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Gleaning Made Easy – Neighborhood Fruit
Fruit! We all Most of us love it, but not all of us have it and it can be so dang expensive. Some of us have some, but want more variety and well, it can be so dang expensive. However, have you ever noticed how much of it litters our sidewalks in the summer? The smell of perfectly good fruit fermenting on the sidewalk is almost synonymous in the summertime.
Many people have taken it upon themselves to make sharing of fruit from their trees easier for each other by allowing gleaning. It’s a great way to get rid of that leftover fruit and also share with friends and neighbors. But it is not always easy for everyone to know where the people are who don’t mind a little gleaning. Well, Neighborhood Fruit has set out to solve that problem with a great website and iPhone app.
With the website and app you can search a radius around your zip-code for public and private trees where piking of fruit is allowed. It’s a great idea and may just help to keep the sidewalks cleaner and your bellies fuller with fruit that would have otherwise rotted on the tree. The only problem is that right now it does not appear that any trees are registered in the city or the state yet. So please register your tree if you have something to share!
Want to garden, but your thumb isn’t so green? Help is on the way.
There is a new trend in the world and it is an exciting trend to me. People are growing their own vegetables again! From the die hard gardeners to the White House and everywhere in between American’s are picking up their shovels and their rakes and growing again!
It isn’t so new to me since I have had a garden everywhere I ever lived, but to many they are hearkening back to something their grandma did or perhaps, great grandma did. Many don’t know where to start or what to do and that is where folks like Salt Lake City’s D&L Urban Farms come in. Continue reading
RainPod an easy way to gather all your rain in one place.
Now this is an easy and beautiful way to gather all your rain in one place. It definitely beats those big green barrels that place under your downspouts. (I am not talking about rss feeds here.)
According to the RainPod Site “”People usually water their plants and garden with tap-water although rainwater is free…Rainpod is a standalone rain collector. Its three legs are made of local wood trunks which makes each unit unique and reduces transportation impact. Its high placed tank delivers rainwater under pressure for easy watering, thanks to gravity.”
Now I can’t seem to find any information on where to purchase these or how much they are but when I do I will update you here. I know I want one! I currently have two rain-barrels which I use all summer to water all my potted plants. It works wonderfully and my plants seem healthier. I have been looking for another and this is a great alternative.
Source: Treehugger and Hotchoz
Plant More Trees – Spring Planting Season is Here.
While Fall is the best time to plant trees, Spring comes in close as another good time. Just don’t plant in the middle of the summer.
So if you are thinking of planting a tree this Spring, check out arborday.org for the 9 things you should know about planting trees or click on each link below to be directed to the area you want to learn more about.
9 Things You Should Know About Trees
#1 – Don’t Top Trees!
#2 – 1/3 and 1/4 Rules of Pruning
#3 – How to Make a Pruning Cut
#4 – The Value of Mulch
#5 – Where Roots Really Grow
#6 – Girdling Kills Trees
#7 – How to Plant a Containerized Tree
#8 – How to Plant a Bare-root Tree
#9 – Your Street Trees May Be City Trees
Watch the video below for just one more good reason to plant a tree this year. Think of the squirrels.
Plant a tree.
What is the stuff? The stuff is something that is good for you and good for the environment and good for the the people or pets around you. The stuff makes sense. The stuff may or may not directly tie into real estate.
Today’s stuff…
Plant a tree.
No time is better than fall for planting a new tree. The ground isn’t frozen, the rain is falling and trees, for the most part have stopped growing upward and are getting ready to go dormant for the winter. What this means is that if you plant a tree in the fall it will have the fall and spring to build a healthy root system and will have greater odds of surviving in the hot summer months. In addition most nurseries are closing out their stock at discount prices to get ready for winter. It is a win win situation for both you and the tree.
Now is a great time to also plant shrubs lay sod and plant any perennial flowers you may want to get into the ground. All will have a fabulous head-start in the spring.
There is a wonderful article on the net that discusses the value of trees. You can find it here. It is definitely worth a read and has been put together by the International Society of Arborculture.
This is a quote from that article:
“Property values of landscaped homes are 5-20% higher than those of non-landscaped homes.
Individual trees and shrubs have value, but the variability of species, size, condition and function makes determining their economic value quite difficult. The economic benefits of trees can be both direct and indirect.
Direct economic benefits are usually associated with energy costs. Air conditioning costs are lower in a tree-shaded home. Heating costs are reduced when a home has a windbreak. Trees increase in value from the time they are planted until they mature. Trees are a wise investment of funds since landscaped homes are more valuable than non-landscaped homes.
The savings in energy costs and the increase in property value directly benefit each homeowner. The indirect economic benefits of trees are even greater. These are available to the community or region. Lowered electricity bills are paid by customers when power companies are able to use less water in their cooling towers, build fewer new facilities to meet peak demands, use reduced amounts of fossil fuel in their furnaces and need fewer measures to control air pollution.
Communities can also save if fewer facilities must be built to control storm water in the region. To the individual these savings are small, but to the community, reductions in these expenses are often in the thousands of dollars”
So plant a tree soon! It is good for the tree, for you, the environment, your pocketbook, your neighborhood and your city. You can’t go wrong with this one.
For some video instrution on various ways to plant trees follow this link to the arborday.org website
