless we have an extended dry spell.

I've overseeded the sparse lawn (sandy soil, nutrients run right through it, along with any moisture) with Agway's "Conservation Green" lawn mix, which contains white clover. The lawn is green and lush looking with only one fertilizer application (at half the recommended strength) and no watering. This not only saves water, but all of that fertilizer runoff into the river and LI Sound is avoided. I've also replaced a lot of the lawn with planting beds and groundcover, reducing the amount of mowing time (and mower exhaust).

All of my hardscape is permeable. Granite stepping stones, granite, bluestone, and brick over sand for the patio, and crushed stone for the driveway.

My gardens are formal in style, but decidedly relaxed. Skipping the perfectly manicured edges and leaving most of the spent garden up over the winter decreases the use of power tools, helps prevent erosion, and provides cover and seed for wildlife. Looks purty with a cover of snow, too.

I chop up all of my leaves in the fall, and save them for use as mulch in the spring. They add nutrients, conserve moisture, and improve the soil structure as they break down.

Eliminating those plants that require spraying with chemicals in favor of those that manage well enough without them not only saves me money and time, it decreases the amount of toxic chemicals in the environment.

Planning the placement of trees and shrubs to shade your house and outdoor living areas can reduce your summer cooling costs considerably, saving energy and money and reducing the burning of fossil fuels to produce the electricity. Ditto the planning of deciduous shade trees that admits the sun in the winter to help warm the house.

Windbreaks properly positioned to deflect prevailing winter winds (NW where I live) can also save on heating fuel, and "funneling" the prevailing summer breezes (SW for me) toward your house and outdoor living spaces helps during the summer.

Picking up after your dogs and disposing of the waste reduces pollution, too. You'd be surprised how much damage dog doo can do.

Recycling is an obvious one, and composting.

I grow veggies in my garden because it is fun to do so. You might find it fun to grow veggies, but if you don't, it seems to be that you are already supporting a change in the food growing process by supporting a local farm as you described. I don't think you need to have a feeling-guilty veggie garden. I do understand your quest. I am trying to train myself to look at packaging in stores as you described.

I follow the same principals as saypoint...I don't have a dog though. I read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" To sum the book up...eat organic, locally grown, know and support your local farmers. He did say the best was walking out your door and popping a veggie from your garden right into your mouth. No fossil fuels burned for that!

I have a few raised beds in the only area that gets much sun (okay, I also have a few roses there as well). Should you really be eating blueberries in March that used tons of fossil fuels to bring to your local market from South America? You also have to think about eating what is in season like our ancestors did when they couldn't transport food from all over. I still remember my grandmothers storage cellar. She canned everything. It tasted great!

KT, if you want to add veggies in, just do it! You don't need a separate vegetable garden. Many people separate their thinking into flowers are pretty, veggies are not - but if you can get around that framework, you can plant vegetables in around your flowers (as long as there's enough sun). And don't overlook edible flowers, such as nasturtiums.

We are composting maniacs! I shred as much paper as I can of the junk mail that piles into this house...and use grocery bags to carry all our kitchen scraps to our compost pile, which is supplemented by horse manure and fall leaves. We are a small farm but after recycling and composting, we barely send any real trash to the landfill. Our town is a "pay as you throw" trash town so we save a lot of money that way too.

You don't need vegetable gardens to plant veggies...just incorporate some veggies into your flower gardens. Squash flowers are quite spectacular in the flower beds!

In the summer I try to buy all our veggies from our local farm stand. They rent a lot of fields in our town to grow their crops, so in that way I am supporting the preservation of open space and a farming tradition in our region.

We also try to buy local in other ways..supporting local shops rather than the Wal-Marts...

We are a horse farm with water on the property, so keeping the animal waste away from the water which flows into our town's water supply is a constant challenge. We moved some fencing away from the water and planted native plants in a vegetative border, as a filter for pollutants. We also use organic land care methods on the entire property, no chemicals since we are right upslope from a river.

I am happy to read this thread...caring for our environment and water supplies may not be important to everybody now, but it sure will be in just a few years. Considering that most land in New England is privately owned, what we each do with our backyards makes a real difference.

Add me to the list of those pleased & excited to see this thread. We are avid composters. We top dress all beds in the spring with 6" of 50/50 manure & leaf mould. No chemical ferts as we are less than 100' from LIS.

This year, we did not purchase the out-of-season fruits/veggies that we normally do. I have located an organic CT beef farm. We're using paper towels that we compost to cover stuff in the microwave instead of plastic wrap. I have virtually eliminated foil from our kitchen. Also, feeling that Americans are wasteful because we are used to such plenty...we have greatly reduced the amount of food that we buy. Somehow, we're not hungrier...and nothing is going to waste. And, as a bonus...I've reduced the amount of our grocery bill.

Back in the garden...I don't water unless we haven't had ANY rain in two weeks & then only the few plants that really need it. We hope to install a rain barrel this summer, or next. I have trouble growing veggies because we don't have enough sun. I have an elderly neighbor who enjoys gardening & she has sun & a large lot. So, I'm going to plant a few veggies in her garden this year & she's going to water them. Together, we will weed, mulch, harvest, and enjoy what we hope will be a bounty. We're going to start with salad greens, tomatoes, beans, peas, & a few herbs like basil & parsley.

What a great thread.

Tricia

kt, have you seen the new forum here? Going Green? It's got a lot of good ideas and discussions going.

I garden organically. I have enlarged my vegetable garden over the last few years.

I compost every thing I can, including old cotton clothes, cardboard boxes, and junk mail. I recycle everything I can, (including bringing home recyclables from work to put in my bin) and we are down to one kitchen bag of garbage per week for a family of four.

I have buckets in the shower and kitchen sink to catch water to use in the garden, as well as a rain barrel ready to go this spring.

I use organic cleaning supplies, soaps, shampoos and deodorants, and try to buy organic when I can. I'm just starting now to think about eating more "in season", but haven't gotten that far yet.

I try to keep an eye to packaging when I buy things. I even e-mail companies to let them know I'm not happy with their packaging, lol. Sometimes I think I get carried away. I'll choose certain products based on packaging alone - for instance, if one yogurt comes in a #2 package, which is recyclable in my area, and another comes in #5, which is not recyclable in my area, I will buy the yogurt in the #2 package.

Of course, we do the usual conserving with water and electricity, especially since we just got a 50% raise in our electric rates!

I also use freecycle to get rid of things I no longer want or need, as well as getting things without having to buy new.

Looking into solar energy options...

:)
Dee

I love this thread too, and share many of the same thots as I shop, go to the CSA, install low energy light bulbs (except on lights on dimmers -- which are too many in my house -- because they buzz and flicker), compost, recycle, and contemplate solar panels for the roof....

***BUT*** -- I have had many laughable/cryable MISadventures with rainbarrells, and am wondering how I can really make them a functional part of my life. I bought 3 barrells -- two for the front, one for the back. At present, none are functional....

First, I practically killed myself trying to saw thru copper downspouts, then the whole d**n downspout disconnected from the gutter and fell. Had to call a very expensive handyman to repair my handywork, and he snickered the whole time.

Then realized I needed some kind of elbow to reach from the spout to the top of the barrell, as it doesn't sit directly below. Took a trip to home depot to find a gutter elbow, they laughed at me, and it's now badly installed.

Next, the ground is not perfectly level where I want the front yard barrels. When empty, one rainbarrell tips over and rolls waaaaaay down the driveway. Sounds like thunder, scares my children, neighbors laugh. The first time, it broke off the little spout to which I had planned to connect a hose. Have yet to contact the mfg to get a new one. So, I temporarily abandoned the driveway side barrell til I can level that spot and get a new spout this spring.

BUT, as I discovered on the second front yard barrell with the spout still intact (that barrell falls into an ilex glabra when it tips), the spout is actually too large in diameter for the garden hose.

Until I find some kind of larger diameter hose bib, I need to use a watering can. The barrell top is too narrow to allow me to dip my can. So, I attemtped to elevate the ilex-side barrell to get a watering can underneath, but need the handyman to come back and shorten the spout a little more..... Aaaarrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

All a PITA so far. AND, to compound my troubles, I removed the rainbarrells in November, so I wouldn't have ice problems, but now have problems directing the winter's rain away from the foundation. I have those flexible plastic gutter extenders connected, but it's not a great solution.

BASICALLY, I miss my nice, functional, expensive copper downspouts. Are YOU sure you want rain barrells? I wish you better luck than I've had.

Isn't that a comedy of errors? Any advice...????

KT, this is a great thread! and I am so happy to discover how like-minded so many of us are... maybe there IS hope, after all. :)

I am proud to say that this household has been a member of MOFGA for 20 years now! we were members of CSA back in the '80s when only "weirdos" did that sort of thing, lol. We have a wonderful vegetable gaHden, it was the FIRST thing we did when we built this house. We moved into the house in June '91 and we ate our first salad greens shortlty thereafter. And the composting began about that time, too. So did the consideration of what to plant and where to plant it.

We BYOB to the supermarket. We receive a credit of .15/bag and coupled with deposits on returnables add more as we need them. We tend to "shop the perimeter" of the store. We buy INGREDIENTS, not RTE (ready to eat). We recycle, it's easy to do. I have been teased for years because I reuse plastic bags.

We buy 1-2 boxes/yr. of ziplock bags and I wash them out when I do the dishes (I can't remember the last time we bought them). I hang them from the vertical dish rack with clothespins (remember those?). I do the same thing with lengths of tin foil, lol. We don't own a dishwasher. I use a dishpan and wash by hand (takes about 10 minutes once a day). Dishes dry in the rack, glasses, cans, etc. dry on the vertical rack on the wall. I don't own a dryer, either. I use my grandmother's folding rack for small items, putting it in front of the woodstove or out on the sunny deck. I hang shirts on hangers from the door and window mouldings. Pants are hung in the boiler room (jeans dry in under 3 hrs. for FREE). Sheets/bedding go outside over the deck railing, even in the winter. I do laundry once/wk. on the weekend; we plan our wardrobes accordingly. No dry cleaning.

I recently flipped out over a $90+ electric bill for January. We get a kick out of Christmas lights outdoors and use a timer to turn them on and off, so I expect a higher bill for a month/month and half. But after they were turned off I declared war on the bill. We replaced incandescent bulbs with higher efficiency flourescents. I added surge protector strips to the computer sites and the entertainment center. NOW, when we're finished with the TV or radio, we shut off the strip. We do the same thing with the computers. NO VAMPIRES ALLOWED. Our electricity bill went from $90 to $50, KW hrs. went down by just under half!

Our home (2500 sq. ft.) has 5 heating zones (oil fired forced hot water). Interior walls are fully insulated, too. We close off lesser used zones and turn down the thermostats. We have a lovely, efficient woodstove and we use it (meets all EPA standards). Firewood has been harvested from our 3 acres and there is plenty for the future as we use 1/maybe 2 cord/yr.. It requires forethought and effort, but we don't mind that because THINKING about heat is important!

We use awnings on our home. Did you know that simple, low-tech. window awnings on the southern and westerly windows of your home will reduce your cooling costs by 30%? and may well eliminate the need for "cooling" completely! The interior temperature of our home went down by about 10 degrees when the awnings went up. Moreover, we can now leave the windows open when it rains because windblown rain is prevented from coming in the open windows. And, they look great. Our awnings are 10 yrs. old, and have been restitched once in that time and I've mended them occasionally over the years. It's time to think about replacing them. They are an expense, but not the same way air-conditioning is.

Must do the rainbarrel thing, too. Presently, roof run-off is directed to a pond or the moist soil garden, but efficiencies could be improved markedly. Our surfaces are entirely permeable, too... wish the driveway drained faster, though. ;)

Goodness, mayalena, you have had a time of it with those rainbarrels! Sorry, but I had to laugh at the image of your barrel rolling down the driveway!

I intend to put my rainbarrel out by my vegetable garden. Even if I wanted to, I don't think my husband would agree to hooking one up to the rainspout, since we have new gutters and downspouts. I'm hoping in a year or so, when the newness wears off, that I can hook one up, maybe in the back of the house. But for now, I want one out by the garden anyway, so I don't have to lug cans of water. Good point, though, that you brought up about the barrel not being wide enough to allow dipping a watering can. I never thought of that. May have to go from barrel, to bucket, to watering can to be able to water. But since we're on a well, I want to do as much as I can to conserve and reuse water, so I think I will still give the barrels a chance. Maybe I'll dig out the ground a bit and level it, and put the barrel snugly in that depression to keep it from rolling away!

:)
Dee
P.S. BTW, here's the new Going Green forum

Use some old bricks or something to level your barrels and raise them high enough to assist the gravity flow of water out the hose. If you use sturdy blocks, you can raise it high enough to get a watering can under the spigot. You can probably buy an adapter at the hardware store that will allow you to attach a hose to your barrel, with a little trial and error.

I carefully cut my downspout with a hacksaw, and crimped the new "bottom" of it so that I can slip on an elbow and short length to direct water into the strainer on the barrel, and in the winter I can slip the cut off part back on. I use the black corrugated drain pipe at ground level to direct water away from the garage foundation.

Try making your own yogurt. There are lots of recipes on the web. I use a Yogourmet machine to make 2 qts. at a time, but you can make it in a warm oven overnight. You'll never eat the store-bought stuff again, and it costs about half as much to make your own.

Thanks, saypoint. You make it sound so easy! I am severely DIY challenged....
ML

It is important to me to grow our own veggies. It is also important that my garden looks good, so the veggie garden was designed as a "potager", a series of raised beds surrounded by roses and flowers.

I do my best to try not to buy very much "fresh" produce in the supermarket. I refuse to buy strawberries in the winter. The only strawberries we eat are the ones that grow in June in our garden. We have about 2 weeks of sweet juicy strawberries that we eat off the plants, make pies and shortcake with, and then the berries are gone about the time we're sick of them and it's no more for another year.

Even in the summer the produce at the grocery store is shipped from all over. You see a little bit of the trend "locally grown" creeping in but I don't think they're ever going to get it as long as people keep buying their insipid fruits and vegetables year-round.

At least start by growing some salad greens in a small plot or container. There is no excuse for anybody to buy their greens during the spring/summer/fall months. They are the easiest thing to grow and you don't need much space.

And check this out--started right here in Maine:

Thanks for starting this thread, Katy. I can't reply at the moment, but have enjoyed reading about all the things people are doing to lessen their "footprints."

All right you have all moved me to a place where I am so dizzy from my head spinning strangely enough it reminds me of the time in my life when I decided to start a familyuncharted waters and a paralyzing sense of being alone. Please stick by my side (and your neighbors) and remind me often how one small change can lead to another. Running through my head these last few days were all of your thoughts and practices on environmentally friendly life style changes. Today I watched Al Gores Inconvenient Truth and thought his following quote regarding the environment spoke for me "There are good people in both parties who hold this issue at arms length because if they recognize it then the moral of this parody is inescapable." All of us here on GW have vast differences in our everyday lives, ranging from young families to those looking at retirement, the investment of time in our work place, and our economic differences I can only imagine are wide as well, yet we all seem to be on the same page independent and without a strong unified voice helping to lead or decisions. After having spent the last six months taking classes both on island and off island on solar hot water heating systems Joe has convinced me that to cover up my beloved cedar shingled roof with evacuated tube solar collectors to heat our hot water was something we needed to do regardless of our fear of housing depreciation. There are remarkable advantages in New England choosing evacuated tube verses panel collectors but sadly these are not the issues of our media ie. dinner table conversation. As often happens when we are moved by one topic or another one google link will lead to the most enlightening sight, this happened to me earlier and I wanted to share with you all a wonderful site that will guide you to possible . Thank you for sharing how on a day by day basis you have decided to define who you are and your concerns or future generations.

kt, as I mentioned above, I have been toying with the idea of converting to solar (if I can convince DH, which would most likely be a very hard sell) but I am not familiar with evacuated tube collectors. I'll have to do some research.

Over the course of the next few weeks, our local libraries are doing a several-cities-wide discussion/presentation on environmental issues, centered on the movie "The Day After Tomorrow". (They could not choose "An Inconvenient Truth" for fear it would be perceived as too political, and additionally thought they could drum up more widespread interest with a movie such as "The Day..."). Anyway, I am going to a presentation on solar energy this week, and will ask about evacuated tube collectors, if they don't bring it up first.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
:)
Dee

I thought I would report here that today I received a mailing from Polly Hill Arboretum were they commented that this summer they will host lecturer Dr, Richard Primack a conservation biologist from Boston University, who is currently researching the impact of climate change on the flowering times of plants and the spring arrival of birds in Massachusetts. Later in August there will be a panel discussion with Dr. Primack, Richard Houghton who is senior scientist and deputy director of the Woods Hole Research Center, and a third speaker that will be announced soon.
Dee,
It seems as though the scientific world who in my estimation is being ignored by mass media is trying to bring these issues to our local communities. kt

It is exciting to read this thread because it makes me feel less alone in my quest to be more thoughtful about our family's environmental footprint. When I see the intense focus on flawless green lawns in our neighborhood, I get discouraged. We are planning to turn our lawn into a mix of raised beds and clover-type ground covers. The beds will have perennials and vegetables. In the back yard, I want to expand last year's garden plot and create several more raised beds, a better-composted row area, and some container plantings. We'd love to add a couple of fruit trees and berry bushes, as much as we can afford. Rain barrels are on my list for this year, as well as preparing some cold frames or hoop houses to try four-season gardening. It would be great if some other families in the neighborhood decided to be bold and reduce their lawns in favor of more functional and diverse plantings, but I have my doubts that I will see much of that. Maybe there is some hope. I am enjoying several new gardening books this spring: Four Season Harvest, Food Not Lawns, Seed to Seed, and Bountiful Containers. It will be a busy spring and summer if we can ever get to planting!