What goes on outside your home is almost as important as what you’re doing to green your life indoors. Landscape and garden maintenance can make a big difference on your overall environmental impact depending on how you treat your soil, what you do with water, and whether you’re using your outdoor environment to cultivate spaces that are healthy for you and for local wildlife. But your gardening and landscaping habits also have an impact on your budget. Choosing green gardening and landscaping techniques will preserve your green thumb while also safe-guarding your green bank account.

• Plant just three trees strategically in your yard and you could save between $100 and $250 every year in energy bills. That’s because well-chosen and properly-placed trees will reduce summer air conditioning bills (by up to 50 percent) and cut winter heating bills (by up to 25 percent).
• Plant native species in your garden to cut irrigation, fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicide costs dramatically. Native plants are particularly well-suited to surviving in your local climate with no human intervention!
• Apply mulches in your vegetable garden, on your flower beds, and around trees and shrubs to prevent frost (and plant death), reduce irrigation costs, cut down on weeding requirements (and pesticides/herbicides), and more! Get low-cost mulching ideas at Less Lawn – Mulch for Less Moola.
• Install a rain barrel to collect rainwater and use it for irrigating your garden and lawn. Depending on how dry your climate is and how thirsty your plants are, you stand to easily pay for the barrel investment in no time at all.
• Choose a water-conserving irrigation system, like drip irrigation and soaker hoses, to reduce your water consumption outdoors by as much as 60 percent!
• If you’re charged by the weight or number of garbage bags you produce each week, consider using a mulching lawn mower. Rotting grass clippings—like other organic matter—adds to methane emissions (a greenhouse gas much more powerful than carbon dioxide), and to your waste disposal costs. Leaving the clippings on your lawn adds nutrients and prevent evaporation, too, which means you save on irrigation and fertilizer.
• Grow your own fruits and vegetables so that you can eat organic, locally-grown produce while in season. Growing your own takes a little time, but will save you money, especially when you consider that a single packet of tomato seeds can turn into over $40 worth of fresh, ripe tomatoes! Cut your gardening budget even more by saving your own seeds or participating in a seed exchange.
• Put your egg shells in your compost pile to add calcium and other minerals naturally to your garden.
• Think of the money you’ll save on medical bills by choosing organic gardening! Many of the common chemicals used as pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, and fertilizers are poisonous to you, your family, and your pets. Save yourself the heartache and the cost of a trip to the emergency room by practicing organic gardening methods.
• The average gas-powered lawn mower adds 11 cars-worth of pollution to the atmosphere in just one hour! Riding mowers are worse, putting the equivalent of 34 cars-worth of pollution in the air in the same amount of time. In fact, they represent 5 percent of US air pollution! Get a push mower and you’ll no longer have to deal with gasoline or electric cords. They’re lightweight and easy to use, and will save you big-time in maintenance and operational costs.
• Cut down on the cost and hassle of messy trips to the gas station to get fuel for your gas-powered lawn mower by opting for an electric mower. These will cost you about $5/year in electricity and you can say goodbye to the stink and trial of spilled fuel. Many municipalities have rebates for exchanging gas-guzzlers for electric options.
• Get even more ideas for going green in your garden on a budget by checking out the No-cost gardening blog that challenges you to grow half of your food without a huge financial investment.

Peaches Via Flickr - ellievanhoutte

If you’re an avid gardener with too much of one type of produce at the end of the season—zucchini, potatoes, beets, peas, or lettuce, for instance—you might find this new site a great resource (started four months ago, actually). Veggie Trader is a free online resource that can be used by gardeners and produce seekers to procure local, sustainable fruits and vegetables from those in their own community.

Functioning much like the bargain ads in your local newspaper or Craiglist online, the Veggie Trader allows veggie growers and veggie eaters to sell, purchase, and barter their way to more sustainable meals.

Carrots Via Flickr - Robert Couse-Baker

The system is quite simple. You register to become part of the community and then get started! You can offer to purchase, offer to sell, or offer to trade, and then wait for others to chime in when their supply/demand fits yours.

Need to get rid of some crabapples before they all go bad on your lawn? Log on and offer these up to your neighbors. Want some beets to can for the winter? Sign in and ask the community who’s got the extra produce you’re looking for. It’s free to join and costs nothing to post a listing.

In time, the site hopes to expand its offerings to include other types of food, including dairy and eggs, though those are heavily regulated and will require some additional rules and policies to be in place first.

This new site has the potential to do many great things for the environment: reduce organic waste, cut carbon emissions related to the transportation of produce, encourage local, organic farmers to  sell their wares locally, and foster good green community. So get trading-selling-buying-bartering!

A Drop of WAter - watering can included

Looking for a rain barrel solution that’s both highly useful and attractive to the eyes? Dutch designer Bas Van Der Veer may have just the right solution for you. His new “A Drop of Water” rainwater collector combines form and function into a completely new way of collecting and using “free” rainwater.

“A Drop of Water” is an elegant, stylish solution for anyone wanting to attach a rainbarrel to their home that won’t detract from the exterior appearance.  The system has a watering can built in that fills with water as it rains (overflow goes into the barrel). No more having to store a watering can nearby with this rainwater collection device!

Plus, it comes with a small tap at the bottom of the barrel so when the watering can is empty, the user can just refill it again and go. These can even be installed by apartment-dwellers. And remember: saving water also saves energy. Moving and filtering water throughout your local community requires power. Collecting and using water onsite reduces these energy demands, although won’t likely reduce your own energy bill directly (your water bill will be smaller, however).

These water collectors are made with a coated wooden mold into which is applied a colored epoxy gelcoat to create the outer layer of the barrel. Following the gelcoat, the designers then apply several layers of glassfiber and epoxy resin. The barrel is finished after the epoxy resin is dry—the two halves are glued together with super strong glue. The rough edges are then removed to create a super-smooth outer appearance.

This designer has developed several other innovative garden tools such as the Bioplastic Planter and the Multiculti (planters). He’s even developed a Paper Table and a Shower Flower.

A Drop of Water - rain barrel

A Drop of Water - manufacturing process