During a visit with my wife's grand parents, who have lived in the country all their lives, I was reminded at how life was lived not too long ago.  At 80+ years old, they were still picking apples from their apple trees, proudly displayed cherry trees and even offered some seedlings for our Urban Homestead.  Their vegetable garden growing Canadian staples such as Green Beans, Corn and Potatoes looked great surrounded by gooseberries and raspberries bushes.  A quick visit in the root cellar to raid their canning shelf really brought the message back home... you can grow a great abundance of your own food!

The first step in moving towards a more self sufficient lifestyle is to start a vegetable garden.  Starting slow and working at your own pace.  The problem is the world got itself is such a hurry that it forgot the road from whence it came.

As first time gardeners, the key is to start slow.  Do not overwhelm yourself by turning your entire backyard into one huge garden, you will be wrought with disappointment.  There is a learning curve.  Take your time and get a good understanding of what works and what doesn't.  Here's a few ideas to get started...

Start small.  A raised bed garden four feet by eight feet would be sufficient. Start with two of them if you are ambitious.  You can mark off a section of your yard for feet by 12 feet if raised beds are not for you.  You can buy some peat moss and some composted manure to help the health of your soil as well.  Check your local gardening store for soil tests and take appropriate guided action.

Vegetable selection.  Again ask your neighbours or your local gardening store for vegetables that are easy to grow in your area.  In Eastern Canada these are Green Beans, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Onions, Green Peppers, Carrots and Potatoes to name a few.  Green Beans are great and the easiest to preserve by canning, same with Tomatoes.

Preserving yield.  There are many methods to preserve your crop to last you well into the winter.  Canning and freezing being the most prevalent.  You can also dehydrate some vegetables as well.  Being your first few years, you will most likely not have much to preserve and will most likely eating and sharing.  Once you know what and how to grow, as well as how much yield per crop to expect, you can expand your vegetable garden and plan your preservatives to hold you over winter.

If anything at all, gardening brings a sense of community as you share and learn knowledge and produce with your friends and neighbours.  Even though this is being written at the end of the this years growing season, that only means that next years planning is ready to start.  Keep tuned for tips on fall garden prep and cleanup as well as next season planning.

Keep it Green!

There are government programs out there to help cover the costs of completing major energy savings retrofits and completing some sort of Energy Efficiency Evaluation Report. Here is a list of Energy Savings Tips that although are not usually covered by such programs, can greatly reduce your energy consumption and help make your home more energy efficient:

1. Replace your light bulbs with energy-efficient ones, such as compact flurescents (CF). They last longer and reduce electricity consumption.
2. Insulate the first two metres of the hot and cold water pipes with insulating foam sleeves or pipe wrap insulation. By doing so you will save on your water heating costs and will reduce your water consumption. Besides saving energy, water will arrive at the faucets warmer or colder. Insulating cold water pipes will also avoid condensation from forming on the pipes. This prevents dripping on ceiling tiles or the basement floor.
3. If you do have a pool, install a timer on your pool pump.
4. Use a timer for your car's block heater. Set the timer so that it turns on two hours before you start your vehicle.
5. Install an Energy Star qualified kitchen or bathroom exhaust fan.
6. Install a timer on your bathroom exhaust fan(s).
7. Install low-flow shower heads (rated at less than 9.8 litres per minute and faucet aerators.
8. Fix leaky faucets and outside hose bibs.
9. Install and use a programmable electronic thermostat (set the heating temperature to 20c while you are at home and 17c at night and when you are away). For each degree of setback, you can save up to 2 percent on your heat bill.
10. When replacing lighting, appliances, electronics and office equipment, look for Energy Star labelled products. Energy Star labelled products use less than half as much energy in standby mode, when turned "off".
11. Plug your home office equipment into a power bar that can be easily turned off when equipment is not in use.
12. Install motion sensor light switches.

There are also more expensive projects such as replacing your current toilets with low-flush toilets and installing a Drain Water Heat Recovery system (DWHR), which in itself can save you up to 30% on your water heating.

Of course there are also the major retrofits:

• Install a wind-powered generation system, which will supplement your energy use with an environmentally friendly source of electricity.
• Install a solar wall system to supplement your space heating, which will ease the load on your primary heating system.
• Install a photovoltaic system, which will supplement your energy use with an environmentally friendly source of energy.
• Install a trombe wall if the means are available to reduce heating and cooling via thermal mass.

That's it for today... I'd be interested in hearing what other low costs energy savings tips people have come up with and will share.

Keep it Green!

So you are thinking of introducing some sort of Renewable Alternative Energy into your plans for a more Sustainable Living. Before you try to size your system you must begin with energy efficiency. Just as the government realized it is cheaper to invest in energy efficiency then energy creation, so will you as you run through your project.

More with less is the theme here, but do not think you have to revert back to oil lamps and cooking over campfire. There are lots of energy saving tips to make your home more energy efficient and best of all most governments in North America have millions of dollars in grants to help you reach your goals.  Once you know exactly what you are wasting energy on you will be happy and most likely make it your personal mission to reduce your energy consumption and monthly bill.

Here are a few examples:

• Swapping out old light bulbs to CF (Compact Flurescent) will reduce energy consumption by 80%
• Installing on-demand water heaters will reduce hot water energy consumption by approximately 50%
• Turning down the thermostat and putting a water heater blanket will reduce your energy consumption by approximately 20%
• Low-Flow shower heads and aerator faucets will reduct water consumption as well as energy consumption used to heat that water
• Replace old appliances with Energy Efficient appliances
• Get a leak test done in your house and follow the recommended remediation steps could save you up to 50% of your heating costs
• Adding Solar Water Heating system can save you approximately 50% of the energy used for heating water
• Install a home power meter like the cent-a-meter to precisely monitor your energy consumption and take action appropriately like reducing Phantom Electric Loads

These are just some of the examples of what you can do. A quick Google search on home energy efficiencies will give you more information then you can handle and as mentioned above, make some calls into your local and federal/state governements to see what programs they have available for energy efficient retrofits.

These action items can be done over a period of time and most are not that expensive to accomplish. Here is the list of items we've done or are planning to action by the end of the year:

• Bought bulk CF bulbs on special and replaced in all fixtures. Some local government have give aways for CF bulbs to promote use, so be sure to check that possibility.
• Installed a water heater blanket and foam insulated all hot water pipes
• Installed low-flow shower heads
• After having a Leak Test done, we've replaced all windows and doors. Needed to be done anyways with 25year old wooden frame windows
• Installed foam gaskets in all electrical outlets to reduce draft
• Installed child safely plugs in unused electrical outlets to further reduce draft

The Leak Test was an eye opener for us and the follow up report was great. It detailed what action items would give us the biggest bang for our buck, literally. We are expecting a nice grant for our energy efficient upgrades so far. Before we call them back to do a second test and submit our paperwork for the grant, we will also replace the attic door with a new efficient, insulated attic door.

Living on the East Coast of Canada we have long cold winters so every bit insulation and reduced heat loss helps and equates to electricity and dollars saved.  Over the winter we also plan on purchasing and installing the cent-a-meter home metering system.  This will allow us to monitor, identify and reduce energy consumption during the heavy heating season and give us good numbers to work with for planning our hybrid renewable energy system.

That's it for now... Keep it Green ;o)

The fist step in planning a renewable energy system is to reduce the energy consumption. Phantom electrical loads account for approximately 6% of a homes electricity consumption. Phantom electrical loads can be easily reduced to save electricity, money and carbon footprint.

Take a look at the appliances you have plugged into your electrical outlets around your home. Appliances used throughout the home usually have on/off switches. What most people fail to realize is that even when you turn off these appliances, most will still draw energy. This energy draw is called a "phantom load" and needs to be taken into consideration to reduce energy consumption and planning a renewable energy system for implementation in your home.

Some devices are easy to recognize such as appliances with built in clocks, DVD players, televisions, coffee makers, etc... Others are not so obvious such as your door bell, electric charge razor, computers, etc... Appliances that can be operated with a remote-control is also consuming power around the clock. It has to stay in a ready state in order to be switched on by the remote control. The ready state consumes less electricity than when the device is turned on, but over a 24-hour period the energy consumption can be substantial. Multiply that by 365 days and you are looking at a nice electricity bill and wasted energy for "convenience".

The easiest way to reduce or eliminate phantom power draw is to plug these devices and appliances into power bars that include their own on/off switch, also called switchable outlets. When you turn off the device or appliance, turn off the power supply to the switchable outlet.

If you think this will be inconvenient or a pain, remeber the fact that you will be saving approximately 6% on your electricity bill. Do the calculation yourself and you'll be pleasently surprised. This the cost of grid energy going up and the up front capital cost of haressing your own renewable energy, every bit helps.

Move on energy savings coming soon... in the meantime keep it Green!

Most people think of reel (or push) mowers as those rusty old clunkers they had to manhandle through their lawn when they were younger. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Today's reel mowers are much the same design of the old-time favorites, but are lighter in weight, easier to use and easier to maintain. Our goal was to finally get rid of our gas lawn mower and since we are converting most of our grass to garden, an eco-friendly reel mower made perfect sense.

Before I get into the review of our new Scotts 20" Reel Mower, here is a little primer on reel mowers and their benefits. Unlike the gas and electric rotary mowers you’re used to and that are the most popular mower on the market today, most reel lawn mowers don’t have an engine. You can buy high end reel mowers with an electric engine, but we will not discuss those in this article.

Reel mowers rely on very sharp blades and operator supplied power. The reel mower blades also spin differently than those of a rotary mower. There are usually 2 cutting blades on a rotary mower that spins just above the ground and parallel to the grass. The blades of a reel lawn mower spins at an angle perpendicular to the grass. This means that when you push the mower, you are actually cutting the grass and not smashing the ends of the grass. This action is actually healthier for your lawn.

The benefits to using a Reel Mower are 100% pollution-free alternative being easy on the environment, including benefits in safety, noise-level, maintenance and cost. There are, however, some drawbacks. Reel lawn mowers can not chop up twigs laying in the grass as they get stuck in the blades and you’ll have to remove them by hand. Reel mowers cannot mulch up fall leaves, which is an inconvenience, and have difficult time properly cutting long grass. This can be an issue for vacation times or long periods of rain.

On to the quick review. Using the 20" cut Scotts Reel Mower on our urban lot has been great. It takes about 45 minutes to cut our lawn which is comparable to our gas mower. We did not find it any harder to push and even our 5 year old has fun pushing it with dad ;o) The construction of this reel mower is very tough and easy to maintain. I have not had the opportunity to sharpen the blades yet, but will write up and article on that process and my opinions at that time. The only downside to the Scotts reel mower is the flimsy handle. For the price and the ruggedness of the cutting unit, we find the handles are too light weight and flimsy when turning and handling the mower. We will remedy this by fabricating a custom heavy duty handle.

Overall we are extremely happy with this purchase and it also makes you feel good, physically and environmentally. Although our goal is to convert most of our grass to garden, we will still have some lawn to cut, so making an environmental choice for a mower is good. Plus, nothing makes me happier then using my Reel Mower in the front yard waving at my neighbore on his gas ride on.

Keep it Green!