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A Year Ago at Green Your ApartmentA Year Ago at Green Your Apartment 2008 Fourth "Tips for Green Living" Carnival The fourth Tips for Green Living blog carnival.

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15th Carnival for Green Living15th Carnival for Green Living Welcome to the fifteenth edition of Tips for Green Living! We have so many good submissions, so let’s get started!. dining & entertaining Sam over at Best Cheap Weddings shares some...

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A Year Ago at Green Your ApartmentA Year Ago at Green Your Apartment 2008 Back to Basics: Recycle The final post in a series of three on the basic principles of green living.

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A Year Ago at Green Your ApartmentA Year Ago at Green Your Apartment 2008 Call to Action Will you help save the earth with only one hour of your time? www.EarthHour.org Back to Basics: Reduce The first in a series of three posts on the basic principles of green living. Back...

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What are Parabens, Exactly?What are Parabens, Exactly? Labeled as one of the new culprit for many a-modern defect is a group of preservatives called parabens. You may have seen the Breast Cancer Fund site's rundown of them or just saw a lotion bottle on the...

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Sustainable Product of the Week: Mrs. Meyer’s Countertop Spray

Category : Featured, Health & Beauty

To say I am a messy cook is, well, an understatement. Truly. If I made cinnamon toast for breakfast, you can tell by the crumbs, cinnamon, and sugar left sprinkled all over the counter. Directly after making dinner, I have to clean for a good ten to fifteen minutes just to get the counters usable again. So imagine my delight when at good ol’ home-away-from-home Target I spied a bottle of pine-scented biodegradable surface cleaner that advocated reusing the bottle by refilling with diluted general cleaner.

I introduce to you, Mrs. Meyer’s Iowa Pine scented cleaners!

mrsmeyersholiday

At Target, it was only the bottle of surface cleaner offered but Mrs. Meyer’s website offers a holiday cleaning pack. What a fun little gift for the obsessive-compulsive cleaner in your life! It smells absolutely delicious and fills our little apartment with that Christmas tree scent despite our not possessing one yet. Plus, it cleans really well and the company itself suggests reusing the bottle with diluted All Purpose Cleaner. The holiday pack sells for $11.25 – frankly, a great deal. I’m just sad it’s only a seasonal scent!

I’m pretty sure I’m trying their laundry detergent next. The lavender is just lovely and if the detergent cleans as well as the surface cleaner, I’d be thrilled!

Seasonal Cooking: Autumn

Category : Dining & Entertaining, Headline

When I first started really going green, I changed everything. Organic foods replaced the conventionally grown. Baking soda and white vinegar replaced nearly every bottle of cleaning product in my arsenal. I started looking for second hand clothing stores and odd new uses for old items I had lying around.

But eating in season? That wasn’t something that crossed my mind. In fact, I realized I did not even know when most fruits and vegetables came into season! Yes, that is how out-of-touch with our world we city-dwellers and suburbanites have become.

So I thought to myself, “What the heck is in season?” After scouring the internet and dozens of sites, I compiled a list as a crib sheet that I keep next to my master grocery list on the fridge. And here, I’ll share it with you!

First, note that autumn is September through November in the Northern hemisphere.

Autumn fruits:

  • Apples
  • Berries: blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries
  • Figs
  • Grapes come to their best in autumn
  • Pears
  • Plums

Autumn vegetables:

  • Broccoli
  • Carrots are their most robust this season
  • Cauliflower
  • Celery
  • Chicory
  • Corn
  • Fennel
  • Jerusalem artichoke
  • Leeks
  • Onion
  • Parsnip
  • Peppers
  • Potato
  • Pumpkin
  • Radish
  • Squash
  • Sweet potato
  • Turnip
  • Zucchini

The benefit of eating in season is you are more likely by default to be purchasing more local items as they are in season in your area. Most grocers try to get the best price on produce and in season is cheaper locally. This also means your wallet will benefit from the savings and the planet will appreciate you not having your produce shipped from half-way across the world.

But, and perhaps on a spiritual/emotional note, you will be reconnecting to the earth in the simplest form – eating the bounty while it’s available. You’ll be enhancing that feeling you get when you smell pumpkin spice bread on a crisp autumn morning or pumpkin pie the week of Thanksgiving. The seasons can give you more to celebrate and enjoy if only you take the time to be in sync.

Happy harvest eating!

Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Third “Tips for Green Living” Carnival

Category : Featured

Welcome to the third “Tips for Green Living” carnival. Looks like our little get-together is causing quite a stir!

Let’s start with a celebration of what you are doing – reading! Rita Toews presents Read an ebook week 2008 posted at Life’s quite a ride.

Looks like transportation has been on everyone’s mind lately. Vihar Sheth presents some new driving alternatives in the post Car Sharing with WeCar posted at green | rising. matt smith presents » SuperBowl MVP Eli Manning selects hybrid Cadillac Escalade simple + green: taking steps towards a more sustainable life posted at simple + green. Already have one of those pretty Prius’? Then thank Isabella J Mori for presenting Win, win, win: $500, blogging, and the environment posted at Alphablogs. And if you’re a public transportation person like me, you’ll appreciate Raymond’s Subway and Public Transportation Is The Way To Go posted at Money Blue Book.

Looks like the UK has some catching up to do: Louise Manning presents UK carbon emissions only show slight fall posted at The Human Imprint. Maybe you Brits should look into Alexander Kohl’s post about Business as Sustainability Advocate | Green to Profit – Becoming a Sustainable Entrepreneur posted at Green to Profit – Becoming a Sustainable Entrepreneur.

So let’s talk food and drink. Is a CSA really worth it? David Gross compares apples and oranges in his post The Picket Line — 15 February 2008 posted at The Picket Line. The cost comparison does prove a bit pricey. But Caitlin Giles still insists there are Four Reasons You Should Join a CSA posted at Parenting Squad. Despite our best intentions, Freddie L. Sirmans, Sr. asks Can The US Prevent A Starvation Crisis? posted at Can The US Prevent A Starvation Crisis.

As for our water, Hung Nguyen presents Water Wars: Fighting over the Source of Life posted at Meaningful Issues in Today’s World. But what happens when the water you have isn’t safe? MamaBird presents Whither Our Water? Addressing Hormones in Local Waterways posted at Surely You Nest.

GrrlScientist presents Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Loving Our Oceans to Death posted at Living the Scientific Life. A great post on what’s happening and what you can do to help end it!

I wanted to end this carnival on a fun and lively note. Harrison presents Go Go Green Couture: Eco-friendly Fashions for Your Closet posted at CustomizedGirl Blog while Eva Yusa shows us What Nau!? posted at Eva the Shopping Diva ShopLocal’s Shopping Expert and Blogger. While I browse all the cute and green couture, I’ll use Amanda Harris’ homemade recipe for Green Tea Toner posted at Nature’s Bath and Beauty. Ah, to feel eco-kind and pretty.

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I hope you enjoyed the third edition of “Tips for Green Living”! You can find a new edition posted every second and fourth Monday here at Green Your Apartment. If you are interested in participating in our next edition set for March 10th, submit your post HERE.

Happy (com)posting!

Second “Tips for Green Living” Carnival

Category : Featured

Welcome to the second edition of the new bi-monthly “Tips for Green Living” Carnival!

Why go green at all? Jacob presents Ecological capitalism and consumer capitalism posted at Early Retirement Extreme, a post explaining why he thinks the world looks as it does, why he went green, and why others should go green as well. Great job, Jacob!

Let me present you with another kindred soul, Alison Sharley who recently discovered our friend “No Impact Man” in her post, No Impact Man posted at Healthy and Green by the Day. What a great experiment, no? Insistent on being prolific, she also shares her posts Neused (Freecycle, anyone?) as well as Fish Biscuits which gives us tips on green entertaining with a dose of Lost Dharma cookies. Yum!

And to clean up that mess I would have made making the cookies, Tiffany Washko brags about a wonderful product line she’s discovered in her post Organic and Natural Home Cleaning Products! posted at Natural Family Living Blog. Ah, a clean home without that nasty indoor air pollution.

What about those egg shells and natural kitchen waste? How about composting! Karen Dowell gives some fun tips in her post composting worms love kitchen waste posted at Wiggly Wigglers.

But what happens when there isn’t any food in the kitchen? Louise Manning presents Food shortages posted at The Human Imprint. Remember, the reason we strive to live green is to improve life on this planet for everyone on it.

As we approach Valentine’s Day, Raymond gives us some alternatives to keep ourselves warm in his post Save Money On Heating Costs – Sacrificing A Bit Of Comfort For Frugality posted at Money Blue Book. Don’t forget to snuggle to keep warm too!

Speaking of staying warm, Phil for Humanity gives us some great (and surprising!) news in his post The Alternative to Foreign Oil: The Solar-Hydrogen Economy posted at Phil for Humanity.

Brave New Leaf asks us to learn to drive green posted at Brave New Leaf. Just, please, make sure you obey your local laws of the road while trying to boost your mpg!

Since we’re going places, Marilyn Terrell gives a quick green traveler’s tip in her post Marilyn’s Miscellany: Bermuda Sports posted at Intelligent Travel.

Want to see something cool? Gavin R. Putland shows us Google Earth shows two whales posted at /etc/cron.whenever/. What a great reminder of why we protect our environment!

Thanks to all the bloggers who submitted their posts and I can’t wait to see what you come up with next!

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I hope you enjoyed the second edition of “Tips for Green Living”! You can find a new edition posted every second and fourth Monday here at Green Your Apartment. If you are interested in participating in our next edition, submit your post HERE.

Happy (com)posting!