Reduce Toxins with Companion Planting - a Quick Guide

Companion planting is a way to repel insects you don’t want in your garden – without chemical pesticides. It’s the way it used to be done – you add plants to the garden which repel bugs.

Here is a quick overview of some useful plants.

Garlic bulbs can ward off slugs, caterpillars, snails, and certain spiders and worms.  As a general rule, plant your garlic bulbs about 4 – 6 inches / 10 – 15cm away from your other plants  

Marigolds are pretty and popular plants which have the added benefit of keeping parasitic worms at bay (sometimes even killing them) and repelling whitefly.

Basil, sunflowers and chives are also good insect repellents.

If you have a particular bug or insect you’re worried about, Google it and see which plants are best for repelling that particular problem.

Of course, you do also have to be wary about scaring away the beneficial bugs you want to attract to your garden!

If you have a vegetable garden, consider planting nasturtiums, petunias, alliums, tansy, yarrow, zinnia, lupine and geraniums – they will add colour and beauty as well as protect your vegetables.

You can also use herbs for the same purpose - dill, lavender, hyssop, thyme, tarragon, borage, chamomile, sage, fennel, caraway, chervil, cilantro, lovage, oregano, parsley, peppermint, and rosemary are all good, and they’ll add flavour to your dishes too!

Just be aware that some herbs (especially the mint family) can grow quite quickly and aggressively and take over a lot of space in your garden. You can always overcome this problem by planting them in pots or containers when you then place close to your vegetables.

But don’t restrict yourself to only plants. Install a bat house and some bird houses in your garden because they will all naturally eat insects for you.

You're Eating Them the Wrong Way!

As you know, part of living green is reducing the amount of waste you create. So I was most interested to read the most of us waste at least 30% of every apple we eat. I hadn’t thought about that, but it’s certainly true that I eat my way around the outside of the apple and leave the core in the middle. Well, according to a new report, you should eat an apple starting from the bottom and work your way upwards. What we call the core is actually a thin, fibrous cylinder which apparently you don’t taste when you eat the apple vertically. (You can either eat the seeds or discard them).  Eating an apple this way means there’s almost no waste!

I love eating the bananas I grow, but I’ve been getting it wrong, and I bet you do too! We normally open or peel a banana at the stem, which can sometimes be easy and sometimes definitely not. Well, when you watch a TV documentary featuring monkeys, you’ll see that they’ve found a much easier method. Just give the other end a gentle squeeze, and it pops open beautifully!

Oh, and if you eat pistachio nuts, here’s a great tip. You know how some nuts have a really tiny opening? Instead of fighting it and / or losing a nail, simply use half of another pistachio shell, twist it inside the opening and voila problem solved! ( Tip: You can use this same idea with mussels – use an empty mussel shell like a pair of tongs to pluck the other mussels out of their shells).

Eco News (Quick Digest)

Environmental News from Around the World

A quick overview to keep you in the loop without reading for hours..

Cancer Increasing?

There’s a headline going around about cancer being on the rise, especially amongst children. However, it could be misleading. A new study actually showed that adult cancers are increasing because many of us are now living longer and are therefore statistically more likely to get cancer. Childhood cancer appears to be rising because early diagnosis has improved. That's quite different.

We may think that cancer is on the rise due to pollution and toxins in our environment, and it may be true, but this study does not support or prove that.

Wildfire Impacts

When I think of wildfires, I think of danger to life and damage to property. However, a new report shows that they also cause air pollution which can necessitate hospital visits. In addition, they hamper agricultural output and damage forests and other ecosystems. 

All of these will be ongoing problems in California with continuing extreme weather due to climate change.

Keystone XL Report - What it Means 

You’ve probably heard that the Environmental impact report on Keystone XL has concluded that the pipeline won’t make much difference to America’s impact on the environment. Sadly, it’s probably right.  

Although extracting and burning tar sands oil creates about 17 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than traditional methods, companies are so busy sucking oil out of the tar sands that they will do so anyway, whether they have a pipeline or not.

Plus, if the tar sands oil is not transported via pipeline, road and rail will be used instead, utilizing diesel fuel and electricity.

In other words, Keystone isn't really the problem. Although I'm against the pipeline, the root problem is our insatiable demand for oil

Be Inspired!

Do you have big plans for this year? 

Here's a little bit of inspiration for you - enjoy!

The greatest step towards a life of simplicity is to learn to let go. ~ Steve Maraboli

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. ~ Mark Twain

In reality, you always have what you need, and more. ~ Byron Katie

There is more to life than increasing its speed. ~ Gandhi

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. ~ Viktor Frankl

If not now, when? ~ Rabbi Hillel

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. ~ William James

The little things? The little moments? They aren't little. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. ~ Carl Jung

We have to put the "eco" back into economics. ~ David Suzuki

Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

The greatest danger to our future is apathy. ~ Jane Goodall

Eco News

A quick digest of recent environmental news stories from around the world

We need more people like this! 19 year old Parker Liautaud from California went to the South Pole to raise awareness about climate change. He battled a chest infection, a swollen ankle and frostbite. Each morning of the journey he and his teammate (a veteran polar explorer) hosted a live webcast  where climate expert and sceptics debated climate change.

The Australian government has begun its shark culling project, citing recent fatal shark attacks. This is despite thousands of people protesting on beaches, wanting to protect the sharks. The government even issued a special exemption to an environmental law in order to allow a protected species to be culled. Environmentalists said there is no evidence that the culling will reduce shark attacks.

A tank owned by Freedom Industries containing toxic chemicals leaked into a river in West Virginia leaving hundreds of thousands of people without access to tap water earlier this month. They could not drink, wash or cook with the tap water. Worse, the damage was actually considerably worse than the company first admitted.  Emergency bottled water was shipped in. The quantity and exact type of chemicals that were spilled are still unknown.

Many TV news shows globally give very little coverage to climate change, despite overwhelming evidence that it is happening and caused by humans. In the US a new study showed that climate change got a total of 27 minutes of coverage, by all stations, for the whole of 2013.