Writer and higher ed sustainability coordinator. Niches in sustainability, parenting, and fitness.
Finding God in the Forest
I frequently feel a strong pull to stand among trees in the forest. This pull is both spiritual and physical.
I grew up and still live in Ohio where we have deciduous oaks and maples and some elms and beeches along with evergreen spruce and pines.
DIY Potting Soil: How To Make Your Potting Medium at Home
With spring upon us in the Northern Hemisphere, many of us are itching to get our hands dirty and plant some flowers or veggie plants. If you do any container gardening or keep indoor plants, you’ve likely made use of potting soil — sometimes called potting mix or growing medium. It beats digging up dirt in your backyard to fill your pots. However, potting soil isn’t quite as innocent as it sounds.
Preventing and Treating Ticks Naturally
Ticks are parasitic arthropods that feed on the blood of mammals. (What a gross sentence!) They’re kind of like tiny vampires that can give their hosts debilitating diseases. It's fair to say that everyone wants to prevent getting a tick attached to their body, their kids or their pets. We are happy to share some Earth-friendly ways to prevent ticks in your backyard, without chemicals that can be harmful to beneficial insects, pollinators, pets, kids and waterways.
Embrace the Wild Violets in Your Lawn
In the Spring, we get excited about caring for our lawns and gardens after a cold, white Winter. Not many flowers are blooming in the gardens in the Midwest in April and May but yellow dandelions and purple violets are blooming in the lawn. Your neighbors may not like these flowers but we want you to reconsider your ideas about Wild Violets.
We encourage you to embrace the Wild Violets in your lawn.
What Is Hairy Bittercress?
Hairy Bittercress, (Cardamine hirsuta), is a member of the mustard family and is considered a Winter annual weed. Sometimes the weed can act as a Summer annual or biennial, depending on the weather and climate. In the Midwest, it’s a Winter annual, which means the seeds overwinter, germinate sometime in the late Fall, and start growing in the Spring. Hairy Wintercress is one of the first weeds to emerge in gardens after the snows melt.
Helping Your Church Make Green Choices
As a person of faith, I know that small actions (mustard seeds) can add up to mountains. No one person, church, corporation, action, or green choice is sufficient to reduce the effects of climate change, but we can make a difference by acting together. We know that the people most affected by climate disasters such as flooding, drought, and heatwaves have often done the least to cause them. We need to step up for the least of these to reduce their risks.
How 3 Clothing Processers Are Reducing Textile Waste
The clothing industry is a huge energy and water hog that accounts for about 4% of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. While the slow fashion movement is starting to disrupt the industry, there is a dire need for ways to reduce textile waste. We identified three companies that are working to keep textiles out of landfills.
Keeping Recycling Workers Safe and How You Can Help
Recycling helps us reduce waste and reuse valuable resources. By minimizing the need to extract or mine new materials as well as the waste we send to landfills, recycling helps lower greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Understanding how the recycling process works and how recycling workers do their jobs can help consumers recycle better — and protect the recycling workers you rely on.
What Is Ground Ivy?
Ground Ivy (Glechoma hederacea) is known by many names including Creeping Charlie, Creeping Jenny, field balm, cats-foot, ale-hoof, and inch weed (because it spreads an inch a day). This weed is very hardy and is found in gardens, lawns, sidewalks and driveway cracks, as well as along building foundations. Unfortunately, this creeping weed is a perennial and so remains year after year and usually continues to be green during milder Winters.
How To Make Cloth Napkins From Upcycled Fabric
Cloth napkins have more wiping power than their paper counterparts, reduce waste, feel nice against your skin, and look pretty. They’re both decorative and functional.
Reusable cloth napkins keep trees from being cut down as most brands use virgin tree pulp to produce paper napkins. Cloth napkins also help keep our finite landfill space a little emptier by reducing waste — even more so if you make them from upcycled fabric.
Good Nature Organic Lawn Care Won NorthCoast 99 Award
Good Nature Organic Lawn Care is honored to be recognized by ERC as one of 99 great Northeast Ohio workplaces for top talent. In its 23rd year, Northcoast 99 is an annual recognition program that showcases exceptional workplaces in a 22-county region in Northeast Ohio. This is the first year that Good Nature was nominated for the award.
Backyard Compost Bin Roundup
More communities now offer compost pickup services along with trash and recycling pickup. But most Americans don’t have access to a composting service and avid gardeners have better uses for their food and yard waste. For these folks, a variety of compost bins are available to help you compost their own backyards.
Hire a Fitness Writer: 5 Experts for Any Content Marketing Budget
I was featured as a fitness writer on nDash's blog
Vitamix Food Cycler vs. Pela Lomi: Kitchen Countertop Composters Compared
Our waste and what to do with it is a big part of our world’s climate change solutions. Left over, scrap, and uneaten food is part of this problem. If food waste was a country, it would be the third largest producer of greenhouse gasses in the world, behind China and the United States. Happily, food waste is something we can address at our own homes and don’t need to rely others to do the work for us.
Green Universities Offering Sustainability Degree Programs
There’s a lot of work going on in higher education surrounding sustainability. If you’re a student who’s interested in working in sustainability-related fields, a growing number of green universities offer courses and degree programs to prepare you for your future career.