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 
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2010 EDIBLE LANDSCAPE PLAN DRAWING 11X17 click this link to download I thought it was very important for you to have access to the garden design for the Sprawlstainable Garden. This drawing shows the entire site, the legend to all the edible plantings of fruits and vegetables, the house, the gardens, the patios, etc. The download [...]
Posted in Growing Food Tags: backyard, design, download, drawing, eco, ecological, economical, edible, food, fruit, garden, garden design, gardening, green, growing, home, home grown, landscape, landscape architect, landscape design, landscape plan, landscaping, legend, organic, pdf, plan, plant list, plants, produce, raised beds, residential, suburban, sustainable, trees, urban agriculture, vegetable, vegetables No Comments »
These are the amounts I am using to calculate how much the food we grew would have cost if we would have bought it at the store. I got the majority of these numbers by pricing organic produce during May and June 2010 at the Whole Foods Market in Town and Country, Missouri. It would probably [...]
Posted in Growing Food Tags: agriculture, amount, backyard, beans, berries, blueberries, carrots, cost, cucumber, currant, eco, ecological, eggplant, food, fruit, garden, gardening, grow, growing, home, homegrown, jostaberry, lettuce, list, money, mushrooms, organic, produce, saving, Saving Money, serviceberry, storebought, strawberries, suburban, sustainable, tomato, urban, value, vegetable, vegetables No Comments »
I wanted to show you how easily you can save money by changing out some of your light bulbs to compact fluorescent or LED. With a few packages of new bulbs we saved 38% off the total cost of running lights in our house. Read more to see exactly how we did it.
Posted in Saving Energy, Saving Money Tags: bulb, CFL, Compact fluorescent, conservation, cost, costs, eco, economical, efficient, energy, energy use, evaluation, fluorescent, green, home, house, LED, light bulb, light bulbs, lighting, lights, list, money, replace, residential, saving, savings, suburban, sustainable, tips, watts 2 Comments »
Growing Shitake Mushrooms Did you know that you can grow shitake mushrooms at home? Well we are trying it and will report how it goes. We bought our first pre-inoculated log about 2 years ago. It cost about $30 from a mail order company. We did everything they said to do…soak the log, put it [...]
Posted in Growing Food Tags: backyard, economical, edible, food, fungi, garden, gardening, green, growing, growing mushrooms, home, home grown, landscape, mushroom, mushroom log, mushrooms, organic, plants, produce, residential, shitake, suburban, sustainable, vegetable, vegetables, victory garden No Comments »
Final Totals This is a portion of my spreadsheet that lists both the amount of food we have grown this year and the cost of buying this amount of organic food at the store. Also included at the bottom are the totals, including the percentage we have eaten of the produce (I am keeping track [...]
Posted in Growing Food Tags: amount, backyard, cost, cost of food, eco, ecological, edible, food, fruit, garden, gardening, green, growing, harvest, home, home grown, list, local, local food, organic, plants, produce, raised beds, residential, saving, suburban, sustainable, vegetable, vegetables, victory garden 1 Comment »
I have been keeping track of everything we have seen in our yard since about 2001. If it is not on the list (unless it is an insect)…then I have not seen it in the yard…some have been close, like a fox I saw down the street, and a raccoon next door, and several bird [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Tags: animal, animals, backyard, bird watching, birds, butterflies, critters, deer, eco, habitat, home, identification, list, rabbit, squirrel, sustainable, wildlife No Comments »
This is what we are growing this year, most of the fruit trees and shrubs were planted either last year or this year, so I don’t expect much from them in 2010. I do expect some serviceberries, a few currants, some strawberries and maybe a few pears. Of the vegetables, this will be my first [...]
Posted in Growing Food Tags: agriculture, eco, edible, frowing, fruit, garden, gardening, home, home grown, homegrown, list, local, local food, plants, produce, raised beds, suburban, sustainable, urban, urban agriculture, vegetables, victory garden No Comments »
One of the factors to consider when choosing a geothermal heating and cooling system are the ramifications of the exterior installation requirements. Unlike traditional systems, there is quite a bit of work that needs to be done outside the home to place the lines in the ground that are needed to carry the liquid that [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Tags: alternative energy, closed loop, conservation, eco, ecological, energy, geo thermal, geothermal, green, ground source, heat pump, home, landscape, landscaping, residential, sustainable, trenching, vertical suburban No Comments »
We’ll be doing a number of posts about our new geothermal heating and cooling system. It is a substantial investment in our home, and will go a long way towards meeting our goals of reducing our energy bills and our carbon footprint. These videos are made from time lapse photography we captured during the outdoor [...]
Posted in Saving Energy, Uncategorized Tags: alternative energy, closed loop, conservation, cooling, drilling, eco, ecological, economical, energy, geo thermal, geothermal, green, ground source, heat pump, heating, high efficiency, home, hvac, loop, residential, saving, sustainable, time-lapse, trenching, vertical No Comments »
