However, just like you’re getting your garden gear ready, the weeds are beginning to rear their heads. As soon as the frost is gone, they’re here, waiting to emerge and make their way into your life.

Luckily, there are plenty of eco-friendly, natural ways to control weeds before they start to cause havoc in your garden.

Do It Yourself Solutions

At-home remedies are great options because they are inexpensive (chances are, you have the stuff at home), and they are easy to use.

Vinegar is the “can-conquer-all” option, working for your weeds like it does for your kitchen floors. It works best with multiple applications and a little help from the sun. Be sure to apply it on a dry day without rain in the forecast, because it was to be dry to be effective.

Cornmeal works to prevent seeds from germinating. Just sprinkle the cornmeal directly on the soil (then use leftovers to whip up a batch of your favourite cornbread). Plan to wait until after the seeds already begin to sprout to make sure the cornmeal doesn’t harm the plants.

Boiling water is a simple and effective solution, pouring it directly onto the plants.

Salt is also effective, however, it can also poison the soil. Sprinkle lightly directly onto weeds, but be aware it can kill plant roots, fungi and earthworms. It’s best to use in areas where you simply cannot harm anything else around it.

Building Up a Barrier

Barriers can keep out light and prevent weeds from growing through it, making it last longer than a DIY option.

Newspaper is a great natural barrier against weeds. Use only the black and white papers, as the chemicals can harm the plants and soil.

Garden mulch will not prevent  weeds from growing but can help prevent weed seeds from sprouting.

What are your favourite all-natural ways of killing weeds?

Homemade broth takes it a step further. First, it contains no additives, and because you’re making it from scratch, you can control the sodium content, usually the main contender in what makes most store-bought brands not up to par. It also much more cost efficient, because you’re not spending any money on pre-made varieties, and you’re using every last bit of your grocery store purchases.

Tips and Techniques

• Use cold water when starting to make your broth
• Feel free to use additional seasonings, depending on the tastes you like best. Lemon peel, sage, and turmeric add a nice touch.
• Don’t use starchy vegetables like potatoes
• Always make sure that the ingredients are covered with water while they simmer. If it reduces too much, top with enough hot water just to cover it.
• Large chunks of vegetables with cut with large surface areas are best to use.
• Don’t use celery leaves – they are extremely bitter in broth making (along with cabbage, broccoli, and greens)
• If you want an Asian flavoured broth, add a small knob of fresh garlic, cut into 1” pieces.
• Cheesecloth is the easiest way to strain the broth; otherwise, use a fine mesh strainer.
• For a richer broth (without using scraps), first roast the vegetables until caramelized

The easiest and cheapest way to make your own broth is saving kitchen scraps in the freezer. And if you live in an apartment without a compost, or an area without an organic waste program, then this is a great way to reduce waste in your home, too. Adopt the idea of a Broth Bag, and you’ll find the convenience of having broth on hand adds a nutritious (and free) form of flavour that you’ll never want to be without again.

Basic Vegetable Broth (using kitchen scraps)

1 Broth Bag (see below)
8 cloves garlic
6 sprigs fresh parsley
6 sprigs fresh thyme
a few bay leaves
10 peppercorns (optional)
1 teaspoon salt (to taste)
2 quarts water

Broth Bag:
Whenever you peel any vegetables or chop off the ends, put the parts you’d discard in the Broth Bag. Include flavourful vegetables, like onions, celery, carrots, mushrooms, corn cobs, leeks, asparagus ends… Keep going until it’s full. Onions, carrots, celery and garlic are key.

Once it’s full, empty the contents of the bag  into a large stock pot, and bring to a boil. Reduce and let simmer for about an hour. Strain, and freeze in portions.

The Enviromentals are Hal Brindley and Leigh Ramsdell, delivering you great tips, ideas, and videos featuring how to live a little greener.

In this one, they show you how to build your very own worm composting bin, outlining the steps in a fun-filled way!

For an easy solution for any home, condo, and kitchen, you have to check out this innovative way to go a little greener.

Stay tuned with their videos here.

Image source: smallnotebook @photobucket

It was a chore in our house – one rewarded with that end-of-the-week allowance.

We’d shake our heads furiously, denying it was “our turn” to bring out the compost, a small kitchen bin filled with cracked egg shells, banana peels, and tea bags.

Regardless, multiple times in the week we would trail to towards the stinky sludge, waste bucket in hand, pinching our nose as we pried off the lid, and immediately recoil as the fiesta of fruit flies flew towards us in a frenzy.

Little did we know the valuable lesson we were learning. My dad, having grown up on a farm, knew all the tricks of the trade to having the healthiest garden and yard. And thus, composting became the norm. Whoever didn’t compost just, simply, weren’t doing it right.

Years later, our region introduced the Green Bin, for any sort of organics collection. The Green Bin became a staple in most homes, sitting alongside the blue recycling bins, yard waste, and trash bins on garbage day. Although it is mandatory by law, not all homes seem to be savvy, but will get fined if organics or recyclables are among the garbage  – a step in the right direction.

Since approximately one-third to one-half of household is organic material, by using an organics bin like this one, keeps the items out of the landfill. Waste turns into a resource. For those who don’t compost themselves, this is a great alternative, and often, more convenient.

Having adopted this myself, I found this a step up from garden composting. Items such as meat, fish, bones, dairy products, used tissues, pet waste and kitty litter cannot be safely composted in your backyard composter but can be in the Green Bin.

Upon the adoption of Green Bins, I was soon using less than one bag of just garbage a week. The Bin can include nearly everything that the recycling can’t:

• kitchen items, from food scraps to paper towels and napkins to tea bags to cooking oil. This includes coffee grounds, bones from meat, filters, and nut shells, too.
• yard scraps, such as grass clippings, plants, and small twig
• paper items, from brown paper bags to egg cartons and coffee cups to soiled newspaper and cardboard
• pet stuffs, such as kitty litter and waste wrapped in compostable bags, and pet fur
• cooled fireplace ashes, sawdust, and wood shavings

So what can’t go in the bin? Not much: plastic wrap, waxed paper, sod, soil and treated wood products, cigarette butts, dead animals, diapers, plastic bags, and rubber products.

If you don’t have an organics program where you live, no problem. Regardless, composting is a great way to get started – regardless of the time of year.

By composting, you’ll improve your soil structure, growth, and reduce the amount of waste in the trash. You’re creating a fertilizer for your lawn and garden, while saving energy and costs by reducing collection amounts, landfill operations, and eventually, landfill replacement.

Composing requires little knowledge and little investment. All you need is your organic materials, moisture, air and soil organisms.

How does it work?

Organic material, such as fruit and vegetable scraps are high in nitrogen. Brown wastes, such as yard waste, like twigs and sawdust, are high in carbon. Nitrogen and carbon are the fuel that help the tiny organisms break down the organic material into usable compost.

How do I do it?

Alternate layers of green  and brown waste in your  bin with layers of soil. Turn the pile occasionally to add air. Keep the pile a little moist – but this is probably done from the weather changes. But really, you can just throw it all in – it just isn’t as effective.

What count as green wastes?

Nitrogen materials are green, such as fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, grass clippings, plants and flowers, tea bags, and egg shells.

And what about  brown wastes?

Carbon rich materials such as dead leaves, wood chips and sawdust, straw and twigs.

And what doesn’t count at all?

Unlike the organics bin you cannot include: meat and bones, pet waste, butters, oils and dressings, and stubborn weeds.

How can I use it?

Try adding it to your gardens, mixing it with soil and sand in houseplants, and spreading a layer around the base of trees and shrubs.  Alternatively, try making a liquid fertilizer by filling a watering can with half compost half water for use on indoor plants.

In the summer I still feed my backyard composter and, despite having aged about 20 years since my first taste of it, I still hold my breath opening the lid. But now, I know that I am delivering nutrients that is hungrily appreciates – and when I see my lawn and taste my garden bounty, I appreciate it, too.

Images courtesy of reallynatural.com, www.niagararegion.ca/living/waste and thehotpotato.wordpress.com

In our own homes, we might have already made an investment in standard insulation to conserve energy in the home, but standard varieties of the home-hugging padding still take a toll on the environment. Most of them are manufactured  from petroleum-based Styrofoam or fibreglass, both of which are non-biodegradable and expensive to produce.

So when students Gavin McIntyre and Eben Bayer began to explore eco-friendly alternatives made of biodegradable materials, they knew they were on to something. With the main ingredient as mushrooms, you can also use leftovers for your stir-fry after outfitting your home. (Just kidding.)

Greensulate™ is an organic solution to previous insulation alternatives. Requiring almost no energy, it is more efficient than the costly counterparts. Composed of rice hulls, recycled papers, and mushroom fibres, it is water-repellent and flame-retardant, and has the ability to resist temperature change.

It was Bayer’s idea to develop a, now patented, insulation from oyster mushrooms. The fungi’s mycelia – thousands of tough, tiny threads – is what makes its strength superior. The secret is in the colonizing nature of these spores, and when combined with other natural sources, they bind together to create a foam-like insulation. After the insulation is developed, they use hydrogen peroxide to slow down the process, otherwise it would keep growing, and eventually, actual mushrooms would be produced.

Ecovative Design, their company, aims to explore this idea (and others) to build sustainable building products to hit the market as early as 2010.

The company also offers Acorn™, a compostable packaging material.

Visit their website for more information: ecovativedesign.com