If you have been thinking this is the year to get your first organic vegetable garden started, then we have the perfect episode to give you the final push. Discover the five surprising reasons to get your first vegetable garden going and how gardening can have a positive impact on your health, community, and the environment.

• How gardening can actually reduce your plastic waste
• What food miles are and how what you eat produces carbon emissions
• Why choosing organic over conventional gardening is better for your health and the environment
• How getting out in the sun when your gardening can help reduce low back pain
• What resources are the best to get you started with organic gardening

Kelsey’s Five-Part Blog Series on Organic Gardening
The All New Square Foot Garden
The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Katelyn Duban of Wild Rose Farmer on The Rural Woman Podcast. This podcast is a collection of stories from women in farming, ranching, homesteading, agriculture and more. Each of these women are doing life in their own unique way and sharing their stories. Tune in each episode to be inspired by these amazing Rural Women. 

• Learn about the differences between annual agriculture and permanent agriculture and what we stand to lose if we keep farming conventionally.
• Understand more about how Green Willow Homestead raises pastured chickens.
• Hear more about my journey with opening our roadside farmstand in Franklin, WI.
• Discover the fatal mistake farmers keep making when they decide on how to price their products.
• Learn all about I got into farming and why I'm still here despite crazy weather and sick animals.

Ford has partnered with electric vehicle startup Rivian to develop an electric pickup truck and SUV. These partnerships are becoming more and more commonplace because it allows major automobile companies to share the innovation load with tech startups and work towards a cleaner transportation future.

You may not realize, but the bulk of the US’ plastics, paper, and glass actually is repurposed overseas. One of the biggest countries, China, has decided to restrict imports of certain recyclables and it’s causing a terrible ripple effect. This decision has forced US waste management centers to either pay a much higher rate to repurpose the plastics somewhere else - or just dump it in a landfill. Unfortunately, many have chosen the landfill. This is the perfect example of how recycling isn’t technically the answer when it comes to our waste problems, it has actually propped up the throw-away culture we as Americans have gotten used to. It’s time to think more deeply about how much we consume and the cost it has on our world. I highly recommend learning about closed-loop cycles to get started.

As the viability of recycling comes under scrutiny, a better option exists (and has been here since the dawn of time) - composting. I love seeing major companies step up to replace disposables with compostables, like Igloo and their new compostable cooler.

As deforestation exacerbates climate change, a study has shown that when women are involved with the decision making process, less forests are razed. Many countries in South America and Asia are facing accelerated deforestation, but governments are trying to slow the process down by offering Payment for Ecosystem Services incentives. The study showed that when women make up at least 50% of the leaders within the local village, those groups harvested 51% less trees.

The Green Dreamer Podcast Episode 134: Empowering farmers of color and dismantling racism in the food system.

The Sustainable Dish Podcast Episode 85: Ideological anti-meat agendas in dietary guidelines with Gary and Belinda Fettke

Spring is finally here! And in today’s episode of the Positively Green Podcast, we’re talking all about sunscreen. Believe it or not, we need some sun exposure without any sunscreen to help our bodies get Vitamin D. We’re also talking about the ingredients in conventional sunscreens and their health effects, as well as how they are negatively impacting the environment. Then we also leave you with safe, non-toxic, mineral sunscreen options. We’re all about practicing safe sun exposure over here!

• Why we need Vitamin D and the sun 
• Ingredients in conventional sunscreens and their negative health effects
• Why these ingredients are also harmful to the environment and contributing to coral bleaching
• Safe mineral sunscreen options

Studies:

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21310306
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3033008
• https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00244-015-0227-7

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Environmental Working Group’s Sunscreen Guide

Becca’s SPF Recommendations:

• Raw Elements
• Laguna Herbals
• Blog post about SPF, sunless tanners, etc.

Kelsey’s DIY Recipe:

• 1 Tbsp shea butter
• 1 Tbsp Coconut oil
• ¼ tsp beeswax
• ½ tsp non-nano titanium dioxide powder
• ½ tsp non-nano zinc oxide powder

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Download the free dminder app! 

A small family business is turning green waste into greener fields in Arizona. Green Waste Recycling collects clippings and trimmings from local landscaping businesses, chips them, composts them, and then spreads it over farmers’ fields to increase the biodiversity of their soils, skyrocket water retention, and boost yields. Some of these fields include alfalfa, which is then fed to local cattle. As the reporter puts it, “turning sticks into steaks.” This is such a fantastic example of using closed loop cycles!

In an effort to cut down on their carbon footprint, Amazon is launching a program called Amazon Day. The program organizes all your orders into one single delivery day for the week, cutting down on transportation for all the must-haves you order. My podcast host, Becca, and I chatted about this on one of our earlier Positively Green Podcast episodes. Paul and I have been trying to do this mindfully, keeping things in our cart until we hit about 5-7 items then we would order and get them to come on the same day, but it’s awesome that Amazon will do it for you now!

The milkman method has been making a comeback, where the packaging for the items you purchase is reused over and over again (like old milk bottles). Major companies are opting in to package their goods in reusable, durable, and attractive containers that are then sent back to the manufacturer for continued use (instead of winding up in a landfill). When Greenpeace released their top ten worst companies for plastic pollution in the ocean, those companies realized they had a mounting PR crisis on their hands. Now, eight of those ten companies are a part of the Loop program. The methodology is definitely not without its faults, as the program requires a huge amount of transportation to make it possible, but I still think that it’s a step in the right direction.

Extreme weather events are not only affecting American farmers, but farmers across the globe. Coffee farms in Honduras have suffered increasing droughts, disruptive rain events, and unpredictable winds that have decimated their crops. Families are beginning to flee to seek a more stable life in the United States, crossing the border illegally. This is the perfect example of major issues converging, until our government gets on board with the rest of the world for curbing climate change then our illegal immigrant situation is only going to get worse.

Food Heroes Podcast Episode 29: How a purple berry is saving the Brazilian Amazon with Ryan Black Sambazon

Green Dreamer Podcast Episode 132: Greening transportation with vehicles powered by Hydrogen fuel cells with Brian Goldstein 

In light ofEdition 6 of This Week In Sustainability, I have to share an experience I had at Ikea over the weekend. I ended up purchasing the wrong item (you know how the pick bins can be a bit confusing) and wound up with a mattress for a futon when what I wanted was the cover. It came shrink wrapped in unidentifiable plastic, so when I opened it up and realized it was a mattress, it had expanded and would not fit back in the original plastic bag.

I carefully wrapped it up best I could and brought it back to Ikea return it. At customer service, the Ikea employee told me I had to put it in another plastic bag to make the return. She handed me a flimsy plastic bag and I stared at her blankly and asked, "Could I get some help?" The futon mattress was huge and cumbersome to move, I mean, Paul had to help me get it into the van! She replied, "We're not supposed to help customers with this." Then she sat there and watched me struggle to shove the mattress covered in the first plastic bag, into another plastic bag that also wasn't big enough to fit it.

After a few minutes of struggling, the people behind me in line graciously offered to help. We all proceeded to shove half of the mattress into another plastic bag. So much for customer service and care for the environment Ikea. How strange right?!

These are the final 24 hours on my Earth Day Sale. So if you have been eyeing my awesome sustainable holistic living ebook, The Holistic Home, now's the time to grab your copy at 20% off (no offer code needed). Cut through the overwhelm that trying to live more sustainably brings, and learn from my decade's worth of experience, eco-friendly product testing, and research. 

In 2017 after a sick whale washed up on Norway’s shore, its stomach filled with plastic, the country decided it was time to put an end to its contribution to plastic in the ocean. The recycling company, Infinitium, was born and now it recycles a staggering 97% of Norway’s plastic bottles. Let’s compare that number to the UK, who recycles 43%, and then the US, who recycles a measly 28% of its plastic bottles. Norway has taken on an industry-inclusive method that makes companies just as responsible as the consumers. Do you think the rest of us could follow suit?

From a fellow regenerative pastured chicken farmer, this in-depth article on the state of our food system is not to be missed. Well researched, well-written, and deeply thoughtful, commit some time to reading this instead of watching Netflix’s docuseries Rotten (which missed the point on a number of key issues).

Speaking of farmers, the USDA just released its census data for 2017, the last being released in 2012. As a farmer, there’s so much enticing information in here that I could spend a week reading the whole thing. One of the highlights is that they started tracking organic farms by gender, so now we have a better picture of how many women are getting into farming, and staying in. Organic farming aside, in 2012, there were 288,000 female farmers listed as the principal operator, and in 2017 that number rose to almost 800,000. The future is female farmers! On a more somber note, the average farm size shows that rural real estate cannibalism is still at an all-time high, hitting an average of 441 acres per farm in 2017, up from 434 acres in 2012.

We are on a farming kick for this edition! In a CNN Perspectives piece, Patagonia and Dr. Bronner’s CEOs have joined forces to bring to light the consequences of reckless farming. Along with a handful of famous farmers, they have formed the Regenerative Organic Alliance and are beginning a pilot program for a new type of climate friendly certification to encourage growers to be kinder to the earth.

The Positively Green Podcast Episode 13: The truth behind sustainable food packaging with Dan Kurzrock

Food Heroes Podcast Episode 28: Farming, feminism, and the fight to feed the world with Trina Moyles

In our effort to nix single-use plastic this year, I will be the first to say how impossible it feels. Every time we try to find a solution, we end up back at square one (throwing something in the garbage). I'm continuing to have grace with myself and be patient with the process, so let my struggle be comforting to you if you are just starting out. Here I am with a whole blog dedicated to sustainable living and I still haven't got it 100% figured out. It's okay that you aren't doing things perfectly. There is no such thing as a perfect sustainable life, just the constant state of discovery and self evaluation.  Make the process exploratory and trust that we are all in this together!

In this episode, we chat with Dan Kurzrock, the CEO of Regrained, a company that is working hard to find sustainable solutions for food waste and packaging waste. If you’ve been frustrated with the non-recyclable and non-compostable food packaging winding up in your garbage, this is the episode for you.

Dan Kurzrock is the co-founder and Chief Grain Officer of ReGrained. Dan founded ReGrained out of his hobby for homebrewing beer, where he first discovered that “spent” grain could be given a delicious second life. He is now obsessed with the impact edible upcycling and closing nutrient loops can have on our food system. As Chief Grain Officer, Dan is “Mr. Outside” for ReGrained, handling all elements of growing the business. Dan holds an Economics degree from UCLA and an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School.

• Why finding a sustainable food packaging solution is so complex
• How compostable food packaging works
• The issues we may not realize with compostable food packaging
• What innovative solutions are being worked on right now
• How consumers can get more involved in the fight for sustainable food packaging

• Regrained
• OSC2 Packaging Collaborative
• Elk Packaging

I recently had the honor of being interviewed by Audra Mulkern on The Female Farmer Project: The Podcast. Audra works tirelessly on The Female Farmer Project, a multi-platform documentary project that chronicles the rise of women working in agriculture around the world.  From in-depth stories, personal essays, photographic portraits, a podcast, and in-development documentary film, the project gives a powerful voice to the fastest growing demographic in agriculture - The Female Farmer.

In this episode we discuss:

• My background as an artist, filmmaker, photographer, and producer and how these skills have helped me on the farm.
• How we raise happy hens on pasture and use permaculture methods on our farm.
  
• The unseen side of farming (i.e. sitting at a computer desk!) and how important it is to devote this time to market your farm.
• How I learned to farm and some of my personal blindspots when it came to getting started.

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On April 3rd Aldi sent out a press release stating that by 2025, all packaging will be reusable, compostable, or recyclable. ALDI has never offered single-use plastic shopping bags. The CEO, Jason Hart said, “While we’re pleased that we’ve helped keep billions of plastic grocery bags out of landfills and oceans, we want to continue to do more. The commitments we’re making to reduce plastic packaging waste are an investment in our collective future that we are proud to make.”

As weather patterns become more extreme, those living in government-subsidized housing are suffering (as well as the government’s wallet). Many of these housing complexes are built on flood plains, which are flooding more and more frequently. The residents are not in a financial position to leave, allowing them to move to safer ground. HUD cites that low-income housing is at a shortage, so complexes built in unsafe areas are here to stay.

A team of scientists determined that 16% of the glacial lakes that are melting in the Tibetan Plateau have the ability to flood and destroy communities downstream. This was the most comprehensive study done to date on glacial flood risk, and the team hopes their findings can help governments pinpoint which lakes they need to set up risk management efforts for and protect people’s lives.

There’s a new docuseries out on Netflix and it’s going to make your heart hurt. Our Planet documents the effect of climate change on animals species across the globe. The eight-part series took four years to film in 50 countries. If you are an animal lover, you may want to skip over a few parts!

Food Heroes Podcast Episode 024: Mindful Manufacturing and Following Your Passion with Cindy Poiesz

Green Dreamer Podcast Episode 128: Questioning Overconsumption and our Wasteful Fashion System with Sarah-Jayne Smith

A year ago today marks my last "shopping spree." I spent $74 at Goodwill and came home with a whole new wardrobe - including labels like Ralph Lauren, Patagonia, Abercrombie, and Christie Dawn. I had just done a "Clear Closet Clear Mind" clean out (which is a simple clothes purging system I share in my ebook The Holistic Home) and knew I was ready for a fresh start on my clothes. Since that spree, I've purchased a few musts like socks, bras, and underwear - but the secondhand clothes have lasted and I love them. I encourage you to do a closet clean-out and focus on what you actually love and wear, then buy secondhand if you feel inspired to shop! 

Say you are itching to get started with chickens but are super strapped on time to research or you are utterly overwhelmed on the massive amount of info out there. You simply want the nuts and bolts on how to raise chickens au naturel from a trusted expert so you can get going on your first flock. Proven Techniques For Keeping Healthy Chickens by Carissa Bonham of Creative Green Living is the book for you.