Tri-County Carolina Yard Experience is based on the Carolina Yards & Neighborhoods program, which helps people work WITH the environment around their property – not against it. Sounds cool!

This is a free, environmental event focused on the home landscape-including environmentally friendly gardening practices, recycling, rainwater harvesting, pond management and much more!  Hands-on demonstrations and educational displays by county extension agents and Master Gardeners.

A ton of local sponsors, including Clemson Extension Tri-county Master Gardeners, DHEC, and Charleston, Berkeley & Dorchester County Recycling, have made this free event possible. On Saturday, March 13th, head down to the The Charleston Exchange Park, Ladson SC from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and get your green yard on!

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezpage/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Thank goodness Cameron over at Cottage Industrialist has the same problem AND enough gumption to do something about it. Check out this amazing local seasonal food calender that you can print out and enjoy for free! It features produce that is seasonally available locally for each month, but also gives you recipe ideas and encouragement (Only two more months of Winter!) Be sure to check it out and get cooking!

It’s like you can actually take Fall and stuff it in your pile! Take those pumpkins, break them up, and fold them in. Rake your yard before you mow, and toss all that goodness in. Edge your yard and gardens, and toss the trimmings in. Clean the Summer out of your garden, and throw it on. If you’re going big, ask some neighbors for their pumpkins and leaves. Our pile was looking very happy after Halloween. Happy composting!

Learn more about composting:

• Composting Update :: Tis the Season!
• Composting Update :: Got Brown?
• Compost Update :: Root of the Problem
• Composting Update :: We Have Steam!
• Composting Update :: Now with Starbucks!
• Turns Out Charleston Digs Composting
• Best Season to Start Composting: Fall

How is your garden? Go on, brag! Please! Inspire me to spend the time in my backyard garden by sharing your garden’s story. My story is one, unfortunately this summer, of invasion and neglect. The deer continually eat the cucumbers and cherry tomatoes. That mystery fungus, or maybe it’s a mold, swallowed the bell peppers. Of course, the basil and rosemary are thriving, and one little lonely pepper. Certainly no recipe from the backyard garden will be gracing our dinner table soon.

Perhaps next spring, I will be outside without a baby riding along in the Bjorn, and I will be able to play in the soil more. Until then, I will begin researching seeds and local nurseries. Abide-A-While is currently the most convenient to my home. Where do you purchase your gardening supplies?

I hope to read about your garden, its defeats and victories. My boys, one of whom remembers last summer’s harvest, has inquired as to why the garden is empty. I have only promised to spend a little more time on our garden, as I do believe a functioning garden belongs in the yard. But I won’t promise to make a concerted effort to keep out the deer. I still enjoy the sight of them, but I do wish their tummies were full after eating all the flowers from the perennial gardens!

Lowcountry Local First advocates for all local businesses, and knows that true sustainabilty requires all of us to think before we buy – and buy locally when we can. If you’ve been thinking about going local with your grub, Lowcountry Local First has 10 reasons why you should make the change in 2009:

• Support your local farmers – shop the farmers markets and look and ASK for local produce at the grocers. Most conventional food travels an average of 1,500 miles before it hits the plate!
• Local is FRESHER and TASTIER – there is an abundance of great local produce.
• Eating Locally is Better for the Environment – lower your carbon foot print by eating locally. An Iowa State University study found that people who switched to buying 10% of their produce from local sources produced 5-17 times less CO2 overall. 

• Support the Local Economy – keep money circulating in our community
• Supports Sustainable Land Use – supporting local farms keeps our land productive as farms and not houses!
• Eating Seasonally is Better for your Health!
• Free Range and Pastured Meat tastes better – See our in print and online Directory of Local Business to find some great local meat producers
• It’s our heritage and how our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents ate!
• Makes for great dinner conversation!
• A chance to stop and be Thankful for the EARTH that our food comes from, the RAIN and the SUN that help it grow, and the FARMER who plants the seeds and nurtures the crop.

Most artificial Christmas trees are full of bad things like PVC, so getting a real tree might be the greener option. But if you want to take it up a notch this year, Down to Earth is offering a Living Christmas Tree Program that will let your holiday conifer live on!

Down to Earth will deliver your live tree the week of December 15, which range in size, price, and species. After the holidays, you can put it on your deck or plant it in your backyard. You can also donate the tree to the East Cooper Habitat for Humanity, a service Down to Earth will arrange. Double good!

You can check out their store to see examples, but you must order your tree by December 13!

Composting is all about managing the balance between your browns (leaves, kindling, and other dead stuff) and greens (food scraps, produce, and other wet stuff). With the leaves starting to fall in the Lowcountry and leftover pumpkins rotting all around us, these are the salad says for compost piles. I can’t wait to go full circle and use our composted veggies to grow new garden veggies…so cool. Check out my notes after the jump.

Here’s an update on our pile:

• Over a year in, thing are going well. We have several hundred pounds of rich, dark, odor-free compost ready for next Spring.
• I’m still avoiding putting sticks in the pile, as it just complicated sifting.
• Speaking of sifting, I am already working on plans to build my own tumbler for next Spring.
• I plan on giving bags of compost to a couple neighbors who contributed. What kind of bags should I use? Maybe I’ll reuse something old like an old bucket or paint can.
• There seems to be shrinkage in the pile, so I wonder if I’m “losing” any goodness. I think it’s just part of the process.

Don’t get me wrong…I LOVED using the trimmer. That dirty little engine had some power, and it made easy work of fuzzy garden edges and unlucky volunteer plants. But I knew if I experimented a bit, I could find a solution using simple, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly tools. After fine tuning the process all Summer, I’m getting great results with only a slight increase in work and time. It’s also a solution that is quiet, sustainable, and low impact.

Here’s how I did it…

The Human Powered Lawn has always been an interest of mine, probably stemming from my Amish roots. Or, it might be the annoying gas-powered cacophony of leaf blowers, edgers, mowers, and trimmers I hear every weekend on my otherwise quiet street. When did we become so dependent on these machines for basic yard work? How lazy are we?

So, I’ve set out to eliminate all four of these machines from my landscaping process. I’ve never used a leaf-blower (my broom works just fine) or an edger (I’ve always used a flat shovel + a trimmer), so I was already halfway there at the start of the Summer. I decided to eliminate my trimmer next, a tool I have been using since the dawn of my Junior High lawn mowing business days.

After a few months of practicing and refining, I have the replacement tools down to three: 1) A flat shovel, 2) flat hand held garden shears, and 3) that weed removal poker thing. That’s it. These simple tools replaced a gas-powered, factory-assembled, carbon-emitting non-necessity. Nice!

Here are some tips on using these tools around your yard:

• Edging driveways and other straight lines – Use the flat shovel to cut away an inch of soil and grass along each edge, and the weed removal poker thing to pop it out. This creates a nice, deep edge that will last all summer. Then, for edge maintenance, use the flat shears like scissors to cut back the grass. Just cut along the line you made with the shovel.
• Trees, poles, and fences – The shears work fine for all of these things, and only adds a little time. Switch hands to avoid fatigue, and do it before you mow so you can mulch in the trimmings.
• Weeds in beds – Sometimes I would use the trimmer in our large pine straw bed to remove weeds and volunteer trees. I now use the flat shovel for this, and just walk along forcing the blade into the crown of each plant. This pops them right out.
• Garden bed edges – Use the flat shovel to carve out a trench between your mulched garden and your yard. This will give you a nice border, and prevent grass from crawling into the bed (and make it easier to remove once it does).

Those are the basics – it’s not that complicated. Yes, this is slightly more labor intensive, but actually takes about the same amount of time when you get good at it. The results are similar too, with the only real difference being the edges around my driveway looking more natural, less manicured (but still clean and tidy).

I know the Human Powered Yard isn’t for everyone, and I’ve certainly had a couple of neighbors ask if I wanted to borrow their trimmer (they assumed mine must be broken), but I really think re-imagining how we do simple things can make a difference. I would rather be xeriscaping, and I know these tools are all made in a factory and shipped to Lowe’s, but replacing the machines with muscles has been a positive experience for me, and it might be for you too.

We had 99 respondents at the time of this writing, and over 40% were shopping at local farmers markets. This is not surprising, as our area has a couple great ones. Local seafood and farms were the next targets, followed by the co-op. The Ambrose Family Farm CSA is really starting to take off (we’re members!), so I might have to bring back this poll next year and see what’s changed.

You can still take the poll and check out a list where you can buy local food after the jump.

Here are a few placed where you can pickup some locally grown grub:

• Boone Hall Farms
• Charleston Farmers Market
• Earth Fare
• Edible Lowcountry
• James Island Presbyterian Church Farmers Market
• Mount Pleasant Farmers Market
• Mount Pleasant Seafood
• North Charleston Farmers Market
• Stono Farm Market
• Summerville Farmers Market
• Whole Foods Market

If you want to take the poll, here you go:

Keeping a good balance of greens (nitrogen) and browns (carbon) is critical to a successful pile. In the Summer months, browns are hard to find – so anytime you get a fresh fall of green leaves, save them in a separate pile and add them later. So, I have a little tiny leaf pile next to my compost pile, which is sprouting all sorts of goodies from the bottom…more on that after the jump.

Here are some notes on our pile:

• It’s either time to start a new pile, or begin sifting out finished compost from this one. There is definitely some ready to use compost in there, but I have to separate it from the recently added organic material that has yet to break down.
• I turn the pile regularly, but don’t really get all the way to the bottom. So, we have tomatoes and pumpkins growing out of the bottom inch or so. I don’t have the heart to pull them, even though they are probably consuming some of the compost.
• I might make a square pile next time. The rounded edges make it difficult to turn thoroughly. The good news is that the brown leaves around the perimeter serve as camoflauge, which helps keep the pile from becoming an eyesore.

That’s it for now…happy composting everyone!