Maureen Wise

The Physical and Spiritual Benefits of Spending Time in Nature
Spending time in nature is good for our souls. It’s freeing to be in the open air, surrounded by plant life and the soil that supports it. Maybe there’s a babbling brook playing its own music nearby or sweeping views of the mountains that make you stop in your tracks. Amid all this natural splendor, there are no screens vying for our attention—only beautiful flowers, interesting fungi, or bird calls to attract our notice and groun...

Let's talk about why you might want to grow your own food. For one, it's fresher: garden tomatoes just taste so much better! Done the right way, growing your own vegetables, fruits, legumes, and herbs can help you save money, too. It's also better for the environment since it minimizes the environmental impacts of packaging, transporting, refrigerating, and processing the foods you eat.
And there's more: When you grow your own food for yourself and your family, you learn to appreciate the con...

Tom's of Maine has a long history of giving. And as a Certified B Corporation, it's continually striving to find new ways to minimize its environmental impact and support incentives for positive change. Recognizing the need to amplify voices for progress in the climate space, Tom's of Maine started its Incubator Program in 2023. Now in its second year, this program provides mentorship and funding to five climate leaders from underrepresentd populations who are channeling their passions, knowl...

Food delivery has become a staple in our fast-paced society. From ordering lunch at the office to getting takeout for dinner to avoid the cleanup at the end of the night, food delivery is making our lives simpler and more convenient. In fact, two-thirds of people in the United States are more likely to order food delivery or takeout than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
But ordering takeout often comes with the environmental price of the additional food packaging, and it can be hard to advocate ...

Eggs are such a fantastic food. They can be scrambled, poached, fried, cooked into a hash, made into an omelet, prepared into eggs benedict or a souffle, and so much more. Eggs are often an easy first protein for babies (beyond cheese and breastmilk or formula), beloved by vegetarians, and cook up in just minutes. They’re needed for delectable desserts such as cakes and cookies, as well as meringue pies. Plus, eggs are the base of mayonnaise, an addition to lasagna, a staple in fried rice, ma...

Seasonal weather conditions have made this growing season ideal for Aphids to run wild this year. 2023 has seen a record number of Aphids on garden and veggie plants but hope is on the way.

There are so many things we touch every day without really thinking about their end of life. For example, what happens when you've squeezed out the last of your toothpaste? Can you recycle toothpaste tubes, or should they go in the trash?
Most recycling drop-off or curbside programs accept paper, metal, glass, cardboard, and plastics specific to their area. But knowing how to recycle toothpaste tubes and other items, such as cartons and to-go cups, is important to making sure your recycling p...

What did you do with last night’s leftovers? How about the uneaten casseroles and desserts from Sunday’s church potluck? What happened to it? Food waste is a bigger problem than many people expect.
Consider this staggering statistic: if food waste were a country, it would be the third largest producer of greenhouse gasses, only behind China and the United States.

If you’re an Organic Lawn Care customer, it’s a safe bet that you care about what goes into your soil and local waterways. You’re protecting your family, pets (and yourself!) from common toxins in traditional lawn care systems. So if you’re considering what you put on your lawn, we bet you’re also considering what you put into and onto your body. We’ve been using the YUKA app to help consider what we’re feeding our families and putting on our bodies and we want to recommend it to you.

Many of us planted bulbs in the Fall – either last Fall or years in the past – to enjoy Spring daffodils, tulips, crocuses, hyacinths, allium, and more. Planting bulbs in your garden takes some commitment and investment in the future. Bulbs don’t give us instant gratification like annual blooms. We have to wait for them to emerge in the Spring, months after we’ve planted them.

When we talk about Clover as a weed in lawns, we’re generally referring to White Clover (Trifolium repens), which is sometimes called Dutch Clover. While there are many varieties of Clover, they all have similar tendencies. White Clover is not native to the United States, but is originally from Asia and Europe.

We see Dollar Spot throughout the entire growing season: late Spring into the Fall or even early Winter. It manifests as lesions of dead, straw-colored spots in the middle of grass blades with black to dark red edges. In larger infected areas of grass, spots join together and look like larger brown areas or spots the size of silver dollars. The spots will get larger, the longer the disease is not treated.

In the Midwest, we have both evergreen conifer trees and broadleaf deciduous trees. We expect the leaves of deciduous trees to change to beautiful fiery shades in Autumn, and drop to the ground before Winter to create a mulch for plants and nests for overwintering animals and insects. In fact, we celebrate and enjoy this process just as much as we enjoy new growth in the Spring. Autumn leaves are beautiful!

Back in the spring, I wrote that “small actions (mustard seeds) can add up to mountains.” This biblical wisdom applies when approaching creation care. We all have different motivations and different actions we can take in response to those motivations. For one church, the motivation might be local, in response to environmental impacts in its community.

Sometimes when a dog urinates on the grass, the lawn gets damaged. There are two varieties of dog damage. The more severe damage causes spots of yellowed areas of dead grass, with darker grass surrounding it. The yellowed spot is where the grass was directly urinated on. Grass can be affected in as little as 24 hours in hot, dry weather. The central yellowed area is usually 3–6 inches, with the darker green patch surrounding it 6–12 inches.