I hope all you mothers out there had a great Mother’s Day. I started my morning with pancakes and coffee – thanks to my husband and son.

The rest of the morning was spent with my feet up watching my Mother’s Day present – the Gardening Australia DVD on waterwise gardening.

It’s a collection of segments from the show that feature saving water in the garden. If you’re a Gardening Australia fan like me, and into saving water, then you’ll love this DVD.

It shows how you can still have a great garden but without the need for loads of water. The DVD features some great waterwise gardens in Australia, useful tips on drought proofing plus which plants look great in the garden but need little water.

A great 92 minutes worth of entertainment, and an excellent way to start Mother’s Day.

Recycling is good, but reuse is even better. This is the mantra of Scoodi, a site I’ve been meaning to blog for a while.

Scoodi is a cross between Freecycle and E-bay where users can search for items to buy, or even better…get for free. It’s free to list and trade, and allows people to link up with each other locally to trade and swap stuff. Not only is it a great way to get stuff, but a great way to get rid of unwanted items.

And of course a great way to keep unnecessary items out of landfill.

It’s always good to see a new magazine on the racks dedicated to sustainability and green living. Although the Greenpages magazine has been out for a while, today is the first time I have managed to get my hands on a copy.

The magazine is quarterly and extends from the Greenpages Business and Lifestyle directories. The magazine features sections on design, food, travel, style, science and eco-culture. It’s a good read, grab a copy.

Check out the Greenfoot directory for more magazines dedicated to sustainable living.

Finally, there is a water tank that you can pack up and take with you when you move. If you don’t want to create your own do-it-yourself tank or fork out for the more expensive metal or plastic tanks, which remain as permanent fixtures to your home, then possibly the Handytank could be for you.

The Handytank is a 1,000 litre water tank which can be bought at Kmart, Mitre 10, Home Timber and Hardware, Thrifty-Link and Trade Link stores. It comes in a flat pack so can be transported home in most cars and is assembled and fitted in about 20 minutes. The manufacturers also claim it can be easily dissembled for easy moving.

I love the idea of a water tank that you can take with you when you move, such a great idea for people renting. Now if you could just do the same with solar panels…

Aquaponics is one thing I haven’t thought about venturing into. I always thought setting up an aquaponics system looked too labour intensive, and it needed a lot of water. Plus I love the smell and touch of soil, and all the little critters that good, healthy dirt brings.

However, through Greenfoot I have been in contact with a few people who run their own backyard aquaponics systems and, once set up, they assure me aquaponics is less labour intensive and uses very little extra water.

It’s also the symbiotic nature of such a system that I find quite fascinating. Read the rest of this entry »

Early last year my friend Matt began his journey into the mythical world of growing garlic. Towards the end of last year I was able to sample some of his delicious and potent little cloves of garlicky goodness.

According to Matt, late February to early April is the best time for planting garlic in Sydney.

Taking Matt’s advice, I’ve held onto my bulbs from him until now - although I did eat about half … yum. I finally planted them today. My son helped by stuffing a clove into each hole I made in the soil. He then used his little watering can to moisten the soil.

Being 29 weeks pregnant, my belly and bad back are beginning to hamper my gardening abilities. Therefore, I’m winding up most of my garden beds for winter by heavily mulching them over and letting them rest.

However, I figure garlic will be pretty easy to grow over these months and won’t need much care or labour. The garlic now lives in the sunniest sections (during winter) of my garden.

Matt has kindly provided another update on his garlic expeditions - no doubt he has just planted some more garlic in his own garden. Read on for Matt’s update. Read the rest of this entry »

This Saturday (March 29) at 8pm don’t forget to turn off all your lights and unused appliances at the switch to show your support for Earth Hour.

The event, organised by WWF, began last year in Sydney where over 2.2 million residents and over 2,100 businesses turned off lights and appliances for one hour to help reduce the city’s greenhouse gas pollution. WWF says that this lead to a 10.2% energy reduction across the city.

This year the event has gone global with another 23 world cities formally signing up.

With 24 global cities on board for Earth Hour, WWF anticipates that more than 30 million people will be involved this year.

If you haven’t already, sign up for the event on the Earth Hour website. You don’t have to be in one of the 24 cities to show your support.

Not sure what I’ll be doing yet. I think another candle lit dinner with my family.

What are you planning? Or what did you do for Earth Hour?

This time of year is pumpkin eating time in my house.

It’s the time when I harvest my mini pumpkin vines and the little, knobby, round, orange vegetables lie happily around our kitchen and balcony.

They are really easy to grow and perfect for smaller gardens that don’t have a lot of space. I usually plant a few seeds and keep a couple of the strongest seedlings alive.

I let the vines ramble about my herb and vegetable patches, plus let them climb up the back fence trellises. They probably only get up to about five metres long so are quite manageable. Read the rest of this entry »

I love beer, especially now that I am pregnant and shouldn’t drink it

My husband brews a pretty good drop from our garage, which usually comes top of my list for taste.

But now there’s a new beer I’d like to try (when I can) and that’s Cascade Green, which Cascade claims is 100% carbon offset.

What does this mean? Well according to the Cascade brewery, all remaining greenhouse gas emissions from the beer are offset from the moment the company sources its hops to when the beer bottles are placed in recycling bins.

Cascade also says that it uses bio-degradable vegetable oil based inks in the beer’s packaging, and the carton is 100% recyclable.

Have you tried this beer? Let me know what you think.

Another good news solar story from Adelaide.

Work has finally begun on installing solar panels to Adelaide airport’s roof, producing the second-largest rooftop solar plant in Australia.

The panels will be attached to the airport’s Terminal roof 1, and will generate 160 megawatt hours of electricity a year, equivalent to the average electricity consumption of 30 houses. Read the full story on the Adelaide Now website.