When everyone moves to Taos, they want to buy an old adobe home on an acre of irrigated land. I was no different. I searched for a house for three years. Some homes were perfect, but just out of my price range, some transactions fell through, and the perfect three-acre piece of land needed an expensive 1/4 mile long driveway through a swamp.

I stumbled across my current home in the newspaper in December 1998. It was nothing what I was looking for – 1800 sq ft of frame ranch on .87 acres of sagebrush – but it had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a studio space and incredible mountain views. The biggest selling points, though, were the two covered porches (north and south) and the established flower gardens, strawberry patch and apple tree. It was in my price range, and the transaction did not fall through, so it was mine in January of 1999.

Do you remember my advice from last week? Don’t move in until the work is done! I hadn’t forgotten, so I shelled out one more months’ rent and upgraded my new home from afar.

I painted the walls with BioShield natural paint. I bought five gallon buckets of white and tinted them. The price was comparable to five gallons of toxic paint, so money could not keep me from creating a healthy home. I replaced the dark brown, cat-smelly carpet in the living room and bedroom with an oak Upofloor brand floating floor with a non-toxic finish.

While the contractors and I beautified my new digs, I watched the winter sun.

My observations showed that the winter sun drenched windowless walls. I was so in love with the porches, gardens and views that I hadn’t noticed! Common to Taos, picture windows face north and northeast to the mountain views. Very beautiful, but very cold! I knew then that my next project would be installing windows on the sunny side.

The house was oriented SE to SW, with the sunny side facing southwest. In a perfect solar world, a home should have an east-west orientation with the long wall facing south. This collects the most sun for maximum heat collection. You can have a variation of 15 degrees from true south, but up to 45 is acceptable. My orientation was ‘acceptable.’

That summer, I found a local warehouse of hundreds of wood windows recycled from a company that had gone out of business. I had measured my interior walls for available space and chose windows as close to the maximum size as possible.

In early October, just in time for winter, my new southwest facing windows were installed! While we had the walls open, we beefed up the insulation where it was thinning and sagging.

Over the following winter, I continued to watch the sun bathe the house inside and out.

The huge room my daughters shared was a two-car garage now enclosed in a previous remodel. The sunny side was mostly blank wall with two narrow windows across the top. I hired a builder friend to put in a glass door, and a large window on one side and a trombe wall on the other side.

A trombe wall is a window installed over a wall of thermal mass (concrete, adobe, water). Vents into the house are placed at top and bottom. As the sun heats the wall, warm air moves into the house through the top vent, and cooler air replaces it to be heated and moved back inside via convection currents.It is an effective way to use solar energy without having the sun directly in the house, if you don’t want to place a window to unwanted views, or if you want privacy.

The large window materialized, and the trombe wall did not (long, irrelevant story), but the solar energy I did harvest warmed the room during the day. It also hit the concrete slab and radiated a bit at night. This was not high-tech, but it served its purpose to cut the daytime heating down for that dark room.

Meanwhile, I observed the sun for several years. Plans for a major remodel percolated slowly and deliciously like fine coffee, and my restless, latent architect went to work with pencil, eraser and graph paper.

(Click for more information on trombe walls, Bioshield paint and Upofloor.)

As you gear up for the harvest season, you are no doubt getting excited to taste the fruits of your labor, especially if you are new to organic gardening. But you need to start thinking about what you are going to do with all that produce. It just isn’t feasible to plan on eating it all the first week, and letting it all go to waste is a waste of your time. You need to start thinking about preservation. Knowing how to make your fruits and vegetables last is a crucial skill for any home gardener.

But where to start? Well, you have quite a few options and many gardeners find ways to make their harvest last throughout the year.

One of the simplest ways to stretch out your harvest is to know how long you can wait to harvest particular crops. Root vegetables are really resistant to a frost and some can be left in the ground all the way to the following spring and dug up as they are needed. Some, such as carrots, brussel sprouts, and cabbage, will even taste better after some exposure to the colder weather.

This is referred to as wintering over, and it is very location specific. In particularly cold climates where freezing occurs in the winter, you can apply thick layers of mulch to keep the crops from being damaged. Usually seed packets give some idea of when it is best to harvest, but by talking to more experienced organic gardeners in your area you can get a better idea about what is realistic for your climate.

Freezing is a great, simple method of preservation that takes very little know-how. Bag up fruits and berries and you can blend them with organic juices later to make delicious smoothies without the ice. Better for you and better tasting. Keep in mind what you will be doing with the items later. You might want to chop up bulkier vegetables and fruits first depending on what you need them for. Bigger fruits, for instance, are a lot easier to blend later if you chop them into smaller pieces.

Also, a lot of vegetables will need to undergo a quick process called blanching before you throw them in the freezer. Blanching is a cooking technique in which you scald the vegetables in a pot of boiling water and then put it in cold water immediately after. This stops the production of enzymes which might otherwise cause the produce to continue growing and develop a strange taste in the freezer. The National Center for Home Food Preservation has a list of blanching times for different vegetables of different sizes.

Canning is perhaps the most well known method of preservation, but many amateur gardeners are overwhelmed by what they see as a very complicated process. It really is not too complex, and people have been doing this for years so it is easy to find information.

Canned produce can last for years. This is particularly a great idea for prepared products, such as pasta sauces or jams. It is nice to just grab a jar of sauce out of the pantry when you want to make some dinner rather than running to the store or preparing something from scratch. The HomeCanning.com offers some great advice for getting started. (homecanning.com)

Drying, or dehydration, is another well known form of preservation that works especially well for herbs and fruits. Dried fruits make an excellent snack. The process of dehydration, whether using a fancy dehydrating machine or more traditional methods, removes the moisture from fruits and vegetables so bacteria can?t grow and cause the produce to spoil. It is usually best to use special recipes on the fruits to preserve a more high quality product and add more flavor. Click here for a simple guide to drying and dehydrating foods.

Another effective preservation tool is a root cellar. These have been used for a long time as well, and you don?t necessarily have to have a big elaborate cellar built for the purpose. You just need to create a similar environment with high humidity and very cool temperatures. Earth-House.com has a great list of resources about root cellaring.

We all know fruits and veggies are best when you pluck them straight from the vine and dice them up, but unfortunately we have no say about what is in season and when. So make the most of your harvest. Stretch it out and turn it into the resource it is supposed to be. The information is out there, you just have to put in a little effort and put it all to use.

My first home purchase in 1985 was a summer ‘camp.’ A retired couple from Florida spent their summers in Lee, NH on a wooded acre on the Lamprey River. Their camp was a 22′ travel trailer with a 12′x18′ living room added onto the south side. They were tired of traveling back and forth, and decided to settle in Florida year-round, so they sold, and I bought, their camp.

We finalized our transaction in early October, and I desperately and quickly needed to winterize it. This was my first experience with remodeling, but I got to put into play some of the carpentry I had learned the year before.

I hired a carpenter friend to take care of the rotting roof decking and build a frame for insulation on the north side of the trailer. Then I hired a less expensive high school kid to help me insulate the frameand crawl underneath to insulate the floor, tacking chicken wire over it to hold it in place. Now I was ready for winter, but I knew I was not going to live in this summer set-up forever.

While I was working on the roof, I caught the view of the lazy Lamprey River. I decided I’d have to build a second story on my dream home to catch the view. Just then I realized an unseen bonus of the property. The river was to the south, so I had solar orientation and views! Not many people can say that!

Over the winter, I watched the sun carefully. I charted its course through my living room windows, and as naturally as your heart beats, I designed a passive solar home.

I tried various floor plans, but came back to the same design over and over, because the principles of solar energy do not change. The winter weather patterns of northern New England do not change, either, unfortunately. I caught the most sun and retained the most heat with large south facing windows, small east and west windows, and a fairly closed in north wall. I took advantage of the cooling breezes off the river by placing casement windows opening south in east and west walls, and adding north and south doors to move that cool air through the house.

When I felt I had a good design, I talked to several contractors and finally hired a man who trained at The Shelter Institute in Bath, Maine. We built a post and beam house of native materials. It was super insulated with double framing and Tyvek, but today, Shelter uses SIPs (Structural Insulated Panels, ‘a high performance panelized building system. SIPs create an extremely well insulated and air tight building envelope. An efficient building envelope is a critical component in an effectively integrated green building.’)

We started in September, and in January, it was complete enough to move in (advice: don’t ever move into a home before it’s done!). It was well-insulated and sported top-notch double pane windows, and my first impression was, ‘There’s no air in here! It’s too tight!’ I’d achieved my goal of not letting heat get out, but fresh air could not get in, either. Since then, I have learned about air exchangers, and this was the perfect situation for one. More about that later.

The following winter, I took a road trip out west. As I was driving across southern California and Arizona, I was amazed and thrilled with the endless sun! The idealist in me wondered why there were no solar power plants. This was unheard of back then (1987) unlike talk of it today. Just as that question crossed my mind, I came upon the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station fifty miles west of Phoenix on I-10. In my naivete, I was appalled and angered.?

I was determined to solarize the world!

Fast forward to 1999, and I was raising two girls in Taos in a rambling 1964 ranch house.

(Click for more info on The Shelter Institute and SIPs)

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Before you dismiss this article and insist there is no way you could live without your vehicle, hear me out. I was back in America holding down a job, running a business, and excelling at the university when I sold my truck to use a bicycle for transport. It was the best decision I ever made. There are a lot of reasons getting rid of your car is an awesome lifestyle choice. Even where I lived at the time, where nowhere worth going is less than a fifteen minute drive and the city transport system begs for an upgrade, I immediately saw improvements in my quality of life.

Here are some reasons why ditching the automobile is a good decision:

Your Social Life – Without a car, you now have to depend on others more often. Depending on other people for rides makes you associate with others more often. Your socials skills get better and you end up getting invited to a lot more social events.

Even if you’re walking, riding a bike, or taking the bus, you are forced to talk to people more. I often got off the bus and before my bike ride home I’d pop in to see a friend who lived nearby or stop at my favorite brewery for a quick beer and some hot wings. On the bus, I found myself talking and associating with amazing people I never would have met sitting in my air-conditioned truck with the windows rolled up.

This constant companionship is great for your health – humans need this kind of social interaction. As with anything, a balance is good, and being around people so often can be a test in patience, but patience is a skill many people need to cultivate.

Good for your Health – Possibly the most obvious of benefits to not having a car are to your health. Being forced to walk or ride a bike gets you outside in the fresh air and all that pedaling is great exercise. You will soon find there is no need for going to the gym.

Good for your mind – Using the older forms of transportation slows you down. You get a completely different sense of time and place. You see the world in differently. You see the plight of people less fortunate than you and develop a new sense of how your community functions – what it would be like without it. Moving along in a fast-paced world at a slower pace gives you a perspective you would not otherwise have.

Good for your Spirit - Now that you have put new challenges upon yourself, you have to rise and meet them. As you pedal everywhere you go or sometimes struggle to juggle a ride, you find you often earn every small step of your life. This may not seem attractive to some, but it is great for the human spirit.

When I would get back from an exhausting day of school or get off work at two o’ clock in the morning and face the uphill ride home in the rain, I would sometimes doubt my decision, but as soon as I walked in the door to my house I felt a sense of triumph, accented by the fact that I was finally living in line with my beliefs. Which brings up the last point?

Good for Your Soul – Not having a car is better for the environment, of course, and you are participating in the act of change. People around you will see the changes in your life. Some may resist those changes, but others will admire you and eventually follow suit. Living out your principles gives you a sense of purpose.

Adjusting to a car-free lifestyle is not an easy process, but for those who live in cities, this kind of living can even be easier than the former option. With a new emphasis on sustainable city planning, we will see more and more cities and towns built around the idea that living without wheels is a healthier choice.

In my own experience, giving up the my limiting vehicle and all the chains that came with it gave me the freedom and courage to throw some of my things into a backpack, move out of my home, and take off to see the world. Not everyone’s decision will lead to such a drastic change, but I assure you, with a little patience, a little effort, and a little lateral thinking, a car-free lifestyle will change your life. For the better.

After graduating from UNH, I worked on a couple of vegetable farms and a u-pick fruit farm and did some landscaping. What I really wanted to do, though, was build solar greenhouses. I called a local company that retrofitted them onto existing homes. The owner was excited about my enthusiasm. Remember, this was the early 80s, solar was not an everyday word yet, and not many women were carpenters.

In our initial phone call, he asked if I had any carpentry experience, or if I at least knew the terminology. Although I’d wanted to be an architect my whole life, I didn’t have the knowledge he needed. He suggested I work in a cabinet shop for six months to a year to learn carpentry basics. He recommended a shop to me, where I got a job right away. I was excited to get started on this new path!

I built cabinet doors for several months. I played with pine, oak, cherry, maple and birch studying their grains and the differences in how they looked and felt, how each acted with a saw and a sander, and how each responded to stain and varnish. It was quite an education, and I loved it!

I spent a lot of my day sanding those beautiful raw woods. The orbital sander was my pal. I came home covered in and throughout with sawdust every night. It was exhausting, physical work, and the conditions were far from ideal, but I never lost sight of my plan to build solar greenhouses.

After six months of radial arm saws, table saws, circular saws and joiners, the lesson I learned was that I didn’t like power tools. The orbital sander remained my friend, but the rest were bigger and scarier than me.?

There went my carpentry career!

When I left the cabinet shop, I took my newly acquired knowledge of building, terminology and woods along with the few hand tools I had to buy. Little did I know the following year would bring me my first energy efficient remodel.

Green industries are changing faster than ever, and with change comes a vast array of new technologies. We need experts who know who understand the bigger picture and how to incorporate these new technologies into our lives. For you aspiring college students considering majors, you’re facing one of the biggest decisions of your life. Green is the way to go. Here are some emerging fields of study revolutionizing the way we live:

Sustainable City Planning – The future requires innovative city planners who know how to can organize our lives to live with the environment rather than against it. What may have once come across as a drab field has now become very exciting as concepts we have never even considered are being factored into planning out living spaces. Portland State University, located in the only U.S. City qualified as in the world’s stop ten sustainable cities, offers a minor.

For those with long-range goals, you can get a Master of Science in Sustainable Urban Design at Lund University in Switzerland.

Human Ecology – A one of a kind university with a unique approach, The College of the Atlantic in Maine has only one degree – Human Ecology. Students are free to focus on resource areas, designing their own degree from a wide spectrum of disciplines, but the main focus is how humans interact with natural ecology. This has been dubbed as the greenest college on Earth.

Environmental Law – Radical new paradigms shifts require new laws, regulations, and civic responsibilities. Smart lawyers need to bring big corporations who think only of profit to justice. The Vermont Law School offers one of the best programs available.

Conservation Biology – Learning to live better with the land requires a deeper understanding of how the environment functions. We need to conserve what we have not already destroyed for generations to come. The University of Minnesota offers an in-depth graduate program for those with ambitious goals.

Green MBA Program – Entrepreneurs have finally come to the realization that not only can making money and saving the world mix, but economics is one of the most powerful motivators of social change. If you want to mix your entrepreneurial spirit with your social responsibility, check out the green MBA program at the University of California, Berkeley: Haas School of Business.

Energy and Environmental Engineering – Obviously, energy development is a huge field as well and sharp scientific brains are needed to unlock Nature’s mysteries. Opportunities abound in solar, wind, hydro, biofuels, and many more emerging technologies especially at programs offered by Illinois State University and Texas Tech University Wind Science and Engineering Research Center.

Sustainable Architecture – One of the most vital ways we can change our environmental impact is by rethinking the way we build our homes. Creative new innovations implement new techniques based on biomimicry and other concepts to achieve in our homes what Nature often already does perfectly.

Arizona State University School of Architecture

Sustainable Agriculture – Our agricultural systems are wasteful, inefficient, and take a big toll on the water and land. This field alone raises very challenging questions about the way we live. Warren Wilson College in North Carolina with offers hands-on training in a 300 acre farm and a 600 acre forest for hands on learning.

This list is far from complete in terms of both available degrees and universities offering them, but it is a good start to get you thinking. Be at the forefront of change. Make your living doing what?s right. For perhaps the first time in America?s history, that is where the money will be.

At the University of New Hampshire, my Soils Science teacher, Art LeClair, turned me on to solar energy. He was my favorite teacher – enthusiastic, intelligent, knowledgeable, experimental, fun and funny. I naturally absorbed what he conveyed.

On a winter field trip, our Soils class visited Solar Survival in Harrisville, NH. This was the home and lab of Leandre and Gretchen Poisson, authors of ‘Solar Gardening: Growing Vegetables Year-Round the American Intensive Way.’ They grew food all winter in frigid, frozen, snowed-in northern New England using solar pods, which they developed.

A solar pod is a 4′x8′ cold frame surrounded on the outside with rigid foam insulation and buried partially in the ground. The lid is not a piece of glass or an old window, like a typical cold frame. It is an arch of two layers of KalwallR greenhouse glazing with Angel Hair, a fine and translucent, yet heavy duty, insulation, sandwiched in between.

The thermal mass inside the pod is a black 55-gallon drum filled with water and laid on its side at the north end. During the day, the water absorbs the sun’s heat and slowly radiates it back out over night.

This photo is a series of pods lined up end to end. You can see the drum laying on its side at the far end of the front pod.

The translucence of the insulation is key. It must transmit enough solar energy in low-light winter for healthy plant growth and to warm the water in the drum to a high enough temperature that it can radiate heat on a cold New Hampshire night.

My friend, Hugh, and I partnered up in lab to build a solar pod. We didn’t get to grow anything in it, but witnessing that process at Solar Survival was proof enough that it worked. After that field trip and construction project, I was completely sold on solar energy!

Art shared another source of information with us, a book by Rick Fisher and Bill Yanda of Zomeworks in Santa Fe, New Mexico, called ‘The Food and Heat Producing Solar Greenhouse.’ It was published in 1980 and already out of print the following year. Solar hadn’t caught on yet, so I guess it was not deemed an important book. I tracked down a copy, though (remember, this was way before Amazon and used books!), and studied it as though I was having an exam on it. I now have a dog-eared copy, which I repeatedly refer to, because, like I said last week, solar principles never change.

After that semester at UNH, my love for solar construction and New Mexico was burgeoning.

(Glazing and insulation materials to build Poisson’s solar pod and solar cones are available from Solar Components, www.solar-components.com/sun.html)

University students don’t necessarily have the discretionary income to back their political and ideological views with buying power; however, what they lack in funds they make up in passion. America’s schools have long been the leaders of revolutionary social thought, which in the long run often leads to top-level policy changes.

Maybe you’re off to college this coming fall, and you want to start living in line with your beliefs. You no longer live with Mom and Dad, and you’re ready to make your own decisions about what equals a responsible life.

Here are five ways you can make your entrance into college life a green one.

1. Live on campus – Even if you have the choice to live off campus, do yourself a favor and opt for the dorms. Living at the college is appealing to students for many reasons. It is great for jumpstarting your social life, makes it easier to get to school in the morning, and keeps you up on your work because of constant submersion in a learning environment.

Did it occur to you it is easier on the Earth as well? Living walking distance from class, the library, the cafeteria, the gym, and all your new friends means less unnecessary driving around. Many universities are small cities in themselves.

2. Get rid of the car! – Get creative about transportation. It is better for the environment and likely better for you. Many of the best university towns are the most bicyclable in the nation – Santa Cruz, CA and Eugene, Oregon spring to mind on the West Coast.

Riding a bike keeps you in shape and gets you out into the real world.

Walking, the world’s oldest means of transport, is also great for your health. You will be surprised how many miles you log just walking about your day. I know winter is coming, but a good hard pedal or brisk walking pace will keep you nice and warm.

No matter how far you need to go, there are options. Many university towns have fantastic transportation systems to fill the needs of a student demographic. Riding along with your friends when going to more secluded places is more fun than driving alone, in my experience. A combination of transportation solutions makes a car completely unnecessary.

For more about the health benefits of active transport, click here for information from the NIH.

3. Stay active – I know you want to be in shape to look your best when you?re out on the town, but the truth of the matter is spending all that time on a tread mill is a waste of energy. But you’ve been riding your bike and walking to class, haven’t you? Active transport alone will do wonders for your figure, but you can do more to stay in shape by playing amateur sports, lifting weights, or running on the track. There was a time when staying fit wasn’t so much like being a hamster on a wheel. Bring back the old school with hands-on physical activity.

4. Plan for the Future – Some of the hottest fields of study today are in greener industries. Make no mistake, the world is changing and changing fast. Students who see the opportunity are diving in and getting the know-how in order to be better equipped for the jobs of the future.

Not a tech guy or gal? No problem! Your options are only as limited as your thinking. Career opportunities abound in environmental business, environmental ethics, government policy, and advocacy. With a green future looming ahead, there is room for forward thought in nearly every industry. Click here (link to the green tech majors article, which is coming soon) to learn more about the opportunities available.

5. Get Involved – The beginning of the semester is the best time of year to launch your brain-child club that organization your school needs to come along and start pushing for new policies. Why not start a club focused on solutions? How about organic food options in the cafeteria? A university garden?

Petition to start your new club as soon as possible. These are issues people care about and a lot of new students are eager to meet like-minded people to form those lifelong friendships.

College is a new beginning. The paths before a young adult entering the real world offer limitless choices, and it is time to start thinking about the mark you want to leave on the planet. Make the right choices. Take control of your future and inspire others to do the same.

Greetings to all you energy conscious, eco-minded folks! I hope you are ready to read about solar energy and green building! I’d like to start with a little background, though, so you can see:

• Solar has been around for a long time.
• Energy efficiency is not trendy.
• I’m a credible source.

Solar energy is not new. It has been around for as long as the sun! Did you ever notice that the cliff dwellings of indigenous peoples, such as the Anasazi, face south? Over a thousand years ago, people understood the power of the sun. They built their dwellings facing south to capture the sun’s winter warmth. The rocks absorbed the heat and released it slowly after dark. Cliff dwellings were also built under overhangs to shade out the high summer sun.

The principles of solar energy have not changed in thousands of years, and we use them in building today. As energy prices remain unstable, passive solar and other energy efficient building methods are becoming more important. Many communities, such as Taos, New Mexico, where I live, are putting energy efficient requirements into their building codes.

We must incorporate more renewable energy, because fossil fuels are finite. They will not be here forever to heat and cool our homes, and as they get depleted, prices will rise. We cannot create more oil, natural gas and coal, but the sun, wind and water will always be available.

Fossil fuels also cause political struggle, greed and other negative energies. No one needs to die in the battle for fossil fuels when the sun, wind and water can supply our energy needs.

Your home is the first place to begin saving energy. According to the EPA, buildings in the US account for:

• 39 percent of total energy use
• 12 percent of the total water consumption
• 68 percent of total electricity consumption
• 38 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions

It is clear that saving energy in your home will have a positive impact on the planet and your wallet. An energy efficient home is also a buffer against fuel price increases.

Energy efficient homes are my passion. I have wanted to be an architect since I was about six years old. I played with Legos more often than Barbie dolls. My passion for homes, solar energy and all things eco drove me to become an EcoBrokerR, a RealtorR specializing in green homes.

I’ve been attracted to the sun since my Lego days, too. Maybe I was an Anasazi in a previous life. Or maybe the large sunny window in my childhood room had an effect on me. My mom turned my room into a greenhouse after I grew up and moved out. Whenever I came home, I slept with geraniums and orchids without complaint.

I was always outdoors, too, running in the woods, catching frogs in the brook, or marveling at pansy faces and the multicolor sheen of Japanese beetles. I knew at a young age I was part of the natural world.

At 25, I got a grounds-keeping job at a large summer resort. I was in my element, working with plants and being outside every day. This was my first experience with a greenhouse, though.

The Wentworth by the Sea in Newcastle, NH had a greenhouse where we started from seed all the plants for the hundreds of lavish flower gardens. We mixed our own potting soils, transplanted seedlings into the ground, mulched, weeded, watered, fertilized, cleaned up in fall and spread composted manure on the beds in November. After eight heavenly months at the Wentworth, I wanted to study horticulture. I enrolled at the University of New Hampshire’s Thompson School of Applied Science for the fall of 1980.

There my solar studies began.

It is common knowledge that a dog makes not only a great pet but a great contribution to your overall mental and emotional well-being. But could plants have the power to do the same? The truth is, plants play many roles in the natural environment, and by removing them from our homes we deprive ourselves. Not only do plants contribute to our lives in the ways already mentioned, but they are key in maintaining the healthy environment of any home.

Plants have always been used to create a relaxing, beautiful environment, and humans seem to have a natural connection with them, which makes sense as they were once a dominant part of our world before we built our own world. Big businesses purposefully use them to keep workers at work and working harder as well as draw in customers.

It is best to get an indoor environment as close to an outdoor environment as possible. Having plants well-positioned throughout the living quarters has long been known to reduce stress and greatly improve indoor aesthetics. Various studies reveal that working with plants, whether in the home or in the garden, is one of the best things for you physical and mental health, and even being around plants in a sedentary state helps you to relax.

But our veggie friends don’t stop there. Though great for improving your state, plants also greatly improve the quality of indoor air. NASA has proven plants are natural cleaning machines, using complicated natural processes to clean the earth?s water, soil, and air by culturing microbes which biodegradable molds and mildew. When they are placed in an indoor environment they even learn to biodegrade many of the toxic chemicals often found inside human structures.

Experts suggest trying to have 2 or more 14-16 inch containers per every 100 square feet of living space, but the more the merrier. To further back up the recommendation, ouses with plants have been shown to have more than 50 percent less bacteria and mold than houses barren of organic life, regardless of humidity levels. And their transpiration processes adjust humidity levels by letting off or taking in moisture. In the winter, when humidity is often low, we can be more likely to get colds and viruses because our respiratory systems dry out, but plants maintain a proper balance.

Thus, while most people are afraid to go near houseplants when they have allergies, it may actually be a great idea. Just be sure to not over-water or leave wet carpet to mold if you have issues with allergies. Using soiless gardening methods is another way to reduce harmful microbe exposure.

Using better building materials eliminates many toxins before they ever make it into the air, but plants will clean it up and keep it fresh indoors. For all the benefits our carbon friends bring to our home, it is safe to say they can do as much for our well-being as owning a dog. So before you lock yourself in the house to wait out the cold season, make sure you lock a bit of the outdoors up with you.

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