Trying to be green.

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Trying to be Greener
The Tucson Gardener had a busy year trying to adapt to raising utilities. With the lack of rain, prior to the summer monsoons, the local wildlife became a major problem. While the coyote population dropped drastically, the rabbits, pocket gophers and pack rats bred incessantly. And the javelina continued to reproduce and make their night time marauding on my porch, ramada, and front yard.

As new homes and business went in, and the traffic increased the coyote population began to dwindle. I miss seeing them on a weekly basis. Now I'm lucky to spot a single coyote once a month.

What that meant was it became very difficult to have a garden, especially a vegetable garden. I finally gave up once the tomato plants were hit with an early blight. I removed all the garden fencing and gave away the over 350 concrete blocks that made up the nine raised beds. It became a summer without home grown tomatoes and basil and a winter without fresh leaf lettuce, bunching onions, chard and radishes. What I lost in fresh produce, I'd save in water and growing supply costs.

Gone, everything is gone: raised beds, compost bins, strawberry tower, and ladder trellises. The greenhouse remains.
A winter crop of lettuce like this will surely be missed.
The greenhouse looks a bit lonely without the raised beds, compost bins and fencing.

In addition, I had the single pane windows and sliding glass doors on my home replaced with more energy efficient double pane. One mistake was the tinting on the windows and doors. The sometime mirror like reflection became an invitation to flying birds. There's seldom a day that there isn't at least one or two thuds against the glass. And there have been more than a few birds that hit hard enough to break their necks.

In another attempt at saving energy and natural resources I decided to get rid of the evaporative cooler when I had a new, higher efficient air conditioning unit installed. Was the highly touted, duel compressor system worth the extra money? Certainly the summer utility bills were 50 to 60 dollars lower than the old unit, but the initial cost was quite a bit higher than a less efficient unit. If electricity costs continue to climb, it might be worth the expense over a 10 year period.

Extra insulation had been added to the attic years ago and a more efficient gas water heater installed. I've cut back on the number of hanging baskets I usually have on display and whittled down the number of potted plants, especially for the summer months, so I don't have to use as much water. I plan to add a gutter system to the roof and direct the runoff where it'll water plants. I need to construct a berm to hold rain water and let it soak into the ground instead of running into the nearby arroyo.

I won't be saving the planet by my attempt at a bit of greening of my home and environment. And I certainly haven't saved any money. Greening your environment can be expensive and it seems there's always something else can be done to save our dwindling natural resources.

One thing I learned from that experience is even if a company has been around a long time, recommended by a friend or relative, and has only one or two complaints against them with the Registrar of Contractors there's no guarantee you will get quality work. The same goes for the supposedly better than average products. I had to have one of the new sliding glass doors replaced three times and one of the windows replaced because it fogged up after a rain storm. The new air-conditioning unit's blower fan had to be replaced within five months. (2007)