Lessons from a Month of Meal Planning
I used to diligently plan my meals each week, but I fell out of the habit about five years ago. I felt like I’d developed a good repertoire of recipes I could prepare from the pantry and fridge — but…
Category: Conserve
Don’t Stress Out about Your Lawn this Summer
Lawns in western Washington don’t require irrigation to survive. If you don’t mind a brown lawn during the summer, your lawn will green up again when the rains return in the fall. Watering deeply once a month in summer helps…
Choose Your Shopping “Rules” to Make Purchases Simpler
What you bring into your house determines what waste your home will produce and contributes to your household’s environmental footprint. Many of us try to shop conscientiously, considering environmental impacts like climate emissions, water use, pollution, and waste in our…
Do a Home Energy Inventory to Get Rid of Energy Sucks
Your house might be wasting energy without you knowing it. Complete a quick home energy inventory to hunt down the easy fixes. 1. Complete a Home Energy Inventory Look for Energy Wasters Walk through each room of your house to…
Sheet Mulch to Smother Weeds and Build Soil
When I first moved into my house, sheet mulching quickly became my new best friend in the quest to turn my front garden bed – a sea of weeds – back into something resembling a garden. Sheet mulching is a…
Become a Steward for Our Watershed
Are you feeling inspired to take action to protect our environment? You can make a difference to our Kirkland watershed by becoming a Soil and Water Steward with Tilth Alliance or a Green Kirkland Steward with Green Kirkland Partnership. Both…
Greener Power for Kirkland’s Fleet and Buildings
You might not know about some of the ways the City of Kirkland is working to reduce climate emissions both at the City and in the Kirkland community. As a founding member city of the King County – Cities Climate…
Make Halloween a Treat for the Planet
The Halloween industry brings in around $6 billion each year. With that amount of decorations, costumes, and candy consumption comes a hefty environmental impact. Americans have created a demand for about 1.1 billion pounds of pumpkin per year (our composter…
Trees help fish keep their cool
Back when I graduated from college, I led tree-planting projects throughout the Cascade Foothills. Rain or shine, volunteers joined me every weekend to trudge through the woods, sometimes sinking up to their knees in mud or tripping over the roots…
The Cure for Wasted Food
Last year I helped organize a campus-wide barbeque at my school, Washington State University. We hired vendors to bring food, but overestimated how much food to order. Even with thousands of students cycling through the food line, we still had…