Turning off lights when not in use – Mythbusters

The team from the Mythbusters show on the Discovery Channel had a fascinating myth to bust:  is it better to turn off the lights when you leave the room or to keep them on all the time to offset that energy spike that occurs when lights are turned on?  While I had never heard the argument for keeping lights on, I decided to watch the episode to see what would happen.  The team tested a compact fluorescent, halogen, incandescent, LED, fluorescent, and metal halide.

By the end, the team would bust the myth by showing that the energy spike of the bulb that took the longest to start up – the fluorescent – is only equivalent to 23 seconds of standby use.

The lesson?  Turn off the lights when not in use.

Check out the episode here.

<!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } TD P { margin-bottom: 0in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

Bulb Type	Watts per hour when in standby state
CFL	10
Halogen	70
Incandescent	90
LED	1
Flourescent	10
Metal Halide	60

Todd

Organic Vegetable Garden with a Raised Bed – Part 2 of 3

A mini pumpkin!

That's one big watermelon!

Putting together a garden for the first time has been a rewarding experience.  I was proud of the fact that I was able to eat a salad made entirely of vegetables grown in our garden.  It seems to taste better as well.  However, there has been a lot to learn in the process.  As we wait for a watermelon and pumpkin to fall off the vines and wrap up the season, I can say quite comfortably that we still have a lot to learn.  Here are some the lessons we are taking away from this growing season.

Lessons learned

• Cherry tomatoes grow more like a vine than a plant.  They need a stronger and taller trellis than what we gave it as the vines overgrew the top and drooped.  At one point I raised one of the vines and found it to be 6 feet tall when extended vertically.  Next year, we will grow it away from the raised bed as the vines began to take over a portion of the bed.
• The same goes for the other tomatoes.  They outgrew their space and were entangled in the next plants including the sugar snaps.  Not only that, but they blocked access to the bed on one side.
• Oh my gosh!  I can’t believe how far the pumpkins and watermelons stretch out.  One stem of the pumpkin stretched out over 18 feet!  When we removed the sod for the patch of watermelon and pumpkin, we took out a strip 8 feet wide and 3 feet deep. Both of them have vines breaking away from the bed through the grass. As the vines are spiky, they attach to the grass and make moving a big pain. How am I supposed to mow the grass without moving the vines out of the way?  The answer is – leave it.  So, the grass is quite tall in that section of the yard.  There must be a better way.
• I also suspect that growing watermelon and pumpkin in such a close proximity might not be the best idea.  They tend to overlap each other as they stretch out into the lawn.  It is not easy task to try to remove them when they are attached to the grass.
• We need to check the progress every day.  Again, we had trouble with the tomatoes.  By the time we noticed that limbs growing horizontally through the trellis, they were too laden with tomatoes to move them vertically without bending and breaking them.
• One tip I learned during my research:  Don’t water tomato plants from above the plant as they may get blight – a bacteria that causes black spots on the leaves, stems, and tomatoes. Water directly at the base.
• We will look for an alternative to the chicken wire we have around the raised bed to keep the rabbits out.  The taller plants like to attach themselves through and around them.
• I should have seen this issue coming. We have creeping charlie surrounding the bed on 2 sides. Any one know how to get rid of it? I was thinking of mulching an area around the entire bed next year.
• The green bean plants have been attacked by a bug. We believe that it may be a green bean beetle, but haven’t actually seen one to be sure.

I am sure there will be more lessons to learn as the season draws to a close.  Any advice on these subjects is warmly welcome.

Todd

A battle for territory between the watermelon, pumpkin, and grass!

What's going on here?

GreenerPrinter – A Print Shop With No Trash

I was listening to Green Talk Radio’s episode 124 as Sean Daily interviewed Mario Assadi of GreenerPrinter. The company has been in business for over 20 years and is the first green printer company in the U.S., has been certified as a green business by the Association of Bay Area Governments, and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

While the steps they have taken to reduce their impact on the environment have been impressive, I was floored to hear that they had completely eliminated the idea of “trash” from their business! I thought was going well by reducing my trash to a single 13 gallon bag a week. Here is a company that has managed to completely reduce its trash altogether! They do not have garbage pickup service at all.

Some of the other steps they have taken to green their business are as follows:

• Use FSC certified paper
• Offset energy with wind power
• Offset shipping with carbon funding
• Use soy ink or vegetable-based ink
• The moder printer press they have uses 50 gallons of chemical washup a year, while older presses use 55 gallons a month.

Nice work.