Normal Green: Greening Your Fall

It finally feels like Fall around these parts (of the Northern Hemisphere), and if where you live is anywhere like where I live, you are dealing with fallen leaves. Tons of dry, crisp (or in my case: soggy, rain-soaked), covering-your-entire-lawn-and-driveway, brown, dead leaves.

You could reach for your gas-powered blower and garbage bags to help keep Mother Nature's mess at bay, or you could take the greener route.

Put down the pollutants in favor of your grandpa's tools: a rake and push-broom. DIY or enlist help from family and friends to make the task of gathering the leaves easier. Then, instead of disposing them in plastic garbage bags, compost them or find out where they can be composted in your community. If you must bag, use environmentally-friendly biodegradable trash bags, but before you bag up those piles of leaves, don't forget to take a moment to jump around in them. But not too much lest you have to bust out the rake again.

And speaking of gardening, now is the time to turn off (or adjust) your sprinklers to account for the wetter, snowier weather. You may also want to consider ditching the electric or gas-powered mower for one powered by your own blood, sweat and tears. Emphasis on the tears? Perhaps, but the earth will thank you for it.

Now that Halloween has come and gone, we turn our focus to Thanksgiving and all that goes with it. However you feel about how the holiday came to be and how the way we celebrate is a far cry from how the original meal may have been shared, Thanksgiving is a time for giving thanks. This Thanksgiving, strive for a greener, more sustainable holiday. Decorations can be some of those aforementioned leaves strewn about the table, small pumpkins and squashes that you'll cook and eat later, or sprigs of herbs from your garden.

Treehugger.com reminds us that at Thanksgiving, we might want to think about the implications of global warming on America's native food culture by reading Corby Kummer's Op-Ed from the New York Times. "On a day that America celebrates its first harvest, his main point is that food production is being increasingly disrupted by climate change, and by and large, moving north: native foods often celebrated at Thanksgiving, like cranberries that were once famous in New England, for example, are shifting to Canada." It may be a great topic of discussion for the Thanksgiving table.

Thanksgiving is also a time when I plan my meals according to what I can find within 100 miles of my house. We try to eat locally as much as possible, but having to "forage" for foods grown near my community gives us a (very small) sense of what America's earliest settlers had to endure, and is a great lesson in local eating for my kids. Usually I am fresh off of October's Eat Local Challenge, so I am already in the mindset. Luckily, I live in Northern California, which has an adundance of fruits and vegetables for my Thanksgiving table. We also have wine, cheese, olive oil, and, of course, Diestel organic turkeys, too.

My favorite farmer's market seasons are Fall and Winter because I love seeing what my local farmers are growing. Just when you think it's all sweet potatoes and kale, you'll be surprised with tender mache or crunchy lettuces, the freshest of salt water fish, or Brussels sprouts still on their stalk. Will you be planning a "100 Mile Thanksgiving" menu?  If so, I'd love for you to share where you live and what you'll be cooking.

So there you have it — some tips for making autumn a little greener and your Turkey (or Tofurkey) Day a little more sustainable. Happy Fall, Tonic readers!