I love eating berries and growing up, we seemed to always have a ton of blackberries and raspberries all summer long without anyone really putting in any work. Busy folks like me like the sound of that – little work with great results! Therefore, my third post is on how to plant berries.

Step 1: Find a spot

Raspberries need a lot of sun and can grow quite high. These are the two things to look for when deciding where to plant the seeds. In my case, it was against a fence that gets full sun all day long.

Step 2: Prep area

You may remember my last post, where I made a raised bed and cut out a piece of lawn. For this project, you need to do same: cut three inches deep into the grass on both sides of a five-inch wide piece for the whole length of the area. Roll the lawn and replant it if you can or flip it. Read Gardening Tips 101: How To Make A Raised Garden Bed for more tips. Prepare the soil with compost or aged manure and ideally, wait a week or two before you move on to step 3.

Step 3: Planting

I was lucky enough to have been given a few raspberry plants (tip: start talking about wanting to start a garden and suddenly seeds, plants, and advice start flying your way). To plant them, dig a hole into the prepared soil, big enough and loosen the dirt for the roots to spread. Space plants about three feet apart in a row. If you do multiple rows, have those about eight feet apart. Because they can grow high, I fashioned some support with bamboo sticks. Do this right away so the plants are not disturbed when maturing.

Step 4: Care

Raspberries are easy (you recall my motivation) but need quite a bit of water – water deeply (rather than frequently) and don’t let them dry out.  After planting, cut back canes (the shoots) to about eight to 10 inches and remove yellow or damaged branches at any time. Enjoy!

>>>Do you have any crop tips for summer? Share your ideas below?

As a commercial contractor, I’ve seen ways in which businesses forgo going green in favour of a cheap fix or something even less appealing. But there are a number of things that businesses in the travel industry are doing to get Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified.

LEED consists of a suite of rating systems for the design, construction and operation of green buildings as well as homes and neighbourhoods. More attention should be paid to these businesses who truly try to be more green and incorporate responsible tourism, including everything from creating self-sustaining facilities to community development programs.

Photo credit: Eco Network.

In Asia, there’s actually a program that helps promote businesses that do more for their communities and environment called The Wild Asia Responsible Tourism Awards. The awards recognize a variety of categories such as natural preservation, wildlife conservation, resource efficiency or cultural awareness. At a basic level, businesses can earn awards for incorporating local food and installing energy efficient appliances or materials. They can also earn recognition just for developing plans for better ways to accommodate waste.

In America, there are also organizations committed to going green for responsible tourism. Las Vegas is one of the biggest travel destinations in the United States. While this may seem like a city of excess, the hotels in Las Vegas are trying to do more for the environment.

Take hotels like the Las Vegas Palazzo Resort. This hotel won the “Most Eco-Friendly Hotel in America Award” because it went beyond LEED certification. The Palazzo boasts a water recycling system, which is responsible for filling water in the toilets throughout the facility. The resort contains multiple solar panels for heating the water in the pools and even suite shower water. The Palazzo has a number of rain gardens and even serves organic food to its guests. Through such self-sustaining facilities and reusing waste, hotel manages really cut down on the use of resources and are now able to promote green travel.

Going green is also starting to become trendy as travellers will choose hotels based on eco-friendly programs. People buzz around the ways in which their hotel is doing something different like bamboo bed linen or a water conservation program.

In New York City, for instance, the ink48 Hotel created the Earthcare program, which is employee driven who get together to brainstorm how to make positive daily change. Anyone can participate, from front desk staff to general managers. They meet twice a month to ensure compliance with the current standards, develop tools to train new employees and keep Earthcare on everyone’s mind. They constantly come up with new products and practices to be reviewed, tested and rolled out company wide.

I’m happy to be apart of the green travel movement.  It’s so encouraging to see businesses coming together for a cause that affects our planet today and the future. In every way, I think that businesses can make changes to have a greater impact on energy conservation and public attitudes towards eco-friendly practices. There’s no question that businesses also benefit from going green as they gain more attention when promoting responsible tourism practices for travellers.

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>>> Have you come across any spectacular eco-friendly programs in your travels? Do tell.. below! 

It is so hard to buy the perfect gift for the mothers in your life and even harder when you have a “Green Mom” on your hands.  But I am here to help and have you officially covered. You might even get bragging rights this year!

For your yoga-stretching, speed-walking active mama

Why not try a new eco-friendly active clothing line like Light Activewear.  They have some amazing gear that doesn’t leave you with that dreaded MUFFIN top, another one of mom’s priorities.  At their great prices and high quality fabrics, you really can’t beat this gear. 

A nice touch: pair new exercise duds with an awesome carbon filtered eco-friendly water bottle!

For your green thumbed moms

You’re lucky because you have a lot of great options!  Try creating a personalized outdoor plant container filled with plants that you have specifically picked out.  I highly suggest things you can cook with: basil, lavender, thyme, chocolate mint for something special and anything else you know she would love to have at hand.

Go the extra mile and place all the supplies in your planter as a double-duty gift basket. Hide it on her deck the night before and have her wake up to it!  What a lovely surprise, especially if you all do it together; I suggest after brunch.

If you have more of an indoor planter there are these amazing little felt pods that are also great for the mom with little kids running around because these will never really break!

For the mom who loves to decorate and re-decorate

Finding eco-friendly items for the home can become a tiring expedition. In order to add a little spice to your home with maybe even a little bit of humor, check out one of my favourites: “Call Your Mother“ cushion pillow. It’s great for the mom with kids who have already left the nest!

But what about the mom who has everything?

What on earth do you get her?  I have it for your adventurous environmentalist, a completely self-sustaining thriving eco-system for the home!  They’re called Pod Eco-spheres and they’re great for any woman — I really want one.  All you have to do is keep it in a place with good light and you have your very own thriving little universe to look at when life is just feeling a little out of control.

All of these are amazing ideas to keep the special lady in your life extremely happy.  You can’t go wrong, especially if you pair it with a trip to a local restaurant that serves locally grown food!  I have come up with a GREAT list of places for you to take your lady in three major Canadian cities: Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto!

Local eats for Mother’s Day restaraunts:

Calgary:

The Coup + Meet

Thomsons Restaurant

Cilantro

Toronto:

Café Belong

Union 72

Vert Catering

Vancouver:

Cotto Enoteca Pizzaria

Gorilla Food

Bitter Tasting Room

>>> Do you have some great eco-gift ideas for Mother’s Day? Share below!

Spring is a time for fresh starts.

We wrote this article so you can welcome it warmly, with a sensational smelling home – along with a renewed lease on life and excitement of what’s to come! Hopefully it will inspire you to opt for essential oils (instead of conventional products) for a customized variety of clean.

Essential Oils Benefits

Essential oils do much more than simply sanitize or make things smell swell.

The practice of using essential oils and natural aromatic botanicals for psychological and physical wellbeing is known as aromatherapy. Quickly gaining momentum as a viable source of alternative medicine, aromatherapy dates back nearly one thousand years ago and has been used by cultures the world over to relieve a wide array of ailments from depression to headaches.

Photo credit: WikimediaCommons/Itineranttrader

Bright Ideas

Sleep tight

*By infusing your pillow with calming essential oils like chamomile, peppermint and sandalwood, sweet dreams are within reach. Simply place a few drops in a spray bottle, combine with water and start spritzing. Not only will your zzz’s will be deeper, your sheets will also smell sweeter.

Cleaning products

*Nothing says “fresh” like the sweet scent of citrus. We suggest combining 10 or so drops to a full bucket of carpet cleaning solution to do double duty eliminating stains. Another bright idea: adding a couple of drops with water in a spray bottle to clean and sanitize surfaces. Clean space + ease of mind, body & spirit = bliss.

Natural dryer sheets

*Who needs dryer sheets when you have hand towels and essential oils? For a DIY, non-toxic version of what you’ll find in the drugstore, place a few drops on a hand towel and throw it into the dryer. Tea tree oil and grapefruit are good options, as they’re good at busting bacteria and killing germs. Your clothes will be clean and emanate bursts of yumminess that’ll make you smile throughout the day.

DIY potpourri

*Potpourri is pretty but it can also be expensive. To get the same result, add lavender essential oil to cotton balls and place them wherever need be – front closets, bedroom drawers, with toiletries under the sink. This will reinvigorate, but also work well to keep insects and moths at bay.

>>> Do you have any essential oil uses you would like to share with us? Leave your comments below.

There is always a dilemma in my house about air fresheners — especially knowing all the chemicals they are laced with. I set out on a little journey to create some household deodorizers for those trouble areas without having to resort to toxic sprays.  This is a little trick in my cleaning arsenal to keep waste baskets, diaper pails and bags all smelling a heck of a lot nicer.

What you will need:

1 cup of baking soda

½ – ¾ cup of water

1 tbsp of crushed fresh or dried lavender flowers

Method:

1. Measure out the baking soda into a small bowl.
2. Add the lavender and water and mix into a thick paste.
3. Put paste into muffin tins or ice cube trays to set.
4. Let sit out until fully dried and hardened. This can take 24-48 hours depending on how the humidity in your city or house.  Here in wet Vancouver, I have to wait longer.
5. Place in the bottom of garbage cans, laundry baskets, diapers bins, and wherever else they are needed to keep your house smelling fresh and lovely!

Feel free to replace or add scents! For example, mint is very lovely for a fresh, light spring fragrance.

Related ethicalDeal:

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VANCOUVER        VICTORIA

In my first blog last month, I documented my first attempt at seed starting. While they are happily sprouting indoors, it slowly but surely it starts to feel a lot like spring outdoors. Soon, it will be time for me to plant the spouts into my garden and this made me realize I really had no clue where to put them or how. My second project is therefore a raised garden bed.

Project 2 – Raised Garden Bed

Step 1: Prep box

When we moved into our house, there was an assortment of random items left in the garage from previous owners. I hung on to a few finds thinking it they’d come in handy, which included various pieces of wood. I would have to look up the right term for them – that’s how far away I’m from being a builder of any kind! So believe me, you don’t need to be a construction worker to build a raised bed. Take my word: if I can, so can you.

I had three pieces of wood. The longest one I cut in half and made sure the other two were approximately the same length. You can do this with a hand saw. I measured how wide and long the box was going to be and got a few wooden stakes for the corners.

Step 2: Prep area

Next, I had to figure out where to put the box. I chose the sunniest corner of lawn, then measured the same size of lawn and dug up the lawn row by row.

I cut into the grass about three inches deep on both sides of a five-inch wide piece, for the whole length of the area.

Fun fact: you can roll lawn. Which is what I did, then I flipped it so that the grass was at the bottom, dirt on top. That way, the grass will die and won’t interfere with whatever you plant on top. I actually had a few missing pieces of lawn elsewhere, so some was replanted (we’ll see how that goes).

Step 3: Make box

The easiest is to use corner pieces (like wooden sticks you can find at a hardware store – see image below). I hammered the wooden sticks onto the ends of the two longer pieces, then hammered the shorter pieces onto the same sticks. Voila, you’ve got yourself a box!

Step 4: Make bed

Next, I put the box onto the cleared area and pushed it down to secure its place. Then I filled the box about 2/3 with a mix of composted manure and other garden soil, bought at a local gardening centre.

Now my raised garden bed is ready and waiting for the seedlings to be replanted! Stay tuned to see how I planted and farmed my veggies.

>>>Do you have any gardening tips? Please share below

My  “garden” recently consisted of a few countertop potted herbs in my downtown Vancouver apartment. Now that I have moved out into suburbia, I suddenly became the proud owner of a rather neglected piece of backyard. So my new favourite spare time activity: gardening.

As I am a huge believer in living the greenest lifestyle possible,  I am thrilled by the idea of growing my own vegetables and creating a home for bees, bats and butterflies (not all at the same spot of course, that wouldn’t go too well).

In this spring blog series, I will try out a new DIY green gardening project each month and hope to inspire you to do the same. Don’t worry if you don’t have a green thumb or you have two left hands – we’re in the same boat!

Project I – Start a veggie patch

Here on the West Coast, and in most Canadian parts, it’s still too cold to plant outside. But you can start growing your seeds indoors and have them ready for when spring has sprung.

The What:

I picked a few staple vegetables that I wanted to start with and ordered my organic seeds through Westcoast Seeds:

-        Cucumber (CU392A) – can’t beat the original English cucumber

-        Cherry Tomato (TM789A) – I prefer these to their big brother

-        Soy beans (BN158A) –  I love Edamame but many store-bought soy beans are GMO

-        Potatoes (PT600A) – I chose the mix because of the interesting colours!

Note: Westcoast Seeds offers around 300 types of every imaginable vegetable so the numbers of the seeds will be useful

The When:

Once your seeds have arrived, you need to find out when to plant them.

Most seed packages provide seed planting instructions for when to plant and transfer the sprouts outside. This information is also available online though most online seed stores and give further information like when is best for your climate, in my case the wet West Coast.

Cucumber:  Grow indoors 4 weeks before transplanting outdoors into warm soil. Considering it won’t be warm any time soon for West Coasters and many Canadians, those seeds will have to wait a bit longer.

Cherry Tomato: Start indoors mid-March to early April with bottom heat. Then grow seedlings on for 6-8 weeks at around 10°C (50°F). I planted those inside today and will keep them in the garage as my house is a bit warmer than 10°C… shiver…

Soy Beans: Direct sow from late-May to mid-June, once the soil has warmed up. Shelved with the cucumber.

Potatoes: Any time. They are tolerant of cold soil and are a good beginner plant, I hear (but TBD). I planted those outdoors today.

The How:

You need:

- Soil and small bag of potting mix

- A container. These can be pots or just about any washed item you can think of. Find some creative upcycling seed-starter ideas on Pinterest

– A light source such as a nearby a window

– A heat source. Simply setting the container on a warm spot such as the top of a fridge will do

More questions? Here’s a link to a complete step by step seed starting guide.

>>Do you have any DIY gardening or potting tips? Leave your comments below…

Easter is just around the corner and that means Easter-crafting with the family is a definite must! This three-part DIY Easter craft series will show you how to create great crafts using leftover and recycled materials around the house.

Part I: eco-friendly paper plate bunny

Every year, at every birthday party, I am left with mountains of disposable plates. I am a lover of re-using things and not letting anything go to waste so naturally — I save them all.   Easter is one of those lovely times where I get to start making a dent in my crafting plate stash by making the ever popular and super-simple eco-friendly Bunny plates!

What you need:

Paper or disposable plate

White, pink and red scrap paper

Black marker

Scissors

Glue stick

Staples (optional but helps secure the ears better than a glue stick)

What you have to do:

1)    Cut a large triangle from the red scrap paper and glue to the center of the plate.

2)    Cut out large ear shapes from the white paper, and cut a smaller ear shape from the pink paper. Glue the pink on top of the white.

3)    Glue or staple the bunny ears to the top of the plate (Tip: fold one for cute flopsy look)

4)    Get creative and draw on your bunny face with the black marker and voilà!  Paper bunny plate is complete!

Remember to have fun with it! Let the kids go crazy with colours and make silly faces.  Create memories not perfect duplicates or works of art.

Connect with your little ones, smile, laugh and have a really lovely Easter everyone!

About the author:

Eschelle Westwood is the author of Mumfection.com and young mother to two wild and hilarious boys. On her time off you can usually find her up to her elbows in diapers and dishes; but you can also find her on Facebook and Twitter!

When special occasions call for a gift from me, at the last minute, I desperately hunt for a gift that is expensive enough and doesn’t scream “obligation”.

What a contrast…

If a two-year-old can make someone’s day with something as simple as a cutout of her little hand covered in scribbles, using supplies that cost a fraction of a dollar, then clearly, I’ve been missing the whole point of this gift-giving idea.

In an attempt to get better at gifting, I decided to follow the lead from the little one and keep my gifts simple, creative and handmade.

I made a manifesto for handmade giving:

It has been a short two months since I have put this pledge to practice. But the recent shift in my gift-giving ways has already opened my eyes to the benefits of handmade gifting.

Lessons I Learned From Giving Handmade

a) You can do small things with great love: as the artisan of your fabulous gift, $10 can go far; you get to be in complete control of the cost of materials, making the possibilities endless for incredible little handmade projects on a budget. But don’t expect to go to the mall with $10 and come out with a quality gift. A handmade win. Hands down.

b) A special occasion is an opportunity for creativity: when is the last time you made a greeting card? Birthdays, holidays and special occasions are perfect excuses for you to get crafting and infuse creativity into your life.

c) Pleasure from price is short-lived: receiving name brand everything could never compare to the joy of receiving handmade anything. One-of-a-kind. Full of love. Priceless.

d) Give slow, live slow: instead of rushing to the mall at the last minute to get the first shiny thing that catches my eye, I plan ahead to ensure that I have time to make something that I would be proud to give. Handmade gifting is an opportunity to reduce stress and chaos in our fast-paced world.

e) Green gifting is easy: when shopping for supplies for your D.I.Y project, going green is as easy as choosing the eco-friendly materials. Whereas with mass-produced products, consumers have no easy way of knowing whether the production process is ethical or not.

Crafts create a kinder world.
Give love. Give handmade.

 In the comments below, tell us about your favourite handmade gift that you’ve given or received.

 About the author:

Nat Nanton is a mother and writer who blogs at natnanton.com, where she provides tips, tools and resources to kick ass in motherhood and life. If you are committed to living your greatest life, you can subscribe to her blog or connect with her on Twitter or Facebook.

At ethicalDeal, we want to help you make greener choices for everyday living.
If we can fair-trade your next coffee trip, detoxify your cleaning regime or introduce you to some healthy lunch options, we are a few steps closer to achieving our mission of making green mainstream.

Our team has compiled some great tips from industry experts on everything eco-living from cooking tonight’s dinner with local, sustainable foods to planning your next holiday getaway with eco-travel advice.

What company helps you live a healthy green lifestyle? Tell us and we’ll introduce them to the ethicalDeal community. Here’s to green living made easy and fun!

Click to download here

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