Features (Green Living)

Article - Green Living; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 9/27/12

One in a Thousand Ways to Save Our Bay

Homestead Gardens gets its stormwater under control

A new river runs through Homestead Gardens. It’s a little out of the way, off to the side of the garden center with its plants, trees and shrubberies. But this river, which only runs when it rains, is at the center of making Homestead’s 12 acres a zero contributor to the pollution of Beard’s Creek, the South River and Chesapeake Bay. This river flows at the bottom of a grassy bowl. Before it was built, rain rushed down the sides of the bowl in a torrent...

Article - Green Living; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 9/6/12

Saving the Bay Foot by Foot

Grants to restore shorelines multiply dollars and deeds

Restoring the Bay is like cleaning house: We do it chore by chore. Fortunately, the Bay multiplies much of the effort we put into it. Put water in motion and it keeps moving. Put $800,000 into shoreline restorations, and the grants multiply dollars and deeds. The dozen new shoreline restoration grants in Maryland and four in Virginia are putting that money to work, multiplying the momentum. This Bay chore is supported by the Chesapeake...

Article - Green Living; by Barbara Holcomb - 7/26/12

Anne Arundel County Farmers Market

More than 50 farmers sell at the county’s oldest market

At 31 years old, the Saturday Anne Arundel County Farmers Market is Anne Arundel’s oldest and largest. Over 50 farmers and producers sell not only fresh fruits, vegetables and meat but also a diversity of homemade goods, like soaps, pies, jams, ceramics, cards and beeswax items. “A farmers market is an entirely different experience,” says market chair Martin Zaner. “You talk directly to the grower who can tell you exactly how his products were grown....

Article - Green Living; by Michelle Steel - 7/19/12

A Trio of Treats

Calvert County Farmers Markets

Tempt your taste buds with summer’s finest. Softball size tomatoes, basketball size cantaloupes, fresh baked cinnamon rolls along with golden sweet local honey are just a sampling of treasures found among Calvert County’s Farmers Markets. Mike Chillum and son Dan of St. Leonard specialize in a wide range of honeys: strawberry, locust, comb, wildflower and privet-hedge flower. “The bees do all the work, we just package it,” Dan says. Blueberry and...

Article - Green Living; by Leigh Glenn - 7/5/12

Bay Schooling

Go to summer school for TEAM DNR and you’ll be teaching come fall

“I’m proud of you that you can name all the states in our watershed and not miss any,” said longtime TEAM DNR volunteer Penny Vahsen to fourth-graders at West Annapolis Elementary School. “Some students say California is part of our watershed.” Not Candice Gaylon’s class this past school year. They’re up on buffers, erosion and water pollution. Volunteers from TEAM DNR — Teaching Environmental Awareness in...

Article - Green Living; by Jesse Furgurson - 7/5/12

Bad News Beetles

The emerald ash borer chews half of Maryland

Nothing may seem amiss, but the entire western half of Maryland is now a quarantine area. In 14 counties west of the Chesapeake and Susquehanna, Maryland Department of Agriculture has found evidence of the emerald ash borer. The destructive Asiatic beetle, which has conquered the west in nine years, kills ash trees from the inside out. The threat the half-inch-long bugs pose is grave. Ash are shade trees for much of urban Maryland. Ones that have fallen prey to the borers...

Article - Green Living; by Aries Mathoes - 5/24/12

Your Money at Work

Buying a Bay license plate or checking line 35 of your state tax form helps the Chesapeake

What’s removed more than 1,000 tons of trash from the Bay, engaged 800,000 students and teachers and planted 500,000 trees and plants along the shoreline? Your Bay license plates and income tax check-offs. Last year alone, over 400,000 Marylanders chose Treasure the Chesapeake license plates or checked off a donation to the Bay Fund on their state tax return. Contributions amounted to $5.5 million, which helped over 110,000 students, teachers and...

Article - Green Living; by Leigh Glenn - 5/17/12

A to Z Recycling

26 ways to get your old stuff into the right hands

Is your house growing tight around the middle? Consider this alphabet soup as your diet to lean down. Antiques and Art These have potential value. Search online, include collector clubs. Ebay may be a sales route and offers research leads. Antique stores. Call ahead. Building Materials Donate new, surplus and salvaged supplies and fixtures. Pick-up available. Community Forklift, Edmonston, 301-...

Article - Green Living; by Margaret Tearman and Michelle Bazinet - 4/19/12

No Gas in the Tank

Bill Gingras has been trying to drive without fossil fuel

For 38 years, local inventor Bill Gingras will never get lost. The compass he has painted on the driveway points him in the direction of the outside world, while the large spherical globe on his front lawn denotes home base. Throughout his life, this man of invention has created his own direction. At 82, the owner of the first — or maybe second — all-electric Nissan Leaf in Chesapeake Country is still pointing the way to the future. He’s...

Article - Green Living; by Christy Green - 4/5/12

Taking In the Trash

One person’s trash is another’s visionary art at At Annmarie Garden

In Annmarie Garden of visionary art, odd ideas pop up like weeds, which visionary botanists tell us are misunderstood flowers. The newest sprout is artLAB, where heroes young and old turn trash into art in a new twist on recycling. The very creation of artLAB was an act of repurposing. The old café could be better used, Curator of Public Programs Jaimie Jeffrey decided, as an interactive teaching lab. The up-cycling philosophy that’s been practiced...