So you have a compost bin and added worms, now what?

Worms should be fed a vegetarian (or more likely, a vegan) diet.  Although worms can eat items like meat, they prefer not to and if they are fed meat the result will be a smelly bin making both you and the worms unhappy.

However, worms do love most fruit and vegetable matter that comes out of a typical kitchen, items such as: banana peels, apple cores, tomato ends, carrot tops, spinach that has past its expiration date, lettuce hearts, pea pods, potato peels, and even fruit pits and watermelon seeds. Read more…

From our introduction yesterday, if you think worm composting might be something you are interested in there are all kinds of options available to get started.

First, you’ll need a bin. Read more…

It’s worm composting week here on The Greenists!

Stop by every day this week to learn about different aspects of worm composting from building your own to harvesting the results- but first, an introduction!

For those of you unfamiliar with the idea, worm composting uses live worms to turn food waste into high-nutrient compost, also called worm castings.  Worm castings are highly valued by gardeners because not only does it include the nutrients you get from other forms of compost, but it also includes all kinds of microbes from the worm’s digestive tract that keep the soil healthy, help prevent many plant diseases, and store more water to help plants through dryer times.  Read more…

Recently, Seventh Generation emailed to ask if I’d like to try out some laundry detergent. My initial reaction: BO-RING. For starters, I’ve used Seventh Generation detergent before, and I found it perfectly fine, which is about all I can say for any laundry detergent. Dirty clothes go in the washer, clean clothes come out, and nowhere in the process do I get terribly excited. I’m just glad when my clothes no longer smell like a Yeti in a sweat lodge.

But then I noticed Seventh Generation’s new angle: Much like wine in a box, the Natural 4x Laundry Detergent comes in a plastic pouch surrounded by a rigid paper carton, except Seventh Generation being Seventh Generation, the carton is made of 100% recycled fiber. They partnered with Ecologic Brands, a company dedicated to producing “packaging the earth can live with,” and  Read more…

Roof over their heads or organic food in their tummies? You know my answer.

Last night, I threw out a glass spaghetti sauce jar. The day before that, I bought two new Pack & Play sheets (buy one, get one – plus I had a 20% off coupon) without checking Craigslist first. Last week when I went grocery shopping, I didn’t buy any organic food AND I bought generic Dawn instead of my usual Seventh Generation. Oh, and I’m currently using Tide instead of a natural brand of laundry detergent. Are you shocked yet? Gasping for air and shouting to yourself, “And you call yourself a Greenist?” Well, I do call myself a Greenist…and yes, I’m experiencing a lot of green guilt right now – that feeling of I know I can do better. I know I can do more. But allow me to explain . . .  Read more…

Here at The Greenists we’ve been trying to come up with one thing, just one perfect thing, one big important-yet-elegantly-simple thing to ask our readers to do on Earth Day, for Earth Day. Which is Friday. Tomorrow. Well I thought of my thing, and I don’t think it needs to wait until tomorrow. Or maybe I just don’t like to give away post ideas.

Here’s my one big Earth Day request: Use less.

Okay, okay… You’re right: That’s kind of something we hammer home in one fashion or another nearly every day here, or if we don’t it’s because it seems so fundamental as to no longer be worth mentioning. Besides, if The Greenists is already part of your daily internet time-wasting you not only don’t need to be told this, but you have the phrase “Use less” or some variation tattooed somewhere it can be easily viewed by the rest of the hippies in your drum circle. Or at least on the bumper of your microbus. Read more…

Fellow Greenists, it’s time to blow the dust off of those old games that have been stashed on the top shelf of your closet for way too long! Let’s talk about Family Game Night – a fun and [almost] free way of building strength within your family. Not only does it naturally reap health benefits for people of all ages (especially children, which I will focus on in this post), but it is also a simple way to be green and cut your energy usage. It’s really easy to get started . . . Read more…

Soon after this review of Conserve Cleaners posted, the company sent us a full list of their ingredients. We’ve added links to those lists at the end of the post. Conserve raised their grade to A by being transparent. Congrats, Conserve!

We finally received a few days with sunshine and warm temps, which made me want to do the spring cleaning.  Turned out to be the perfect opportunity to try the sample of Conserve Glass & Window Cleaner that arrived last week.

While I’m a fan of baking soda and vinegar, I’m also open to earth-friendly options – because vinegar, while it does a fine job, doesn’t smell so good.

The Conserve folks have hit on a brilliant idea in packaging. The cleanser is a small tablet wrapped in plastic (note to Conserve: could it be wrapped in paper?) and tucked into a fully recyclable paper box. The whole thing is not much larger than my hand.

Read more…

In my never-ending quest to eliminate unnecessary chemicals from my family’s waste stream, I was very happy to be given the chance to review A Beautiful Life’s Honey Do Shampoo and Conditioner set!

This shampoo and conditioner set is not only sulfate free, but also paraben free and it is made with organic honey.  As a side bonus, they also come in bear shaped honey containers for extra cuteness!  Having the ever elusive tag of “Made in USA” doesn’t hurt, either.  Read more…

The 100 Mile Diet Challenge

As every Greenist knows, a local economy is an environmentally friendly economy.  In 2005, Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon gave us a hard definition of ‘local’ when they decided to experiment with a diet built around foods that are produced within a 100 mile radius of their home.

The resulting book, The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating, has become a sort of user’s manual for thousands of people who followed in their dietary footsteps. MacKinnon and Smith are in Canada; Barbara Kingsolver wrote about her year of local eating in Virginia in her bestseller Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. While no book is planned, I’ll be taking the 100 Mile Diet Challenge myself, but for only the month of July instead of a full year.

What’s the point of this? Read more…