The Environmental Cost of Cardboard Boxes and Smarter Alternatives for Modern Moves

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The Environmental Cost of Cardboard Boxes and Smarter Alternatives for Modern Moves

Moving has an effect on your environmental footprint. You have to recycle, compost, and even bring your own bags to the store. Cardboard boxes are very commonly used for moving, storage, and packing. However, they rarely get use beyond this, and often end up being thrown away. While cardboard boxes look eco-friendly on the surface, their backstory is much more complicated and wasteful than most people realize. Keep reading to learn more about the environmental impacts of cardboard boxes and some eco-friendly alternatives.

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What Actually Helps Chronic Back Pain in Everyday Life

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What Actually Helps Chronic Back Pain in Everyday Life

If you’ve ever had persistent lower back pain that made it difficult to go through your day-to-day routine, you already know that chronic back pain is not just an occasional inconvenience, it’s something that reshapes how you move, work, and live.

Read on for some evidence-aligned, everyday strategies that will help reduce pain and improve function for a healthier back and less pain.

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Why Ordering Flowers from a Local Florist Actually Matters

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Why Ordering Flowers from a Local Florist Actually Matters

Flowers are one of the most universal ways we mark life’s moments. We send them to celebrate, to comfort, to apologize, to say “I’m thinking of you” when words don’t quite fit. Because flowers are so familiar, it’s easy to overlook what happens behind the scenes: where they come from, how they’re handled, and what impact our choices have beyond the bouquet itself.

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How to Start an Edible Food Garden: A Beginner’s Guide to Growing Food at Home

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How to Start an Edible Food Garden: A Beginner’s Guide to Growing Food at Home

I remember the first time I grew my own food garden. It was 1999 and I was living in the Pacific Northwest. My food garden was limited to cabbage in a small raised bed, and that first try was disappointing: I barely grew anything, and the cabbage that did grow didn’t exactly look appetizing (plus, I don’t know what I was thinking by planting a crop I hardly ever ate). Plus, I was trying to finish my Ph.D dissertation, so I was feeling stressed out and overwhelmed most of the time. I was determined to do better. After all, as a child I had spent summers on a farm in…

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Slow Gardens for a Fast World

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Slow Gardens for a Fast World

The pace of modern life rarely leaves much room for stillness. Days are measured in notifications, schedules and productivity, with little space left for quiet observation. Yet step into a garden and time begins to behave differently. Growth cannot be rushed. Light changes gradually. Seasons insist on being noticed. A garden asks us to slow down, whether we intend to or not.

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Decluttering Your Garden Supplies: What to Keep, Toss, or Repurpose

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Decluttering Your Garden Supplies: What to Keep, Toss, or Repurpose

If your shed, garage, or garden corner feels more chaotic than calming, don’t feel bad — it’s more common than not! Garden supplies have a way of multiplying over time: half-used bags of soil amendments, duplicate hand tools, cracked pots, and mystery containers whose labels faded years ago. Reassessing and where necessary, purging your garden supplies is not just about tidiness. It can save you money, protect pollinators and soil health, and make gardening feel lighter and more enjoyable.

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How to Start an Edible Garden Without Feeling Overwhelmed

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How to Start an Edible Garden Without Feeling Overwhelmed

Starting an edible garden can feel exciting and overwhelming at the same time. You might be drawn to the idea of growing your own food, but unsure where to begin, what to plant, or whether you can really make it work with the space, time, and energy you have right now. If that sounds familiar, you are not alone.

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Grow Lights for Beginners: How to Choose the Right Grow Lights for Plants Indoors

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Grow Lights for Beginners: How to Choose the Right Grow Lights for Plants Indoors

Growing edible plants indoors opens up a world of possibilities. You can start seeds earlier, grow leafy greens year-round, and keep houseplants healthy even during the darkest months of winter. But if you are new to indoor growing, you may be wondering about one of the most frequent questions that arises with indoor growing setups:

Do I really need grow lights for my plants, and if so, how do I choose one?

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Composting During Winter (Including Bokashi Bins)

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Composting During Winter (Including Bokashi Bins)

Our household only started composting in earnest about a year ago, with the addition of a Bokashi bin to our kitchen (more on that later). Until then, we mainly composted coffee grounds and eggshells, which I added to the garden beds in three seasons of the year. In winter, I stored eggshells I had dried out in the oven beforehand, and dumped coffee grounds in the soil underneath my rose and blueberry bushes. To be honest, I had often wondered what it would mean to compost all of our food scraps, and how I would manage to keep it up in the coldest months of the year. The Bokashi bin has enabled me to compost year-round and more comprehensively, but it’s not the only way you can continue to repurpose food scraps all year long.

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How to Save Energy at Home This Winter (Room-by-Room Guide)

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How to Save Energy at Home This Winter (Room-by-Room Guide)

With persistent inflation raising the cost of electricity in the US and winter being the season when rates normally go up, I resolved to keep my energy costs as low as possible this year. Investing in new windows was out, since I needed to purchase a whole new HVAC system to replace my 20-year old one. This meant that I had to spend hours plugging leaks around my home and insulating wherever possible. So far, my energy costs are stable, but the coming months of near-constant below-freezing temperatures will be the real test.

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Eco-Friendly Living at Home on a Realistic Budget

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Eco-Friendly Living at Home on a Realistic Budget

It was not long after graduating from college in New York and moving to the Pacific Northwest that I became more aware of the concept of eco-friendly living. That term wasn’t in vogue, but all around me, people talked about living with less consumption, less waste, and more conscientiousness about what we were doing to the environment, both in our local communities and globally.

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