Fritz

Reducing Pesticides In Your Lawn Care Treatment Program

by Fritz on May 31, 2010 · 0 comments

One way to go green or live green without making too much of a sacrifice or change in your lifestyle is by taking care of your lawn in the right way. When I say “the right way” I mean in a way that not only saves and protects the environment, but is also healthier for your lawn to begin with anyway.

I need you to look at lawn care in a different way than you are used to. I need you to look at you nice lawn but see it three years from now. You see, let’s assume your lawn is in terrible shape right now, well, you can’t just expect that it will be perfect and green in less than one season. In fact, if you follow my lawn care schedule, you will be able to get your lawn healthy in just about 3 years and you won’t destroy the environment or your soil in the process.

What I espouse is a system of lawn and garden care known as “Integrated Pest Management.” IPM is a philosophy whereby you only eliminate pests (such as weeds and insects) in areas where their numbers require treatment in order to protect crops. In this case, our crop is “grass.”

The good thing about grass is that it is forgiving and can take a lot of stress so IPM techniques work really well. We start out with some heavy but targeted pesticide usage and scale that back as we use good, organic fertilizers to thicken and stabilize the turf. It sound complicated but it really is simple and works well. Get the book here.

Organic Milk, Is It Worth It? Any Better? Best Organic Milk?

by Fritz on May 31, 2010 · 0 comments

We recently started drinking organic milk at our house and I must say that my family will never buy non-organic milk again. As you guys know, I love to live green and healthy, but I also don’t want to pay more or sacrifice quality in order to do so. Well, with organic milk, I am getting much better quality but I am having to pay just a little more. So here is my review:

We drink fat free or skim milk pretty much all the time. Whole milk is just too thick, but that’s a preference really. Anyway, my wife and I have been consuming organic produce and organic eggs for a while now because of the better taste. Not long ago we decided to see if we’d get the same better flavor with organic milk and guess what? … we did!

We drink three “brands” most of the time that are available here in NW Indiana. We rotate between them based on what is on sale, or what has a better expiration date.

Stonyfield Farms Organic Fat Free Milk.

http://www.stonyfield.com/index.jsp

Stonyfield is pretty much my favorite taste wise. It has good dairy flavor and is very fresh. It’s hard to describe “fresh taste” over the internet like this, but if you are a dairy drinker like I am , then you know good, fresh, true flavor milk when you taste it. Stonyfield delivers! We find 1/2 gollons of Stonyfield Organic fat free milk for about $3.85 at our local stores.

Meijer Organics, Fat Free Milk

This is the Meijer grocery stores brand. I need to check and see where and who supplies this organic milk for them, but I will say that it has great taste. It is also a bit cheaper because it is packages as a store brand. A half gallon of Meijer organic milk is about $3.50.

Horizon Organic Fat Free Milk

http://www.horizondairy.com/

I rate this one very high with great taste. It is also very consistent from box to box. What that means is that it always tastes the same. Sometimes with any natural or organic foods, the quality control is not as good and the product may taste different each time. but Horizon does a nice job with theirs and the taste is really good. We get 1/2 gallons at our local grocery stores for around $3.99.

What Makes Organic Milk Better?

Here is a definition of organic milk, read it carefully because this is what really matters when it comes to green living. (me, I just care about the taste, but you guys may care more about this stuff as well)

Organic milk is defined by the USDA as milk from cows that have been exclusively fed organic feed, have not been treated with synthetic hormones, are not given certain medications to treat sickness, and are held in pens with adequate space.

Many organic farms also ensure their cows only eat natural grass instead of corn of feed. I am not sure if the milks above are processed this way, but it is something worth noting.

Smog Around The World

by Fritz on December 8, 2008 · 0 comments

We’ve all heard about smog, but did you know it varies in different cities around the world?

Not all smog is created equal. Just like any type of soup, it’s all in what you put in it. Smog is a low-level atmospheric mixture of several different kinds of air pollution. In some areas, such as those near coal-fired power plants, the main constituents of smog are the byproducts of fossil-fuel burning such as sulfur dioxide, ground level ozone and carbon monoxide. Massive smog events can also be caused by residential coal burning, as in the case of the “Great London Smog of 1952″ that killed thousands in a few weeks.

Cities that are near active volcanoes (such as Mt. Etna in Sicily and many others) are especially likely to suffer from infrequent but very traumatic smog events. In this case, though entirely natural, many of the chemical components of this “vog” are the same as what might be seen with petrochemical smog. Sulfur dioxide and very harmful, tiny, caustic particles are also a concern.

Smog in the air is bad no matter what.

The Joy Of Composting

by Fritz on December 8, 2008 · 0 comments

Home composting is becoming more and more en-vogue. Composting is just cool.

One of the most powerful air pollutants is the naturally occurring organic gas, methane. It is a far better greenhouse gas than carbon and is now found in the atmosphere at concentrations of more than 150% over pre-industrial levels.

When people put organic matter in the regular waste stream, these coffee grounds and sandwich crusts are acted upon by decomposing microorganisms, with methane being a common by-product. This is why garbage dumps must be equipped with release valves. Otherwise, they’d literally explode from the pressure.

One way to avoid the bulk and threat of such waste is to keep your own compost pile. These are not difficult to keep, even if entire books can be written on the finer points. Nor do they need to smell bad. Many cities are now separately collecting organic wastes as part of municipal compost programs, many of which are then used as fertilizer for city and park lands. The only thing we recommend is that if you are going to go digging and rooting around in your compost pile, just be sure to get some Fab Foaming Face Wash and practice good skin care technique! We’re all about the “getting dirty” but we also want to you stay young an vibrant! :)

Compost is a great fertilizer and rewarding too. Try it today!

Definition of Green Washing

by Fritz on December 8, 2008 · 0 comments

Greenwashing is another one of those terms you hear alot in the eco-friendly world. But what does it mean?

Here is a simple, yet concise definition of “green washing”…

The term “green washing” is used to describe companies who overstate their commitment to environmentally friendly alternatives to doing business. By doing so, ad executives (and the people that hire them) are suggesting that you’re so dumb as to be fooled into what an actual substantial change in a product is.

As anyone who has looked into the National Organic Program knows, there are significant difficulties in coming up with a single regulation that covers all of a federally mandated label with a specific definition. Declaring that the nutrition in food must be labeled in a specific way is easy compared to defining “green.”

Education on the underlying principles of the many facets of pollution is really the only way to allow people to understand and analyze products and services by rational merit.

As you can see, the term green washing can pretty much be applied to anyone, by anyone and is often slung at companies unnecessarily. Remember, the key is balanced green living! This green living blog is NOT about green washing by any means!

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