Fish Tank Water

Have a (fresh water) fish? Next time you are refreshing its water, consider pouring the old stuff over some of your plants. It's full of nitrogen and other nutrients your plants thrive on, which makes it a great fertilizer without the extra chemicals or environmental impact.

To learn more, see Aquarium Water as Houseplant Fertilizer or other similar online articles.

Indoor plants: get on it!

A few months ago, I wrote a post about how indoor plants help clean the air inside your house. And the information just keeps pouring in. Lots more confirmation that specific plants help purify indoor air and lots more confirmation that the average American household NEEDS said purification. If you have paint, furniture, or wood in your house, you probably also have some nasty stuff floating around that plants can help you get rid of.

But some new information expands the benefits of indoor plants. For example, this recent TreeHugger article discusses how indoor plants can help hospital patients heal faster and better. Something many people have known intuitively, now with scientific proof.

Do you want in on this clean air extravaganza? This little ditty lists the top five air-cleaning indoor plants. And this article lists ten easy-to-grow choices proven to help purify indoor air. Perfect for those of you who are convinced you have a "black thumb"!

How many plants do you need for maximum benefits? HealthMad tells us, "The NASA study suggests a minimum of 15-20 plants in 6 inch diameter pots for an 1800 square foot area." That is honestly a ton of plants. But an effort of any size can help your health and that of your family tremendously.

Pick a plant or two from one of the links above and give it a try. Many of them are easy to find at Lowes, Home Depot, etc. If you're nervous about keeping things alive, try the easy-to-grow list (most of them are desert plants...very hard to kill).

NOTE: If you have a pet, cross reference these lists with lists of plants that are dangerous for your particular pet. Ivy and aloe, for example, are toxic to kitties but are also two of the best air-purifiers. We have one of each, but we made sure to put them in places our cat can't reach. [Here's a list of toxic plants for cats and dogs.]

Vinegar

A few weeks ago, we did an article about the multiple uses of lemon as a substitute for chemical products. Lemons, of course, aren't the only miracle product. Take vinegar as another example.

You can use it for a million different cleaning, laundry, hygiene, lawn/garden, edible, and pet applications. Examples include:
-Killing weeds
-Cleaning toilet bowl
-Washing mirrors and windows
-Cleaning up cat urine

For details on all that and more, please read "Vinegar, the #1 Cheapest and Most Versatile Product for your Home" on One Green Generation.

Greening Your Pet

When we've taken pets into our homes and families, we must be conscious of their footprints, too. If you have a dog, consider using vegetarian feed. Cats are obligate carnivores, but you can at least steer clear of foods with beef in them.

Cat litter is another major source of environmental impact for our feline friends. First of all, stay away from clay based litter. Clays are not biodegradable or environmentally-friendly. There are, however, non-clay options that clump. Try Swheat Scoop. Made of (surprise, surprise!) wheat, Swheart Scoop is 100% biodegradable, flushable (for both sewer and septic systems), compostable (non-vegetable gardens only, of course), and renewable. It is free from fragrances and chemicals, and produces far less dust than your typical clay based litter. The litter feels about the same as your traditional litter, so your cat won't have a hard time transitioning at all.

There are other options, too! You can consider Feline Pine, which is chemical free and made from 100% recycled material. There's also Yesterday's News, which is fragrance free, non-toxic, more absorbent than clay, and virtually non-tracking. (I have reservations about only a "significant portion" of this litter being post-consumer material.)

Tree Hugger has a post about making your own newspaper-based litter, if you are so inclined (and have a source of used newspaper). Check it out here.

Water recycling

This blog, of course, is not only about gardening. That just happens to be my current pet project. This blog is about striving to live sustainably all-around in the environmentally-unsupportive environment of suburbia. In that spirit, the next few posts will be about things we have already implemented to make our household a little more "green."

The first is water recycling on a very small, low-tech scale. We felt guilty about having to let our shower run while the water warms up, even with our low flow shower head. So we had a small brainstorm and decided to tote a 5-gallon bucket into the shower with us. We direct the showerhead to fill the bucket while the water is still running cold. By the time the bucket is 3/4 full, the water is warm enough for a comfy shower.

Of course, I can't quite ignore gardening entirely in this post though. We choose to use our collected shower water in our garden to help allay the unforgiving heat and sun of the Florida summer (or any season here, really). Ben waters in the mornings, when less evaporation occurs than during the day. [Mornings are better than evenings for watering vegetable plants because the sun dries any water that ended up on the plants' leaves. Leaves left wet are extremely vulnerable to plant diseases, especially in humid climates.]

But you don't have to have a proper garden to use this method of water recycling. We also use the water on our indoor houseplants. You could also use it on your suffering lawn during the summers. Because the water is fresh and clean, you could also use it to soak dishes or wash clothes by hand. Or pour it into your pets' bowls! The possibilities for an extra five or ten gallons of clean water around your house are quite numerous, even if you have no plants at all.