8 Ways to Green Your Garden

By Trey Granger

Summer is a great opportunity to spend time in the garden. Sunny days provide nice weather and extra daylight. School is out so you've got extra potential workers. The ground is fertile from springtime rain.

Your garden may seem very green by definition. But here's a few ways to reduce the impact your garden has on the environment as a whole.

1. Plant Within Your Environment

In a perfect world, you could grow cactus in a tundra climate and a lawn of Bermuda grass in the desert. Guess what? Plants don't work that way. Before you start growing something, do some research to see what it needs to survive in your area. Otherwise, you may end up using lots of water and other resources to have “something different” in your backyard.

2. Water in the Mornings

Like it or not, some of the water meant for your plants will evaporate before it reaches the soil. This is compounded on a hot day. Watering in (or setting your sprinkler timer for) the morning can save 50 gallons of water a week.

Other good water saving tips:

• Sweep away leaves with a broom/rake instead of a hose

• Check your sprinkler heads periodically for leaks

• Install a control nozzle on your hose

3. Compost

Soil and fertilizer are expensive, so why not make your own? Take organic waste from your kitchen (fruit/vegetable peels, egg shells) and mix with yard waste (leaves, flowers) and water. The result is compost, which is rich in nutrients and will help your plants grow.

4. Find Second-Hand Supplies

You may not want to buy underwear used, but how about a shovel or wheelbarrow? Look for these items at garage sales and thrift shops before buying a new one. If you do buy new, ask if the products come with a warranty so they will last you a long time.

5. Reuse Your Pots

Plants die, but pots rarely do. Save the pot and soil if one of your plants expires. You can even create your own pots by drilling a hole in old butter containers or flipping over a drum. If a pot breaks, you can usually glue it back together with no loss of quality.

6. Grass-cycle

One of the least fun tasks of mowing the lawn is picking up the scraps. It's actually beneficial to your garden to leave them there. The grass clippings will provide nutrients to the remaining yard as they decompose. Plus, you'll have one less plastic bag to dispose of.

7. Recycle Yard Waste

If you decide that composting isn't for you and you enjoy picking up grass clippings, definitely recycle your yard waste. This material takes longer to decompose in a landfill when buried under a pile of plastic. Plus, if your local community accepts yard waste you may be able to exchange it for compost to use in your garden. Recycle yard waste using Earth 911.

8. Use Natural Pest Management

Pests can wreak havoc on your garden. But you don't need pesticides to keep them away. Pesticides harm all kinds of living things, including humans. Plus, they can be easily transferred into natural bodies of water and our water treatment systems are not designed to remove pesticides.

You can plant natural pest repellants like chrysanthemums and marigolds nearby. Learn other ways to practice integrated pest management.

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Australian crocs hit by cane toad 'wave of death'

A last supper? Freshwater crocodiles have been seen eating the toxic cane toads (Image: Mike Letnic/ University of Sydney)Enlarge

Dead "freshies" are now often seen in and around the Victoria River – this was once an unusual sight (image: Mike Letnic/ University of Sydney)Enlarge

Rachel Nowak

Pit a cane toad against a freshwater crocodile and who wins? Although the croc eats the oversized amphibian, it seems the toad has the final laugh.

Dead freshwater crocodiles in Australia's Northern Territory were once a rare sight. But since 2005, locals have witnessed mass die-offs. Researchers now say the toxic and invasive cane toad (Bufo marinus) is to blame.

Two surveys, in 2005 and 2007, suggested that the mass croc deaths have progressively moved inland from the mouth of Victoria River, at a pace that matches that of the cane toad invasion. The toads secrete a milky-white toxin which is lethal to many predators from glands behind their eyes and on their backs.

Mike Letnic of the University of Sydney and his team say a massive 77% of some populations of freshwater crocodiles – or "freshies" – have died since 2005.

The numbers are particularly worrying, says Letnic, because removing top predators like freshwater crocodiles (Crocodylus johnstoni) can boost the number of their prey and trigger a cascade of ecosystem changes that are difficult to predict.

Pest out of control

Cane toads were introduced to Queensland in northeast Australia in 1935 to combat the cane beetle, a sugar cane pest, and have been steadily marching westward across the continent since.

They are now considered invasive pests in their own right: they have decimated populations of Australian monitor lizards and certain species of snakes.

To try and understand the damage the toads are inflicting, Letnic and his colleagues surveyed crocodiles in four regions of the Victoria River in the Northern Territory.

Crocodile sightings in the Victoria River Gorge region, where the invasion began, dropped from 156 to 49 between 2005 and 2007. The toads moved upriver from the gorge, reaching the Longreach Lagoon region in 2007. There, sightings dropped by 15% compared to 2005.

"We expected this. We first heard reports of dead freshies from helicopter pilots flying over rivers in the Gulf of Carpentaria [east of Victoria River] where cane toad had invaded," says Grahame Webb, director of Wildlife Management International in Darwin.

"It was a disaster waiting to happen. If it had been whales or some species with big brown eyes every one would have been up in arms," he adds.

Wave of death

Proving a causal link between cane toads and crocodile deaths is tricky, in part because crocs rapidly digest amphibians, so traces are rarely found. But Letnic says the "wave of death" has moved upstream with the toads, strongly suggesting the toads are the cause of the dropping crocodile numbers.

Letnic's team is continuing the surveys. They say the freshies and cane toads are often seen in close proximity to each other. This is likely to be all the more true in dryer regions like the semi-arid upper reaches of the Victoria River where the two species are forced to share water holes, says Letnic.

If true, cane toads could pose an even greater threat to native species as they move south into the dry interior of Australia and the need for water brings them into close proximity.

The researchers say in the long term, the high death rate may naturally select for crocodiles that have a higher tolerance to the toad toxin. This has been seen to happen in some blacksnake populations that have also been hit hard by the cane toads.

In the meantime, however, the toxin appears more lethal to younger crocs, suggesting that the reproductive rate of the populations could take a big plunge.

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Personal, green airplanes set to take off

By Elsa Wenzel, CNET news.com

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The idea of personal planes may conjure up dark visions of “Blade Runner,” but the first batch of two-seater aircraft to fly on electricity rather than fossil fuels could reach more than a dozen buyers by year's end.

And if some fans of experimental air travel have their way, that's a step closer to a gridlock-free future when relatively ordinary folks will hop to work in small, carbon-neutral planes.

A cozy crowd of several dozen engineers, venture capitalists, and members of clean-tech companies plotted the potential at the Electric Aircraft Symposium held in April in San Francisco, sponsored by Foundation Capital and held by the CAFE Foundation, a nonprofit aiming to advance personal air travel. CAFE stands for Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency.

The meeting included Ivo Boscarol, CEO of Pipistrel, which by the end of this year is set to deliver the first commercially produced, two-passenger electric aircraft to customers. The Slovenian company's Taurus Electro can climb to 6,000 feet after taking off on a 30-kilowatt motor. Recharging the glider's lithium-polymer battery is meant to take about as long as powering a cell phone. Depending upon the weather and skills of the pilot, the glider can travel 1,000 miles in a day.

"I'm sure that electric power everywhere will be the substitute for internal combustion fuel engines," Boscarol said. "First, you must develop (an) aircraft that needs so little power that electricity is efficient."

The glider weighs little more than 700 pounds and costs $133,000, only about one-third more than the electric Tesla Roadster, a hot toy for billionaires.

Pipistrel's customers include Formula One driver Pedro de la Rosa. But even Google co-founder Larry Page, who attended the forum, might have to wait to purchase the electric Taurus if he were interested. It is in the final stages of test flights and will be manufactured in a limited run this year. And in the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration would prevent people from flying the glider under the same rules as light sport aircraft.

However, FAA rules could change, possibly within the next year. The Experimental Aircraft Association announced recently that it has filed a request for the FAA to change how it classifies electric aircraft. If the group's petition succeeds, the U.S. market could open up for other electric craft on the horizon.

"Changing the way we move through the environment is critical to this planet," Experimental Aircraft Association representative Craig Willan told the crowd. "This is the first step to ensuring not only government compliance but also assistance."

The FAA usually takes about six months to make such decisions, according to agency inspector Matt DeSeelhorst.

Sustainable air travel
Aircraft emissions, including carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and methane, account for up to 3 percent of the world's greenhouse gas pollution, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Although the bulk of that comes from hulking commercial jets, light aircraft continue to use leaded fuel, which the government moved to phase out in passenger cars 35 years ago.

Making air travel more sustainable will be tricky in the United States, where the number of aerospace engineering graduates has plummeted by 57 percent since 1990, said Brien Seeley, CAFE Foundation president.

By contrast, support for light aircraft development is strong in the European Union, which contributed about 20 percent of the $2.3 million that Pipistrel spent creating the Taurus Electro, according to Boscarol.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has supported the development of lightweight, stealth aircraft, but its innovations aren't necessarily reaching the civilian level soon. The federal government yanked its support more than two years ago for NASA's personal aircraft research group.

However, NASA is spending $2 million over five years on contests held by the CAFE Foundation and backed by Boeing Phantom Works. Last August, the inaugural NASA Personal Air Vehicle Centennial Challenge handed out $250,000 in prizes rewarding the efficiency and noise reduction of personal air vehicles. The top place went to the owner of a Pipistrel Virus motorglider.

This year's contest will include its first Green Prize of $50,000 for a craft that achieves at least 100 miles per hour and the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon. Renamed the General Aviation Technology Challenge, the contest will dole out a total of $300,000.

Supporters of such competitions hope they can convince people that air travel could become the greenest form of transportation.

"It will change society, the way we work, the way we live, the way cities grow," said Richard Jones, a technical fellow at Boeing Phantom Works.

The research group is designing a plane-car hybrid to travel up to 300 miles at a time. Jones believes that by 2030, precision navigation systems could make it easier to pilot a compact plane than to drive a car.

"People will probably be reading a newspaper rather than flying the vehicles," he said.

The trick is equipping aircraft with a brain as smart as a seagull's, said NASA aerospace engineer Mark Moore, who headed NASA's now-shuttered personal aircraft research group. And responsive tactile controls, such as steering mechanisms that resist a hand's wrong move, can prevent human error.

Coming closer to that goal is the Garmin G1000 Synthetic Vision System, noted several attendees. Released in April, it enables pilots to view topographic details even in foggy conditions within a Google Earth-like interface.

Hertz Rent-A-Plane?
CAFE Foundation's Seeley displayed a mock-up interface that would draw a virtual pathway in the sky to keep a pilot on track.

"This is how we're gonna get eventually to Hertz Rent-A-Plane," he said.

However, developing batteries and engines light enough for small commuter aircraft remains tricky. Pipistrel is working with the University of Stuttgart in Germany to design hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered aircraft, as is Lange Aviation with the German Aerospace Centre, but results remain distant.

Others are working to improve upon readily available lithium-ion batteries. Yi Cui, a Stanford assistant professor of engineering, is exploring the use of nanowires as battery electrodes to pack more power into a smaller package. Unpublished results from lab tests have been promising, said Cui, who hopes to commercialize the technology within the next five years.

The secretive EEstor, also working to improve energy density in batteries, presented at last year's Electric Aircraft Symposium. In January, Lockheed Martin announced plans to buy EEstor's ultracapacitors, which reportedly weigh one-tenth less than lead-acid batteries but hold 10 times more energy.

Self-funded start-up Windward Performance of Bend, Ore., is working to build a light aircraft that would fly on a battery at 15 kilowatts per hour for about $1.50 per charge.

"This would be a completely off-the-grid and off-oil passenger plane," said creator Greg Cole, who hopes to raise $2 million. His redesign of the Sparrowhawk sailplane is known as the first with wings and fuselage made of all carbon composite materials.

Hybrid airplanes that blend electric and biofuel engines could be the bridge to off-grid, oil-free air travel, according to some proponents of personal, "green" air travel.

Engineer Greg Stevenson displayed a two-cycle diesel engine that weighs 18 pounds and can run on biofuels. "It's as omnivorous as it's gonna get," he said.

At a fraction of the 200-pound weight typical of commercial diesel engines, that type of innovation might help pave the way for powering hybrid, lightweight biofuel/electric aircraft.

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