5 Tips To Keep Your Garden, And The Environment, Healthy

Many Australians are passionate about gardening and it’s not difficult to see why. We are blessed with some of the world’s most amazing native plant life and given our low population, we are lucky enough to be able to keep quiet large gardens.

Gardening tips are a dime a dozen and there’s lots of advice out there on how to get your garden looking magnificent. Part of this is dealing with organic or green waste. In this article, we’ll be taking a look at ways it can best be reduced, recycled and reused, as well as other helpful gardening tips that help out the environment too.

1. Be aware of the negative aspects of organic waste

You might not be aware just how damaging it can be to the environment when organic waste is thrown into a landfill. More than 50% of this is an everyday home waste like the garden waste, food scraps and the like. Research suggests that it creates ‘landfill gas’ when put in the ground, a dangerous concoction that is 55% methane and contributes to the greenhouse effect. While some of this gas is collected and used by landfill operators, the majority is not.

As homeowners, it is worth taking steps to finding other ways of dealing with this waste.

2. Make an effort to compost

For avid gardeners, composting is a no brainer. Even if you have a small garden or a few plants, it’s still well worth it. All it takes is an effort on your part to collect food scraps and garden waste together, add some soil and keep it moist.  The upside of composting is that within a few weeks you have yourself a nutrient-rich soil that essentially acts as a fertiliser and can help you grow plants in your garden.

But given the above, taking the time to collect your organic waste and turn it into compost provides a benefit to more than just your garden. Disposing of it in this way means it does not end up in a landfill, so it’s a win-win!

3. Deal with weeds appropriately

Weeds are the bane of the gardener’s existence; they spread very quickly and are, in most cases, unsightly. It is estimated that de-weeding activities cost the Australia agriculture industry around $1.5 billion yearly.

But they have a negative impact on the environment too. Weeds compete with many forms of plant-life, threatening their survival considerably. They take up the space, sunlight and nutrients in the soil that would be used by other plants, reducing the natural diversity that makes Australian flora so wonderful.

So if you come across a weed in your garden, take the time to remove it, have it sit in the sun to dry out and mulch it if possible.

Read more: Key features of eco-friendly homes at Neutrino Burst blog.

4. Avoid dumping

When it comes to other forms of waste, it is basic common sense that dumping is not the done thing. With organic waste, however, it doesn’t seem a big deal to go through the odd bunch of garden scraps on the lawn.

In actual fact, this is one of the ways weeds are spread and start growing in bushlands and even urban areas - generally, they have escaped from gardens just like yours. Avoid doing so if you can and always dispose of this waste responsibly.

5. Take time to maintain

Weeds will naturally thrive if you don’t make the effort to stomp them out, but once your weed-free you still have work to do. You need to keep an eye on weeded areas and apply dense mulch around the garden as much as you can.

If you’re planning on shaping up the garden this summer, keep these tips handy and consider hiring a skip bin if the waste is too much to deal with! Metropolitan Bin Hire always dispose of garden waste responsibly and with the best interests of the environment in mind.

3 Green DIY Cleaning Tips In Your Home

No doubt there are cleaning products that are perfectly environmentally friendly but one of the biggest reasons we are harming the environment is production and consumption. So if there are ways we can clean our homes by recycling other products that we are done using, it’s a win-win! Add the fact that it saves you money and there’s no reason you shouldn’t be making your own cleaning products.

Let’s take a look at how you can use everyday items to give your house or apartment a good clean.

Cleaning Burnt Pans

 

There’s nothing harder to clean than the burnt remnants of egg, meat or whatever else you were cooking on a frying pan. If you have a bad case, you’ll probably need to soak it for a couple of hours and then scrub until you’re blue in the face.

The good news is you can take care of the problem with a few simple ingredients you already have in your kitchen. All you need is vinegar, water (which is usually fairly easy to come by) and baking soda. Just put a level of water in the pot or pan, add a cup of vinegar and set it on your stove to boil.

Once it’s boiled for a few minutes and is starting to look cleaner, add some baker soda and you’ll see it fizz up. After that scrub for a minute or so and you should be looking at a clean fry pan!

Polishing Furniture

 

Let’s face it, you don’t use wood polish often at all. If this is the case, do you really need to always have a bottle taking up space? There are easier ways to go about it, and all you really need is a lemon and olive oil!

First, you’ll want to get all the juice from the lemon and pour it into a jar or even a cocktail mixer if you have one handy. Make sure it’s pure lemon juice and doesn’t have pulp or pips. From there, add a tablespoon of water and another tablespoon of olive oil to the concoction. Seal the container and shake it for 30 seconds or so. Once that’s done, you’re good to go - just grab a clean rag, dip it in and you’re ready to polish.

A Substitute For Fabric Softener

 

There are many that claim that fabric softener is overrated and does very little to change the way your clothes feel after a wash. We’re not completely sure about that, but they certainly leave them smelling fresh and clean, which is half the point of washing them! If you want to skip the softener, there’s a good way to give your clothes that fresh odour.

Get your jar out again and mix up a cup of baking soda, a cup of white vinegar, a half cup of borax, and a tablespoon of lemon juice and you’re in business. You just have to add this solution to your laundry detergent and you’re sure to have amazing smelling clothes after the wash!

Keep an eye on our blog, because we’ll have plenty more tips in the articles that follow. There are many different ways to go about your home cleaning with kitchen ingredients and products and we want you to know how!

These days you are surely busy enough cleaning your home to arrange a party for the upcoming Christmas! Thus we hope our tips will help you to beautify your home to get ready for the Christmas 2015! Merry Christmas!