L I N K S
to learn about conservation or things related to it...click around and get inspired!

think at the sink: A-CC water business office's tips on efficient home watering

recycling in Athens

UGA botanical garden

walter reeves: gardening in georgia

georgia native plant society

P.L.A.C.E.: local network of farmers and eaters

athens farmers market

locally grown(online farmers market)

georgia organics: statewide network of organic growers & chefs...and great events!

southern seed legacy: local seed savers group

seed savers: working to promote heirloom seeds

seeds of change: source for organic and heirloom seeds

new york times' sustainable living page

dwell magazine's green page

real simple's green living page

homemade green cleaning

treehugger: blog about all things related to the environment

michael pollan: writer of the omnivore's dilemma

slow food : USA site of the international organization

GCA's ConWatch (please note, you need to log in to view newsletters)


and more to come!


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-:- Lili's Conservation Tips -:-
lili was our Conservation chair from 2005-2007. Below are excerpts from past newsletters where she shared ideas on stormwater, compost, transportation, etc... scroll down to read more!

STORMWATER
Impervious surfaces such as rooftops, driveways, and roads prevent water from being absorbed into the ground. This water picks up a wide variety of pollutants and carries them to our streams. Pollutants are natural (pet waste, which can carry harmful bacteria; leaves and grass clippings which use up vital O2 in water; soil sediment; mud, which reduces light penentration and affects photosynthesis; and seeds, like privet which take over natural areas beside creeks). Chemical pollutants include detergent from washing cars, pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers from our lawns, and motor oil, antifreeze, and grease from our cars. Litter is a big problem…plastic bags, drink containers, wrappers, cigarette butts, etc. clog our waterways and cause toxicity from the breakdown of the materials which affects birds, fish, and other plants and animals. Remember: This water is not treated in any way but dumped into our rivers and streams and oceans. What can we do? See where water runs off your property next time it rains. Then look below for ideas appropriate for you...one change you make will make a difference.

Stormwater runoff Do’s:
After you’ve figured out where your water runs off, try to stop it from leaving your property. A rain garden is a great way. Basically, a rain garden is a shallow hole in the ground that collects and holds the water until it can drain away naturally into the soil. It can be lined with rocks and planted with plants that can take wet or dry...our native Christmas fern is a good start. {Google 'raingardens' for more info.}

1. Leave grass clipping on the lawn (called grasscycling)
2. Sweep gutters and driveways regularly and place sweepings on garden, compost, or in bag for collection by city.
3. Rake up leaves ( and lawn clippings if you don’t grasscycle) and use them as a mulch or place in compost.
4. Seed or replant areas of bare soil, or at least mulch it.
5. Consider natural alternative to pest control chemicals and chemical fertilizers. ‘Stewards of the Earth’ is a good source, but ask your lawn people if they can use natural products.
6. Apply fertilizer mainly in the fall and don’t overdo it..it causes algae blooms and reduces healthy Oxygen levels.
7. Pick up litter anywhere you see it. Keep a litter bag in your car.
8. Clean up pet dropping and dispose of in garden (not vegetable garden), trash can or toilet.
9. Wash latex paint brushes into sewage system; reuse turpentine once paint has
settled, and dispose of turpentine and paint (let it dry) properly through ACC (613-3512) or on Nov.18, from 9-1 at Athens Recycling Center.
10. Maintain your car, making sure there are no leaks and fuel is burned ‘cleanly’ by keeping car tuned, repairing leaks, and properly disposing of fluids.
11.Use minimum amount of detergent for cleaning outside and wash your car on grass or gravel. Even better, go to a car wash where water is recycled (we'll find out if there is one in Athens)

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COMPOST HAPPENS

Why compost? 1.Use instead of commercial products for mulch and fertilizer
2. It's cheap
3. Improves soil structure, texture, aeration, and water holding capacity
4. Keeps soil in a healthy balanced condition that helps plants remain disease-free
5. Keeps our yard/kitchen waster out of landfills (about 1/4 of landfill waste comes from these)
6. Collecting materials (raking leaves, mowing grass, etc.) and turning your pile is great outdoor exerciseHow to compost?

It depends on how fast you want your compost to make and how much time and energy you are willing to spend. The easiest way is just to put your leaves, grass clippings and prunings in a pile and leave it alone.  In about 2 years, you will have compost.  To make it faster, you need to chop/shred your materials, layer them in a 30:1 Carbon:Nitrogen ratio, turn (mix) it, and keep it slightly moist.  A 4x4x4 pile works well and warmer water helps.  There are all kinds of products that help make it easier, neater, and faster. I have a lot of them if you'd like to check them out. 

For more information, look on the internet...epa.gov/compost, Cornell University, compostguide.com or Google 'compost'.

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TRANSPORTATION & THE ENVIRONMENT

Transportation is a really big problem.
The burning of fossil fuels, mainly coal and oil, is the biggest contributor to higher concentrations of CO2 in our atmosphere which most scientists feel is the major cause of global warming. 

Our methods of transportation mostly rely on gasoline, but few of us are going to quit driving our cars or flying. We can drive them less, we can carpool, we can buy a more efficient car, we can walk or bike sometimes, or even take a bus...but we are all going to keep our cars and drive them when we need or want to. 

What we really need is a new way to power them and I think that is going to require our country to spend a lot of money in research and development of alternative energy sources.  I just hope it happens.  Meanwhile, we can all buy a hybrid when we buy our new cars.  I bought a Prius recently and reliably get 50mpg...twice what my old car got.  And, I can still carry my bike, bags of leaves, and the dog...although not all at the same time.  I challenge you all to think of one way that you can reduce your dependence on oil and make a new year's resolution to act on it.

Some ideas: Drive 55mph on highways (not in town), quit with the quick accelerating and heavy breaking, don't leave your car idling, keep your engine tuned and your tires inflated. 

Share your ideas...it may not seem like much, but...if everyone did something, we can make a difference.

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Sally Coenen and I attended the Invasive Plant Control Workshop at the Botanical Garden last week.  It was great!  We learned what plants were invasive, how to control them, and what native plants were good alternatives to invasives.  Our education/conservation exhibit at the zone meeting will be on Invasives, so we were doing our homework.  One of the exciting things was that our Freeman Medal Award nominee, Wisteria frutescens 'Amethyst Falls', was highly recommended as an alternative to the very beautiful, but very invasive, Asiatic wisterias.  I urge each of you to find a place for this wonderful plant in your gardens.   Cofer's has them and I am sure they are available elsewhere.  An invasive alien is defined as a non-native plant that competes with native species for light, water, nutrients, etc. leading to a decline in the number and diversity of native plants.  The top ten most serious problems in Athens are:  Privet, Eleagnus, Multiflora rose (the white one that is blooming everywhere now), bush honeysuckle, honeysuckle vine, kudzu, asiatic wisterias, English ivy, mimosa, nepal grass (looks like a cross between bamboo and grass).  I have everyone in my yard except kudzu. Completely eradicating them is hard.  They are so prolific and hardy.  I also have the additional problem that my husband loves the smell of mimosa, honeysuckle and privet and gets upset when I kill them.  So, I try to control them...limit them to a very few plants and cut them back after they bloom before they set seeds. Anything helps!

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(from march 2006)

There is an old Pennsylvania Dutch expression that says "We don't inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."  Sometimes I wonder if we are taking care of this "on loan Earth" very well.  As I prepare to go to Washington for the NAL meeting, I have been made aware of some of the things we, meaning everybody from our government and the rest of the world down to each one of us have been careless and irresponsible about.  Things we should have done, but didn't, as well as, things we did that we should not have done...often out of ignorance or thoughtlessness or busyness.  Our children deserve clean, healthy air and water...I do not think anyone would argue with that...but we are living in a world where air and water pollution are a problem.   Is it too late?  Will it require more sacrifice than we are willing to make?  I do not know, but maybe I will have some better ideas when I return from Washington.  My mother always said you should leave a place better than you found it.  I hope we can do that.

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COHOSH DIG in North Carolina (from fall 2005)

I thought you might like to know about the 'Cohosh Dig'.  It's a project with the Forest Service and some other federal agencies where we provide the manpower to monitor several sites in the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forest in NC.  It seems that black cohosh is a beautiful, white flowered, medicinal plant whose roots are supposed to help with, among other things, menopausal symptoms (they have not helped me but that's another story).  Because of this, a lot of it is being dug - legally and illegally.  This project is supposed to tell how much you can dig each year without wiping it out.  It's a lot of fun. You get to meet women from all over the SE and help with an important project that would not happen without our participation.  We were divided into teams of three.  After we marked off the assigned plot, one person identified the cohosh plants with a flag, another measured the height and width, and another recorded this data.  We then figured out how many plants to dig - none, 1/3, or 2/3 depending on which plot you were assigned.  After we dug the roots, another team washed and weighed them.  It takes about 2 hours to do a plot unless it has very few plants or very many.