About a year ago I purchased green energy. At the time it was a pretty confusing task. There were so many products on the market and each one seemed to offer different things at different prices.

Luckily at the time, the Total Environment Centre, Australian Conservation Foundation and WWF Australia had launched Green Electricity Watch, a guide which ranked green electricity products in Australia. It was really useful and helped me make up my mind.

Once again, the organisations have updated the guide for 2007 so if you’re shopping around for a green energy supplier, check it out.

Today is Blog Action Day where bloggers around the world are uniting to write about the environment.

I’m covering composting because it’s an easy way to help the environment by reducing your household’s waste and improving your soil organically.

It’s a long post, but if you want to know more about setting up your own compost system, then read on. (more…)

A work colleague of mine is busily organising and promoting national Ride to Work Day. Watching him stick posters up around the office has reminded me to promote this worthwhile event.

According to the event’s organisers, the day will stimulate over 10,600 tonnes of greenhouse gas savings in the first three years. This is more than 2650 hot air balloons.

Besides the obvious health benefits, cycling just 10km each way to work instead of driving can save1.3 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year.

So if you can, get on your bike on October 17. Register at the site to be a participant or a work place co-ordinator. You will also go into the running to win some great prizes.

I just love olives and can’t wait till my tree, which is still very young, starts producing these tasty little treats.

I planted my olive tree about a year ago against a fence and have been patiently training it to resemble an espaliered plant. I say “resembles” because this is my first attempt at espaliering so I am not really entirely sure that I am doing the right thing. So far so good - it looks flat against the fence and is slowly fanning out.

However, I think it will still take a few more years before I experience my first crop. But I will keep dreaming of home grown olives.

In the meantime, I found a great website called Planting Milkwood, which has an entertaining video about how to pickle olives. So if you are interested, check it out.

Although all of my organic matter is composted or fed to the worms there are a few items I keep aside for special purposes in the garden.

Coffee not only provides a great pick-me-up but it’s also excellent for nitrogen loving plants. So is tea. Lately, I’ve been sprinkling left over coffee grounds and tea leaves around my tomato and capsicum plants - in the hope of improving their yields.

If you don’t drink coffee you can always ask coffee shop owners for their left over coffee grounds.

I also like to hold onto egg shells. Although they don’t break down that well in my compost bins and worm farms they work well in the garden. I dry them out on the balcony, crush them up and sprinkle them around the base of seedlings to deter slugs and snails.

Beer also works a treat in killing these slimy pests. Place some in the bottom of a jar turned on its side. Slugs and snails can’t resist such a delicious temptation so they crawl into the jar and well erm… drown. Beats toxic pellets any day.