Wow, July was a very dry month for us here in Missouri…although the total amount of rainfall was near normal…that 3 inches all came in the first few days of the month…and then nothing for the rest of the month. Things have struggled in the drought and heat this month…there were several weeks of very [...]
Posted in Growing Food 
Tags: backyard, eco, edible, food, garden, gardening, green, growing, home, home grown, July, landscape, landscaping, missouri, organic, photos, plants, produce, raised beds, St. Louis, suburban, sustainable, urban agriculture, vegetable, vegetables, victory garden 
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May was a great month for the garden! I spent a lot of time out there and am pleased that it looks as good as it does. It has rained quite a bit and everything is extremely green! I stepped back for some of these photos so you can see the design of the garden [...]
Posted in Growing Food Tags: 2011, arbor, backyard, blackberries, dogwood, ecological, edible, flowers, food, formal, fruit, garden, gardening, green, growing, hazelnut, hill, home, home grown, house, landscape, landscape architect, landscaping, lonicera sempervirens, May, missouri, native, organic, perennials, photos, plants, produce, raised beds, raspberries, spring, St. Louis, strawberries, sustainable, trees, trellis, trumpet honeysuckle, urban agriculture, vegetable, vegetables, wildlife Comments Off
Posted in Saving Energy, Saving Money, Uncategorized Tags: actual, alternative energy, bills, calculated, calculation, conservation, eco, eco friendly, economical, energy, energy star, energy use, estimate, estimated, federal, geo thermal, geothermal, graph, green, ground source, high efficiency, home, house, hvac, missouri, money, numbers, percent, residential, saving, savings, St. Louis, statistics, strategies, suburban, sustainable, tax credit, taxes Comments Off
Here are some photos from my garden in April 2011. It was a very rainy month and some of the photos really turned out nice…they are worth a click to see the larger image because the thumbnails really don’t do them justice. I particularly like the way the rain droplets look…I think my favorite photo [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Tags: april, bluebells, celandine poppy, ecological, fern, flowers, forsythia, garden, gardening, gnome, growing, hellebore, home, home grown, Hosta, landscape, landscaping, native, perennials, photos, plants, residential, shade, shade garden Comments Off
Here is the first time lapse video of the garden….April 2011 Note the video begins with the forsythia in bloom and the hill still brown and not cut back or mulched. Then the serviceberries bloom and the grass and hill start to turn green. The next installment for May should show the hill burst into [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Tags: 2011, april, backyard, garden, gardening, green, growing, home, house, landscape, landscaping, photos, plants, St. Louis, stop motion, suburban, sustainable, time-lapse, trees, zone 6 Comments Off
The heating and cooling systems on our trusty suburban ranch was more than twenty years old when we decided it was time to replace them with new, high efficiency models. So Mary and I began our due diligence on the subject and started comparing available options. When I first learned about geothermal heating and cooling [...]
Posted in Saving Energy, Saving Money Tags: air conditioner, alternative energy, amount, conservation, cooling, cost, credit, data, earth, eco, ecological, economical, efficiency, efficient, electric, electricity, energy, energy use, expense, federal, gas, geo thermal, geothermal, green, ground, ground source, heating, home, hot water, house, loop, midwest, missouri, money, natural gas, photos, residential, saving, savings, St. Louis, suburban, sustainable, system, tax credit, taxes, technology, time-lapse, utilities, video, water No Comments »
If you want to attract birds to your backyard there are four things you should strive to provide…food, moisture, cover and housing. We enjoy watching a variety of birds all year long.
Posted in Uncategorized Tags: attract, attracting, backyard, bird, bird feeder, bird house, bird seed, birdbath, birds, cardinal, cedar waxwing, conservation, cover, dove, eco, edible, feeder, finch, gallery, garden, hawk, home, junco, list, missouri, owl, photography, photos, plants, sanctuary, seed, sparrow, St. Louis, suburban, water, wild, wildlife No Comments »
Time for another tour of the garden! June is a big month for the garden!!! Things that were small in the beginning of the month are huge now. Beans and corn that were still seeds a month ago are now over 5 feet tall! Here is a gallery of photos I took, mostly from June 21st (solstice) [...]
Posted in Growing Food, Uncategorized Tags: backyard, eco, ecological, economical, edible, food, fruit, gallery, garden, gardening, growing, home, home grown, landscape, landscaping, organic, photos, plants, produce, raised beds, residential, suburban, sustainable, tour, trees, urban agriculture, vegetable, vegetables, victory garden No Comments »
Last updated April 25, 2011 We are implementing energy saving strategies to attempt to reduce our energy use at our home by 50% In this post I am going to be updating graphs showing our total energy use for Electric and Gas showing the difference between the average energy usage of the last 5 years [...]
Posted in Saving Energy, Saving Money, Uncategorized Tags: alternative energy, amount, conservation, conserve, cost, data, eco, ecological, economical, electric, energy, energy consumption, energy use, existing, gas, geo thermal, geothermal, graph, green, ground source, home, house, missouri, money, natural gas, reduce, reduction, residential, save, saved, saving, smart, st. lous, strategies, strategy, suburban, sustainable, utilities 1 Comment » Deer Resistance So one of the most asked questions I hear from people in areas with deer is ‘what can I plant that the deer won’t eat!” This is tough for many reasons…deer eat things where they found something edible before (like if they eat your vegetables…and next year you plant poisonous plants there in [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Tags: backyard, deer, deer resistant plant list, deer resistnat, eco, food, fruit, garden, gardening, green, growing, home, landscape, landscaping, list, missouri, plant, plants, residential, resistant, St. Louis, suburban, trees, vegetable, wildlife No Comments »
