Green gardening in the home follows the same principles as outdoor gardening. The aim is to avoid using pesticides, to make the best use of natural resources such as water and light, to recycle where possible and to make sure that anything purchased is as environmentally friendly as possible - both in its production and distribution.

Apart from using natural pest control, one of the main ways in which you can make a difference immediately is to avoid peat-based potting composts for your house plants. It is possible to make your own potting compost or to buy peat-free compost suitable for house plants.

Worm compost can be used for planting house plants and a liquid feed made up of compost and water in equal measures can provide a boost to ailing house plants.

Apart from improving the look of your room, house plants can provide a variety of functions, such as reducing pollution by filtering the air - particularly useful in your home office.

You can also grow food at home by planting indoor window boxes of herbs, starting garden vegetable seedlings off indoors or growing sprouting seeds. Home-grown sprouting seeds are a great way to garden indoors; they are fun for children, easy to grow and incredibly nutritious, plus they will save you money on store-bought sprouts.

To harvest your own regular supply of delicious sprouting seeds all you need is a sieve, a glass jar, some muslin (cheesecloth) and some filtered water. Start by soaking the dried beans or seeds - the choice includes mung beans, alfafa seeds, lentils, chickpeas, adzuki beans and pumpkin seeds, - overnight. Rinse and drain them in a sieve, then transfer them to a glass jar and cover it with a square of muslin held in place with an elastic band or string before putting it in a warm, dark place such as an airing cupboard.

All you then have to do is to fill the jar with water and tip upside down to drain through the muslin before putting them back into the covered jar. Repeat this process twice a day until the sprouts are nearly ready to eat (it should take three to five days). Just prior to eating, the sprouts should be put on a windowsill for a couple of hours. Then wash and eat them as soon as possible.

You could also try growing wheatgrass on trays. You will need a mixture of organic compost and top soil spread on a tray and moistened. Then sprinkle with seed, which should have been soaked and left to germinate for 12 hours, and lay another tray on top to keep in moisture. After three days lift the top tray off, water and place the sprouts in sunlight. Four days later you should have a crop of wheat grass that can make a power-packed juice.

TIPS

• The minerals in cold tea are said to help flagging pot plants, so mix some in with your water.

• The water produced from leaving egg shells soaking for several days is also said to revive indoor plants.

• A few drops of almond oil on a damp cloth can help clean the leaves on shiny-leaved plants, such as mother-in-law’s tongue.

• Make your own plant pots from old yogurt and ice cream pots. Remember to put drainage holes in the bottom and use the lids as saucers underneath.

• To maintain steady watering, even if you are away, place one end of a length of thick wool in a saucer of water and the other in the plant pot. The water will steadily drip from one to the other.

• Save water from your bath and washing up to use on your indoor plants. Also remember to use the water left over in the kettle or the waste water produced when installing a new water filter.

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Indoor Gardening

One of the foremost reasons that many parents seek to live a green lifestyle is because they are mindful of the fact that the earth is an inheritance left to the children. Teens are closer to that inheritance than anyone so it is important that they too show a concern for the environment and step up to protect it as their parents have. This might be not be an easy task in today’s fast paced world where teens are wired up, plugged in, and in sync with all the latest and greatest that the marketplace has to offer. The values of mainstream society around them might conflict with the green values you hope to cultivate in their minds and hearts. Since teens are more worldly and savvy than ever, it follows that they are primed to make a real difference and as parents, we can help them.

Here is a list of ways that teens can get their green on!

1. Take a solar backpack to school and charge cell phones or other portable devices with the power of the sun.
2. Pack a waste free school lunch with the Laptop Lunchbox system and carrying bag.
3. Use eco friendly school supplies such as paper made from recycled post consumer waste and stainless steel scissors.
4. Instead of burning CDs use an iPod or another MP3 player and charge it with a solar powered charger. Listen to your tunes via iPod, with a sound dock, on your computer, or with an iPod attachment for car stereos. Support bands that are eco friendly.
5. When done surfing the Internet or chatting with friends online make sure to turn the computer off and don’t forget to turn off the lights behind you as well.
6. Help clean up your school by starting a recycling program and a weekly day for volunteer trash pick up to keep the school grounds beautiful. Plan something special for Earth Day and get your classmates involved.
7. Ask the school administrators to allow a showing of the climate crisis documentary An Inconvenient Truth.
8. Shop at second had stores and pick up some cool vintage clothing.
9. Eat one meatless lunch at school a week. Reducing meat consumption is good for the planet and your health.
10. Take your friends to see and environmental movies or documentaries like The 11th Hour or King Corn. Write a review of the movies for your school paper.
11. When second hand won’t do and you need to buy new…buy organic fibers like organic cotton, bamboo, hemp, or wool. Environmental slogans are a plus too.
12. Use organic and natural shampoos, toiletries, and make-up.
13. Instead of driving your car to school take the bus or walk. If you do drive you might be able to coordinate a carpool system with a couple of your friends.
14. Apply to colleges with green campuses and philosophies.
15. Pursue an eco friendly career in environmental science, organic agriculture, conservation biology, ecology, or environmental engineering. The world is full of possibilities.

Post from: Green Living Earth Friendly

Green Teens

Family meals are usually one of the most enjoyable times of the day. It provides an opportunity for families to slow the pace down, eat some delicious food, and talk to each other. For green families it also provides an opportunity for them to further their dedication to the environment by choosing foods that compliment their goals and ideals. This might seem rather simplistic but many green families believe that what you choose to eat is essentially a vote for the type of world you want. There are various ways that families might choose to “green” their meals.

Eating Local

Eating local means purchasing and eating foods that were grown in or near your local community. Choosing to eat local foods is better for the environment and it is better for the local economy as well. It is said that dollars spent locally go twice as far.

Local food usually travels 100 miles or less from farm to plate so needless pollution is avoided when our food does not need to be frozen, refrigerated, or trucked across country for thousands of miles. Local food is fresh because it doesn’t have to travel very far. The taste of a fresh picked tomato is infinitely better tasting and healthier for you than a tomato picked a week ago and ripened with chemicals. Local eating is also referred to as seasonal eating because you are only be to find what can be grown seasonally in your area. This makes local eating a more economical choice in most cases as well, since you won’t be buying expensive imported foods that are not in season. Local eating also reduces the chance that your food has been contaminated while being processed or shipped.

Organic Foods

Organic agriculture is sustainable agriculture. It is a method of producing food without harming the land in any way. Organic farmers seek to work the land without preventing future generations from being able to use it as well. Organic farmers conserve water, preserve the soil, and provide food products that are chemical free and fit for human consumption. Organic farmers may also sell locally many times, helping to conserve energy and fossil fuels that would otherwise be spent in transportation. They are a healthy choice for humans and the planet alike.

Organics are becoming widely available in mainstream grocery stores in addition to the health foods stores where you would normally find them. Local farmers and farmer’s markets are also a good place to purchase organics from. If your access to organic food is limited by availability or budget you can also grow your own in your backyard or through a community garden.

Reduce Meat Consumption

It is estimated that we feed 70 percent of the grains and cereals grown in the USA to farmed animals and one-third of our fuel and other nonrenewable resources is consumed by the farmed animal industry. Our taste for meat and animal products is taking a toll on the environment and in response, more and more green families are reducing their meat consumption or eliminating it from their diet altogether. Even if you don’t want to become a vegan or a vegetarian you can reduce your environmental impact by electing to add two or three meatless meals to your family menu every week.

Reducing meat consumption, eating local sourced foods, and eating organic are just a few of the ways green families might lighten their environmental footprint on our planet.

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Green Family Meals

The very act of growing plants would be considered by most of us as doing something green. Growing plants brings the experience of nature closer to our families and local communities, provides a home for a wealth of living organisms, and each and every one acts as a filter for the air we breathe, thereby contributing to a cleaner global environment.

But gardening can be an activity that is far from green. For many people, their gardens become an arena in which they wage war against nature through the liberal use of highly toxic pesticides. Others think nothing of using products that have been created at the expense of precious natural resources, like peat from the fast-diminishing peat bogs and garden furniture made with wood plundered from tropical forests. And many gardens are grown with the help of excessive amounts of water drawn straight from the tap (faucet), despite the hundreds of gallons that fall from the sky each year and go uncollected in most areas.

The good news is that this environmentally wasteful approach to gardening is no longer in vogue. Gone are the days when a good garden was meant to be regimented in design, with uniform plants grown in weed-free, dark peaty soil surrounding a perfect sprinkler-watered lawn, without a daisy or buttercup in sight.

The new wave of gardening recognizes that a good garden is a complex ecosystem, with each element having a role to play. Native plants are now just as fashionable as exotics and are much more of a hit with the local wildlife. Unruly borders and meadows filled with wildflowers are now just as keenly cultivated as any neatly tendec bed of roses. The modern gardener accepts nature and works with it and in so doing produces naturally healthy plants in an efficient and safe way.

Whether your gardening aspirations stop with a cheese plant in the corner of your living room, or stretch as far as a vegetable patch, some fruit trees and perhaps a chicken or two roaming about, this eco-friendly method offers you the chance to get truly close to the natural world and to put something back into your environment.

With domestic gardens making up many millions of hectares of land worldwide, the combined efforts of green gardeners can produce the largest nature reserve on the planet - and you will have your very own slice of Eden on your doorstep.

Reasons to go green in the garden:

• You can grow food that you trust - free from chemical sprays and other contaminants that have been implicated in health scares worldwide.

• It gives you the chance to recycle in one of the most exciting ways, turning your food scraps and garden cuttings into compost, which, in turn, will support the growth of further food.

• You can save the environment from the polluting effects of transporting fresh produce to you by growing your own.

• You are sparing the environment from the impact of pesticides, which kill many beneficial insects, birds, plants and animals, can pollute our water supplies and harm our children.

• You can teach your children where food comes from and the wonder of nature in a safe environment.

• Your garden will become a haven for wildlife and be safer for your own pets.

• By growing rare or unusual seeds you can contribute to global biodiversity and introduce new flavours to your diet.

• Gardening is great exercise and fun for all the family.

• You will save money by not having to pay for fertilizers, pesticides, compost and so on, and by growing your own food. Recycling will also prevent you spending a fortune at the garden centre.

• You will be saving fragile areas of natural beauty from further ravaging by no longer buying peat-based composts and limestone, and by making sure that your garden furniture and other wood products are from sustainable sources.

• Green gardening puts you in touch with nature and its cycles, aiding relaxation and giving you an outlet for and sanctuary from the frustrations of your busy day.

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Green Gardening