Kitchen garbage disposals use a lot of water and the waste has little value to other life forms after sewage-treatment systems are done with it. If you want to return food-based nutrients to the Earth, opt for composting, the spoils of which can be added to your garden to jump start the health of your soil. Photo: Getty Images.
ear EarthTalk: I was surprised to learn recently that some cities, including New York, have outlawed kitchen-sink garbage disposals, at least in homes. I would have thought these machines were Earth-friendly. What's the deal?
--Maggie Mangan, St. Louis, MO
Kitchen sink garbage disposals are not necessarily Earth-friendly in and of themselves, but they do play a valuable role in grinding up food scraps into small enough bits for local sewer or on-site septic systems to handle. In the U.S. overall, about half of all homes have a garbage disposal in the kitchen. New York did outlaw the devices for many years, thinking a ban would alleviate the strain on the city's aging sewer system. But a study later conducted in the mid-1990s found benefits to lifting the ban, including a likely reduction in rat and cockroach problems and a reduced flow of solid waste to landfills already bursting at the seams. So in 1997 the Big Apple began allowing the devices again.
ust outside my back door is a patch filled with happy buzzing bees. When I need a little rosemary for my chicken, or thyme for my fish, or 
any people are making their own tinctures from dried and fresh herbs in an attempt to be more involved in their health. Tinctures of fresh herbs have proven to be more vitalizing and longer lasting than dried herbs. Dried herbs tend to get moldy or be eaten by insects; tinctures will not. Tinctures will keep for as long as two years and sustain their potency if stored properly. Creating your own tinctures will save you quite a bit of money.
know what you're thinking – "I planted everything back in the spring and I'm done until next year." That's what most people do, but an avid gardener like you should realize all of the benefits of planting in the fall.
:I want to be able to landscape my yard, but flowers and shrubs are so expensive. I've tried to plant some perenials so they'll continue to bloom every year, but our yard still needs lots of work. Any suggestions on finding inexpensive plants, shrubs, and or trees? I'm tempted to go to the woods and look for things to steal every spring! And we all know that's not right. Please help if you can.
omposting is #2 on my list of the top five life changing things I have done after becoming a full-time homemaker. I started composting mainly because we were throwing away more trash than the garbage collectors would pick up and the situation got pretty gross last summer. Thankfully, we now have a great community recycling program which takes care of about a trash can worth of recycled waste every week. We also have "green" recycling but after watching a Home and Garden Television (HGTV) program on composting I decided to see if I could make a home composting effort worthwhile. What I found was amazing. My children (6 and 7) love being involved, I love the results, and I feel so superior now that I can make "dirt"! 
