offshore oil :: drill baby drill :: the obama plan

What follows is something I posted in September of 2008. The US presidential campaign was building up steam and I was sick and tired of hearing ‘Drill Baby Drill.’ It made me ill because of the stupidity of the entire argument. I wrote,

Even when production is pumping at full capacity, additional offshore drilling facilities would amount to about 200,000 barrels per day (bpd). The US currently uses 21 million bpd. This does not take into account the increase in oil consumption necessary to continue to grow our economy[during the time it would take to get the drills up and drilling]. The bottom line is that additional offshore drilling will provide 1.2% of the oil we use every day if we don’t increase consumption and we’re willing to wait 20 years.

So now Obama has opened up most of the east coast among other areas for oil exploration.

The Democrats are pretending to have been betrayed, the Republicans are saying he didn’t go far enough and the environmentalists are mad as hell.

The truth is that this was a beautiful political move. President Obama gave his Democratic base ammunition for the upcoming election and took steps towards soothing the sting of those opposed to “health care” reform on the right. Sure there are factions within the Democratic party who are oppose to more offshore drilling but fewer than five Democrats will actually vote against their Democratic candidates this November because the President opened up more offshore areas for oil exploration. Instead those candidates will be able to say, “Look, we’re trying to become more energy independent by opening up areas previously off limits and the Republicans aren’t going along with us. We’re willing to try what the Republicans have been asking us for years.” I’m not sure if those political bullets will hit their targets but hey, it’s something.

The real genius of this move lies in the fact that the Republicans have been saying for ever and ever that we could solve this energy problem if those wacky environmentally conservative Democrats would just open up more offshore areas for drilling. It’s total bullshit of course, as you’ll read below but they’ve gotten away with it because average Americans don’t know the facts. Obama has now taken that sound bite away from them. And as an added bonus if the Republicans do speak out against this they will be branded even more deeply as the Party of No.

I’m guessing the environmentalists who are upset about this don’t understand the facts. Little if any of the oil in these new areas will ever be pumped out of the seafloor. It’s too costly. We won’t be able to afford it. There is no real threat to the environment here because it’s highly unlikely that any substantial new drilling in these areas will ever take place.

This is political theater, nothing more. Grab a bag of popcorn and be amused.

Original post from September 2008…

I won’t go so far as to say I’m against lifting the ban on drilling for oil off the east coast of the United States of America. I say that because the only reason the idea is being bandied about is that the last two Republican presidents were oil tycoons and that party is desperate to reframe the rise in the price of gasoline as the fault of the Democrats. Perhaps Democrats should agree to lift the ban and when the price of gas doesn’t go down, Republicans will be left without that political punch to throw.

Having said that, I am not in favor of lifting the offshore drilling ban because drilling for oil off the east coast of the U.S. is stupid. Here’s why.

The USGS says there are 17.8 billion barrels of undiscovered recoverable resources(read Unproven Reserves) in waters currently off limits to exploration. The EIA says production couldn’t really get started until 2017 and wouldn’t be fully ramped up for another 15 years until about 2030. Remember the U.S. uses more than 7 billion barrels a year. Great, there might be two and a half more years worth of oil. Even if we could start pumping at full capacity today when my daughter is 2 ½, she’ll be 5 when all that oil is used up.

Even when production is pumping at full capacity, additional offshore drilling facilities would amount to about 200,000 barrels per day (bpd). The US currently uses 21 million bpd. This does not take into account the increase in oil consumption necessary to continue to grow our economy. The bottom line is that additional offshore drilling will provide 1.2% of the oil we use every day if we don’t increase consumption and we’re willing to wait 20 years.

Oh and if the oil companies don’t sell that oil to other countries. Remember, we currently export about 1.5 million barrels of oil from the US every day. There is no guarantee that big oil will even keep this measly 200,000 bpd in the US.

And don’t forget the hurricanes.

Notice I didn’t even mention the possible environmental catastrophes or the hit tourism might take if lounging at the beach starts to include a beautiful view of the flare from a drilling rig.

Offshore oil is politicians playing the blame game and that’s all it is. The sad part is that a majority of Americans are falling for it while their leaders, Republicans and Democrats alike, continue to refuse to act appropriately.

If you want a quick test of whether or not a politican understands energy issues ask her if she’d like to see the cost of gasoline go down. If she says yes, she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about.

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Nissan sets price for the LEAF

We've all been waiting to hear what exactly Nissan has meant by "competitively priced" when describing the LEAF.  Well, now we know.  The all-electric sedan will have a sticker price of $32,780, slightly more than expected, but still pretty cheap for an EV.

At that price, the LEAF is a good $10,000 more expensive than gas-fueled sedan models like the Honda Civic, Toyota Camry and Nissan Altima, but cheaper than announced prices for EV models like the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, Coda Automotive's sedan and far below the nearly $60,000 Tesla Model S.  Plug In America calls the price a "game changer" and I'd have to agree.

Not convinced?  Here's more to consider.  The price includes the installation of a home charging station, it will be available for lease for $349 a month (not too shabby when you compare it to the mortgage-sized lease payment for the Tesla Roadster) and once you apply federal tax credits, you're actually looking at a $25,280 car.  If you live in a state like California that's offering an additional $5,000 rebate, that price drops to $20,280.

Now you're in the territory of a base model Toyota Prius.  The cost of a hybrid, but it's all electric.  I have a feeling there are people at GM right now recrunching the numbers for the Chevy Volt.

via Nissan and Earth2Tech

 

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One household’s experience with a smart meter

Charles Elk was surprised how much he could learn from a digital clock. That's what his in-home energy monitor looks like, and Elk found that digital monitor enlightening. He found himself swapping incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescents, and being careful to turn off the outdoor lights before going to bed. Those lights were costing him money he didn't have to spend.

"It brought the cause-and-effect much closer than I had ever observed it before," he said. "My old less-smart meter was out there happily spinning when I hit that switch before. The same information was there but it was outside the house and not six inches from my light switch."

As an employee of Oncor, the largest public electricity distributor in Texas, the single-family home Elk shares with his wife and two children was one of the first in the state outfitted with advanced smart home energy monitoring technology. By 2012, all 3 million Oncor customers will have access to detailed information about how much energy they are using -- and paying for, via a new Web portal; most of the 800,000 homeowners, who already had Landis+Gyr smart meters installed, could start using the Web portal last week.

They won't have quite as much information as Elk, who uses an in-home monitor so he can see real-time data, but they will have access to energy usage data recorded every 15 minutes. (Oncor will be working with seven manufacturers to make similar data available to others who buy off-the-shelf in-home monitors, an achievement unique to the utility, according to Oncor.)

Some studies have shown that smart meter installations help customers reduce bills by as much as 5-10%, which for the average Oncor customer could mean $200 or $300 in annual savings, according to Carol Peters, the company's spokeswoman. Oncor spent $686 million on smart meter installation, paid for by a monthly $2.19 surcharge on residential electric bills.

Texas draws about half its electricity from burning coal, so any reduction in energy demand not only reduces customer bills, but pollution that causes global warming, acid rain, smog and mercury contamination. Texas, moreover, has a Texas-sized demand, accounting for 10% of the nation's electricity usage, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Elk likens his smart meter experience to filling up the tank. A cent or two per gallon isn't a huge savings, but knowing the actual cost at the pump changes your behavior significantly -- and you choose the gas station offering the lowest cost. Similarly, he noticed that flipping on the lights around a mirror in the bathroom, where he had set up his in-home monitor, caused a spike in energy usage, and cost.

"The first thing we did is change out those bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs, and that made a significant difference," Elk said. "It translated to dollars. You change those 10 60-watt lightbulbs into 7- or 8-watt lighbulbs, and the entire set uses not much more than one did before.... This is not life-changing, but we probably knocked $4 or $5 off our monthly bill with that simple act."

The effort to give consumers more information about, and control, of their energy consumption and costs, is a big challenge, since the companies providing electricity are paid more if consumers use more electricity, so they traditionally have no incentive to reduce demand. De-coupling energy demand from energy company profits is a big change in business as usual, at least as complicated as the deregulation of the energy industries in many states, which created companies like Oncor that distribute electricity but don't own power plants.

The smart meter installation, which is required by Texas law, isn't the biggest in the country, but it is among the most sophisticated, Peters claims. The meters now spit out data in 15-minute intervals, showing homeowners when their usage and costs increase or decrease; they also communicate outages immediately to the utility, allowing Oncor to potentially react more quickly when electrical service is interrupted. But the smart meters are also sophisticated enough to communicate with home appliances, so that when next-generation smart appliances become available, the meters will be ready to accept the information. That means, for instance, that the dishwasher might kick on automatically at 2 a.m. after having the smart meter communicate an important bit of information: that the price of electricity has dropped as demand hits a nighttime trough.

"There's a whole communication backbone behind the meter that's very sophisticated," Peters said. "All this technology serves the consumer."

That's not necessarily the perception, though. Some have complained that the smart meter installations were accompanied by a spike in the cost of electricity, as if their demand suddenly increased. Peters said that's not the case, and meters are checked and double checked for accuracy.

And despite the anecdotes from Elk and others, Oncor doesn't yet have any data on the effectiveness of the program overall. It should reduce electrical demand, but no one knows if it will. "We don't have the data that we can analyze yet," Peters said. "The data belongs to the customer."

For Elk, the smart meter experience has produced one clear outcome, and one big question. He's seen that having access to the data made him address "low-hanging fruit" like replacing old lightbulbs -- but he's not sure if he would make bigger decisions, like paying more for an Energy Star appliance because he knows it will cost pennies less per use.

"That's the big question," he said. "We'll see over time what the ultimate answer to that is. I do think that putting the information in front of us on a day-to-day basis will certainly push us that way."

To get started saving energy, with or without the benefit of a smart meter, try The Daily Green's 5 Perfectly Painless Home Eco-Fixes or the DIY Home Energy Audit.

More from The Daily Green

• How I Cut My Electric Bill 56%
• 7 Easy Ways to Save Energy
• Obama's Earth Day Message: Full Transcript
• 19 Ways to Make Your Home Feel Warmer Without Turning Up the Heat
• 7 Simple Money Savers for the Home

 

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc

 

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Energizer installing trojan malware with battery charger

Energizer's DUO Charger is a battery charger for NiMH (nickel metal hydride) rechargeable batteries. (This isn't the same as USB batteries that have a built-in USB port on the batteries themselves.) Energizer provided a nice little desktop app for computers so that the user could see the charge status of their batteries along with the charger. We're not sure what the point of this is, really. I mean, is the indicator light on the charger not enough for you?

Unfortunately, that app included a Trojan that would compromise security and open a back door for unauthorized access on Windows machines. The trojan allows files to be sent and executed on your machine without your permission. There are alerts about this from both the computer security company Symantec as well as from US-CERT (Computer Emergency Readiness Team). Energizer has an advisory notice on their site where the software was downloaded from.

Only users with Windows computers who downloaded the software are at risk; there is nothing in the battery charger hardware itself that threatens computers. If you have installed this software, you need to uninstall it to prevent it from putting your computer system at risk.

The question is, does Energizer think that this is OK...Or is it a rogue piece of software that managed to slip past quality control? Either one is troubling, but this makes me very suspicious of Energizer. Why taint an otherwise fantastic product with badly designed (or worse) software.

My advice, never install software for a piece of hardware that obviously doesn't need it. Battery chargers should charge batteries, there's no reason to make that relationship more complicated.

Link: Energizer advisory (PDF)

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How to keep animals out of your compost

EarthTalk is a Q&A column from E/The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: My husband and I want to start a garden this year. I really want to make compost from leftover food scraps and yard materials. He says it will attract unwanted animals, and refuses to agree to it. Is he right? If so, how do we deal with that issue in a green-friendly, non-lethal way? -- Carmen Veurink, Grand Rapids, MI

It's true that outdoor compost piles and bins can be a draw for wildlife — be it bears, rats, raccoons, skunks, opossums or some other creatures of the night — but there are ways to minimize the attraction. For one, make sure everyone in your household knows to keep meat, bones, fish, fat and dairy out of the compost. Not only will these items "overheat" the compost pile, they'll also stink it up and attract animals.

Otherwise, home composters should keep in mind that critters aren't actually eating the compost but are sifting through it to find fresh edible kitchen or garden scraps. To discourage animals, the website OrganicGardening.com recommends mixing kitchen garbage with soil or wood ashes before burying it in the hot center of your compost pile. Washington State's Department of Fish and Wildlife recommends not putting any food scraps in open compost piles, but says that if you must, bury them under at least eight inches of soil and then place a wire mesh barrier over the top held in place with a heavy object or two.

Putting your compost pile in a pest-proof container is another way to prevent tampering with your precious organic soil-to-be. Compost tumblers are popular because they mix and aerate by just being turned occasionally, and they keep raccoons, rats, dogs and other interlopers at bay. Otherwise, compost bins with wire tops or sealed lids work well too, but require a little more manual labor in terms of stirring.

Of course, another option would be to make the compost indoors using a worm bin. You can still put kitchen scraps in just like in a bigger outdoor compost pile, but without the worry of attracting wildlife. The website Instructables.com offers instructions for how to create your own worm composting bin. Another good source is the blog One-Change.com, which offers a step-by-step guide to the process.

The long and short of it is that if you know what you're doing, composting can be a rewarding, environmentally friendly and pest-free experience. For some great tips on how to get started, visit the website Composting101.com, a comprehensive and free guide for the home gardener on what to do and how to do it. Also, some forward-thinking cities such as Seattle are picking up food scraps with yard waste at the curbside along with garbage collection, and making huge amounts of commercially viable compost out of it. If your city or town offers a similar program you might want to consider saving yourself the trouble of doing it at home for the common good.

One more thing to keep in mind is that the garden itself may attract as much if not more wildlife than some food scraps in a compost pile. Strategically placed fencing and wire mesh can frustrate some critters enough to keep them moving along, but you can be sure some of your neighborhood wildlife will reap the harvest that you've sown. And as long as they leave enough for you, who can't live with that?

More from The Daily Green

• The Urban Compost Conundrum
• Falling in Love Over Compost
• Learn These 7 Habits of Great Gardeners BEFORE Spring!
• Ya Gonna Eat That? Worms Will
• Leaf It for Compost

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‘Grow Your Own Drugs’: A perfect guide for the recreational user

My enthusiasm for gardening normally peaks right about now for the year. It's triggered by the first prematurely warm days of spring and the stack of colorful seed and garden catalogs stockpiled on the nightstand for my bedtime reading. I fall asleep dreaming of my perfect garden: one filled with eggplants bigger than my head and bordered by neatly spaced rows of zinnias in every color of the Crayola 64 pack.

But it's always all downhill from here. When I actually stick the spade in the ground for the first time every year, I'm reminded that my clay soil isn't nearly as easily tilled as the pillow-soft-loamy-stuff they always picture in the catalogs. Then, when things finally start to sprout, The Great Rabbit Wars begin. I start dreaming less about my forthcoming meals of braised carrots, and more about braised rabbit, served with carrot stubs.

By the 100-degree days of July -- when the weeds have officially overpowered everything I so carefully planted in neat little string-lined rows with the seed packets stuck on sticks to mark them -- I've pretty much had my fill of gardening for the year. Yep, I'm at best a recreational user when it comes to gardening.

But this year my gardening enthusiasm is really revved-up by a terrific new book I just read called Grow Your Own Drugs, by James Wong. Wong was trained at the Royal Botanical Gardens (Kew, England) in "Ethnobotany" -- that's the study of "plant lore and customs."

Wong writes in the introduction to his book:

"... this perception of plants as purely ornamental objects is a strange cultural anomaly that has existed in only one civilization in history -- our own (i.e. modern day western culture). In every other culture, the plants that surround us are a living supermarket, pharmacy, a home improvement center, and even a liquor store -- all rolled into one."

That was enough to hook me. Wong gives practical advice and all-natural recipes for tapping the health benefit of plants -- many of which you can easily grow yourself -- for everything from curing athlete's foot and cold sores to preventing bad breath and flatulence (how's that for beginning to end?) I particularly appreciate the final chapter, an authoritative (and colorful) guide to the "Top 100 Medicinal Plants" you should consider growing to make herbal remedies from your own garden.

Even though affordable healthcare is apparently (finally!) on its way here in the U.S., I'm going to hedge my bets this summer and plant a few containers filled with Wong's "Top 10 Medicinal Herbs": chamomille (indigestion), echinacea (colds/flu), johnny-jump-up (anti-inflammatory), lavender (pain), lemon balm (anxiety), marigold (sunburn), peppermint (headaches), rosemary (memory), sage (coughs/congestion), St. John's wort (antidepressant).

With the help of Grow Your Own Drugs, I'm hoping that my gardening high will survive even the Cutworm Invasion this year and make it all the way to the first frost of fall.

 

More from The Daily Green

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• 10 Easy Recipes for DIY Natural Beauty Products
• Real People Making a Difference

Jeff Yeager is the author of the book The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches. His Website is www.UltimateCheapskate.com.

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc

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Five tips to green your next party

Last year, I  threw a birthday party for my father, and while the event made him all smiles, I could see how a traditional party can put a big sad face on the planet with all the gift wrapping, decorations, and food ordering,. I got to thinking about how many birthday parties must be thrown for kids and adults every year and how much waste we create celebrating the people we love. So I created this list of easy tips for a more eco-friendly event.

 

Invitations

Paying for paper invites and postage is so 2001! Online and email is the way to go these days. Evite is a great way to invite people to an event -- it's free and easy to set up. Facebook also has an event invite feature.

If you use Outlook, Microsoft Office Online offers lots of free email party invite templates, and Yahoo! Mail has a nifty Pingg invitation app to design professional-looking invitations right in your mail program. Yahoo! Mail also has a variety of fun backgrounds and font choices to spice up a regular email.

 

Gift wrap

Challenge yourself not to buy any new gift wrap paper and rethink ways to wrap. Look around your house and see what can be repurposed -- those stacks of newspapers and magazines can make excellent, creative wrap. Save the fronts of birthday and holiday cards and make a collage. A lone pillowcase that no longer matches your sheets can be repurposed into a gift bag with the help of a ribbon. A paper grocery bag can be cut to fit and decorated on the blank side with glitter pens.

If you feel your creative skills really don't cut it, look for gift wrap made from recycled paper that is also recyclable when you're done. Be sure to save the ribbon, bows, and paper that doesn't get too torn or crumpled for reuse. Gift bags are also great reusable options.

Search for gift wrap made from recycled paper.

 

Gifts

Choose something the recipient can use, instead of giving useless clutter. How many cutesy trinkets or silly gag gifts does a person need? Most of those end up sitting on someone's shelf collecting dust until they are tossed in a landfill.

For adults, try giving gadgets that do something useful or save them money, or give gift cards/certificates that can used on practical items or a wonderful experience such as movies, gas, maid service, a massage, a class, or a dinner at a favorite restaurant. You could also consider a donation in a person's name to a charity you know the recipient is passionate about.

For kids, party stores would love you to fill up your goodie bags with plastic do-dads and noise makers. Instead, opt for something the little ones can use to get their minds and bodies working such as art supplies, educational games, or sports gear.

Look for gift ideas on the Yahoo! Green Gift Guide.

 

Food

While the party may be focused on fun and socializing, everyone will appreciate a little something to nosh on, so plan to serve a few light and healthy snacks. Fruit, nuts, and appetizers should suffice.

Shop local by purchasing ingredients from your nearby farmer's market. If the neighborhood natural food market is more convenient, check out the books filled with recipes using the unique foods found in both Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.

If you don't have time to pull this off, consider catering because organic options are now widely available. Or try the organic pizza menu from the Z Pizza chain. And don't forget the cake!

Search for healthy party appetizer recipes.

Search for organic cake recipes.

Search for organic catering.

 

Set up and decor

Use real plates and utensils instead of paper and plastic disposables. If you have kids and know you'll be having birthday parties every year until they hit their teens, invest in a stack of colorful plates that you'll be able to reuse for every party. They'll know that special set is just for them on their special day.

The same goes for decorations. It may be worth making one trip to the party store for some streamers and cardboard cutouts if you plan to keep them and reuse them (go for generic themes such as stars or color schemes). But skip the balloons -- the material is treated with toxins, and once deflated, they are dangerous if ingested by wildlife.

So party on, with an event that leaves everyone happy, especially the planet.

Check out Yahoo! Green on Twitter and Facebook.

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What activities can I do when I turn off the lights for Earth Hour?

Q: Earth Hour is coming up on March 27 and I, for one, am excited to get in on the action and turn off my lights. One question though – what the heck am I supposed to do in the dark for a whole hour?

• 8 moments that shaped the environmental movement
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Turn it off, take action for Earth Hour

What single event will unite 3,500 cities, towns, and municipalities in 125 countries and regions -- along with at least 80 million Americans? What worldwide action is hugely symbolic yet so simple, even a child can participate?

It's Earth Hour, and it happens for the fourth time on Saturday, March 27, 2010, starting at 8:30 p.m. local time. Just turn off the lights, and you're in.

Landmarks like the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Empire State Building in New York, St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Sydney's Opera House, and the Acropolis and Parthenon in Athens will go dark for one hour.

New monuments turning off the lights this time include Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Toronto's CN Tower, the Burj Khalifa (world's tallest building) in Dubai, and the Bosphorus Bridge that links Asia to Europe in Turkey

Countries like the Czech Republic, Madagascar, Nepal, Panama, Saudi, Arabia, Lithuania, and the Cook Islands will participate in the light's out demonstration for their first time in 2010. They're joining Earth Hour originator Australia and past participants such as Brazil, Hong Kong, Egypt, Great Britain, Switzerland, and Japan.

London Bridge as it is lit every night.


How London Bridge will look during Earth Hour. (Photos: World Wildlife Fund)

In the U.S., New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is turning off his lights, and so is the Phoenix Suns' Steve Nash. Downtown Atlanta, Chicago, and Nashville will dim. The usually glittering Las Vegas Strip will flick off the switch of the iconic "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign along with the marquees for dozens of major hotels and the Fremont Street Experience.

The lights will go out at governors' residences and/or state capitol buildings in 33 states including Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, and New York.  

Seattle's Space Needle, the Church of Latter-Day Saints Temple in Salt Lake City, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, and San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge are just a few of the American monuments that will turn off all unnecessary lights.

Las Vegas' Flamingo Hotel usually has a well-lit marquee featuring the current show.


But during Earth Hour, the Flamingo will go dark. (Photos: World Wildlife Fund)

Why?  The power bills won't go down dramatically with the lights dimmed for just one hour. (And don't worry, there won't be a power surge from people turning lights off and then back on all at once.)

The goal of the World Wildlife Fund-sponsored event isn't to save energy on this one day -- it's to raise awareness of climate change and energy conservation all year round.

Nashville's riverfront glows on a typical night.


Nashville makes a stand on climate change during Earth Hour.
(Photos: World Wildlife Fund)

So use this hour in the dark to plan what you're really going to do to help the planet. There are lots of things that take less than one hour but add up to a lot of conservation.

For example, you could start doing any of these things:

• Turn off lights when you leave a room for 15 minutes or longer.
• Drink tap water instead of bottled water.
• Put your computer in power-save mode.
• Turn off video game consoles when not in use.
• Seal air leaks, adjust your water heater, and control your thermostat to lower energy usage and waste.
• Go meatless on Mondays.
• Watch out for energy vampires around the house and unplug the biggies.
• Swap out all your light bulbs for CFLs.
• Stop catalogs and junk mail from piling up in your mailbox.
• Reduce the brightness of your TV set to the "home" mode.
• Use up leftovers, compost, and avoid wasting food.
• Find out how walkable your hometown is and try walking to your weekend errands.
• Fix a leaky faucet or toilet.
• Use the low-water and low-heat settings on your dishwasher, and don't pre-rinse dishes.
• Hang your clothes to dry on a clothesline in spring and summer.
• Take public transit to work or school.
• Install dimmer switches on your lights and plug appliances into smart power switches.

Get more ideas for living green, saving energy, saving water, conserving limited resources, and saving money at the same time.

Earth Hour is only 60 minutes. It's a start, maybe a wake-up call for some when they see landmarks and cities go dark. What we do the rest of the day and the rest of the year is what counts in the long run.

Check out Yahoo! Green on Twitter and Facebook.

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How to start a vegetable garden in March, April, or May

The Daily Green's senior editor Dan Shapley asked Roger Doiron, a 2009 Heart of Green Award winner, and founder of Kitchen Gardeners International (newly redesigned -- check it out!) 13 questions about gardening for beginners. The first three questions are featured here.

Doiron and Kitchen Gardeners International were a big part of the movement that convinced Michelle Obama to plant that organic garden at the White House. It was Kitchen Gardeners International that launched the Facebook petition drive you probably remember joining.

So Doiron knows a thing or two about not only gardening, but also politics and inspiration.

Here's what he had to say:

Take us through the stages of planning a first-time garden in the pre-season. It's mid March -- if you have never before grown a garden, or haven't grown a garden successfully, what should you be doing right now?

There are many different hardiness zones and micro-climates across the country so it's hard to generalize about what a gardener should be doing each month, but, for gardeners in northern climates like mine in Maine, March is time for starting cold weather crops like radishes, peas, and salad greens outside and warm weather crops like tomatoes indoors.

For more ambitious and patient gardeners, March is a good time for planting asparagus crowns (roots) which are the ultimate vegetable crop when it comes to delayed gratification, requiring 2-3 years before generating any significant harvest.

How about in April?

April is also a month for planting all the cool weather crops mentioned above as well as many others like early (new) potatoes, early carrots, and onions. I also "go wild" in April by making salads using wild dandelion greens from our yard when they're at their tender best.

I'm not sure what my neighbors think about a grown man crawling on all fours across his yard with a paring knife in one hand and a colander in the other, but ...

And in May?

In May, everything seems to become possible for northern gardeners as the air and soil temperatures begin to heat up. Warmer weather crops like beans and summer squash can be sown from seed and the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants that you might have sown indoors can be moved outside.

Check back in early April to see the answers to more gardening questions, for beginners and politicians, answered by Roger Doiron.

 

Roger Doiron's 2009 Heart of Green Awards acceptance speech:

 

More from The Daily Green

• The Best Gardening Tips for Beginning Gardeners
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• Container Gardening: Start a Garden in Any Amount of Space!

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc

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