Environmentally friendly, green ways of living
There are 363 posts filed in Green (this is page 23 of 37).
We enjoyed our first batch of cherry tomatoes with dinner Friday night, courtesy of our fast-forwarded tomato plants. Travis and I picked another five from our plants this morning and we enjoyed them for lunch!
Our plants have grown so massive that I’m kicking myself for not spreading them farther apart. It’s tough getting to all the goods!
I noticed Friday that we had the first week in a long while in which it didn’t rain. Our spring and early summer has seemingly had rain every 4-7 days but last week was dry. I was missing that smug feeling I expected to have with a large rain barrel (“Lake Turner”) of rainwater that I haven’t tapped since September and another 40 gallons in a separate container. We’ve also been adding the water we run through the pipes before our shower gets hot and also water we collect from the air conditioning condensation, so there’s been no shortage of water.
Now that we’re into the second half of summer we’ll see if this water becomes necessary. I’m going to hook the rain barrel up to a timer again so that my tomato plants get regular water, but I don’t expect my plants to put a big dent in the supply.
Today we enjoyed our first home-grown tomato of the season! I was surprised to water the plants this morning and find a ripe tomato there but there it was. It was actually already on the plant when I got it from the Executive Mansion by way of an Oakwood neighbor, so at least some of the home in the home-grown part is the governor’s home.
As per family tradition, we sliced it up so that each family member got a piece and enjoyed it with dinner. Now I already can’t wait for more!
Yesterday evening I noticed our leafy backyard looked noticeably less leafy. It seems our neighbors behind us decided to clear-cut their backyard, removing the lovely natural screen we enjoyed that made our backyard so cozy. It’s their right, of course, as most of the trees between us belong to them, but we sure miss ’em. And just last weekend we were proudly showing off our leafy backyard to my parents.
We’ve got a 20-foot buffer between our back fence and our property line, which we may now fortify with some good screening shrubbery or trees.
Update 17 June 2009: It turns out their cutting was far more modest. There’s still a good number of trees back there, so that’s good.
After I just blogged about the need for a car-sharing program here in Raleigh, Triangle Transit announces a forum to discuss just that. Coincidence? I think not.
See the announcement below.
(h/t Urban Planet, by way of Bob Geary)
Triangle Transit, in cooperation with the City of Raleigh and the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, invite you to join us for an exploratory, interactive discussion about car-sharing potential in downtown Raleigh.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
At the Raleigh Urban Design Center
(light refreshments will be served)
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I’ve been mulling over purchasing an electric car (well, one that goes farther than a block, anyway). I found one that’s being sold locally and is in pretty good shape. One thing about electric cars is the question of range. Depending on the batteries used, an electric car can range from 30 to 100 miles without being recharged. Thus, with some trips it becomes important to know where a recharging station might be found.
This reminded me that the City of Raleigh announced some sort of electric car partnership in February. In partnership with an initiative called Project Get Ready, Mayor Meeker announced that experimental charging stations would be installed around downtown, which would seem to solve the charging station problem.
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I picked up some tomato plants a neighbor was giving away. She says they came from the governor’s garden.
The plants are probably two feet tall and are of different tomato varieties, one of which being the Cherokee purple variety that we loved last summer.
I’ve been well behind getting our garden going. I don’t expect to have much in the way of vegetables or fruit come fall. Getting some plants that are already sprouting flowers provides a much-needed head start.
Planning is being done on a mega-greenway spanning the east coast. Called the East Coast Greenway, it aims to provide a bike and walker-friendly path from Maine to Florida. Part of this trail will be going through Raleigh by way of Falls Lake and alongside the Neuse River. It will enter town at the north by way of the CSX railroad tracks, which is also the proposed Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor.
NCDOT is holding a series of meetings to gather input on the part of the proposed trail that will run alongside the track. Most of these meetings are in towns north of Wake County but one is being held in Wake Forest. The meetings are to gather input as to which side of the rail corridor would be best for the trail, among other things.
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Around 5 AM this morning I was dozing happily when my attention was drawn to a quiet but repetitive sound outside our bedroom window. A Great Horned Owl was saying good morning from the nearby woods. It may have been the one we’ve seen recently, that last made an appearance in our back yard in March.
I listened to it call for about ten minutes before it meandered away. In the calm, quiet morning, I found this hooting especially soothing. It was a nice reminder that nature is all around us.
On a pass through Costco Monday I saw my first pack of consumer-packaged LED lightbulbs. The bulbs were Lights of America Decor LED Accent bulbs in a three-pack package. I didn’t see what price Costco had them but Amazon sells the three-pack for $24.
One review of LED bulbs pans them completely, saying they don’t hold a candle (ha!) to incandescent bulbs. While that’s true, I recall it taking a while before the CFL bulbs could be mistaken for incandescents.
LED bulbs still have some niche uses. The accent lighting role, for instance, is a good one for LEDs until they get good enough to read by. I may have to buy one of these accent bulbs just to give them a closer look.
