vegetables

Cruelty-Free Pest Removal: No Kill Option for your Home and Garden

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From the moment you start growing fruits and veggies in your garden, you can hardly wait until they’re ready to harvest.  Unfortunately you’re not the only one.  There are many animals that are staring at your veggies, mouths watering, just waiting for an opportunity to take a bite.

 

Fortunately, a little fencing can keep some animals away during the day but at night is when the real garden predators come out to play: rabbits, raccoons, deer, rats, mice and many others.

 

It’s fair to say no one wants to wake up in the morning to see half eaten vegetables in their garden with animal droppings left as payment.  So how do we deal with this issue? 

 

Well after much research, we can conclude that the answer won’t be found in your typical animal repellents.  We’ve often heard about dried mint, or cotton balls with mint oil being used as a garden pest repellent. Here’s the flaw in using those methods.  Dried mint is naturally biodegradable and when placed outdoors, it will degrade even faster. You would have to drop dried mint daily in your garden, and depending on how big your garden is, that cost could add up very quickly.  Even fresh mint grown in your garden will only occupy a certain area and may not be strong enough to keep larger garden pests away.

 

Buy Organic When It Counts: Top 5 Foods Worth Buying Organic

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Let’s be honest, buying organic can get expensive at times.  There’s nothing like walking into Whole Foods with healthy intentions and the first thing you see is a tiny bag of organic onions on sale for $10.  That’s enough to make anyone turn around and say “I’ll risk it.”

Don’t walk out of the store just yet.  Just make sure that when you shop organic, you’re spending your money on the right things so you’ll get the most out of your organic purchases.  We know the process of deciding what to buy and what not to buy organic can be tricky.  There’s a lot of healthy fruits and vegetables out there that have a very unhealthy amount of pesticide residue on them.  In order to help you shop smarter and avoid pesticide laden produce, we’ve brought you a list of the top 5 foods you should definitely buy organic.

 

 

 

Number 5 – Apples

We may need to put an asterisk next to the saying, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”  Yes, unfortunately apples made the list, the top five in fact. No worries though, organic apples are typically priced well and shouldn’t cost too much more than the non-organic options.  If you catch them on sale, all the better, that’s just more organic apple pie for everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

Number 4 – Nectarines

Nectarines -Just a fancy word for little peaches.  This one snuck into the top five but don’t let it sneak into your shopping basket without being organic.  The higher up the list we go, the higher the levels of pesticides.

 

 

 

 

 

Number 3 – Kale

This one is a heart breaker but yes kale is on the list.  Beloved by many as a healthy addition to salads and a staple of almost any type of health conscious smoothie, kale has positioned itself in the number 3 spot.  

With the growing popularity of kale, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find it organic.  From our research, the price of organic kale is fairly comparable to non-organic kale.

 

 

 

 

 

Number 2 – Spinach

Throughout history, many kids have turned their noses up at this little green vegetable.  Maybe if the spinach were organic, it would have been a different story. Or maybe not.  Either way if you decide to buy some spinach for yourself or your family, definitely try to find it organic.