by Heidi Andres
Its 2012 and a start of a brand new year. Most of us have New Years resolutions and I am not any different. I want to do everything I can in the upcoming year to ensure that I am doing all I can to improve things for our environment. I have done many things over the years to do my part to contribute to a better environment. I know my impact is a drop in a bucket, but each of those drops add up. I want to decrease the amount of drops that I contribute to the bucket. Overall I would like to increase my use of local and organic food products, grow a vegetable garden, and conserve more energy.
I really believe it is important for our environmentally sustainable future to support local farmers and organic food production. I want to make more of an effort to support local initiatives like organic and free range food production. From berry picking, maple syrup to poultry farms there is no end to the choices available to me in Simcoe county . That’s why I believe Simcoe county is a perfect place for this type of resolution; Here is a link the local organic farm directory if you would like to add this to your new years resolution. http://csafarms.ca/farms%20counties%20S-Z.htm.
I will grow my own vegetable garden, last year I didn’t as we were going to be away most of the summer. However this is no excuse, I have decided to invest in an automatic watering system to combat that. My yard gets a lot of sunshine so I want to grow green peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans of a few different types and lettuce. Also I will plant a herb garden with basil, chives and thyme. There is nothing quite as satisfying to me as eating perfectly ripened vegetables from the garden, using fresh herbs at dinner time or using tomatoes that were preserved for spaghetti sauce in December. Growing a garden is hard work but it’s really worth it. There are so many positive aspects to gardening, and i believe it benefits the environment in so many ways.
Energy conservation is one of the single biggest contributors to pollution in our environment. I already have a programmable thermostat, use shower instead of bath, installed energy efficient light bulbs, wash and dry only full loads of clothes and have computers configured to run in low energy mode when not in use. The one thing I have not done yet is install smart strips on all my electronic devices such as television and computer. I will purchase at least two within the next month. Research shows the strip which essentially does not allow devices plugged into it to draw any power. The vast majority of our devices,even as small as phone chargers will draw power as long as they are plugged in. The Smart Strip prevents this and this results in energy and money savings.
Well I hope I can really stay true to all of my green resolutions in 2012 and I haven’t bit off more than I can chew.
What are your plans to be more green in 2012? Email them to us and I can post them on our blog. Include a photo of yourself if you would like it included. Or comment below on the comments section.