Lawn Mower Exchange Program

The South Coast Air Quality Management District has a wonderful program designed to take gas polluting lawn mowers off our lawns.

The program allows you to register to receive an electric lawn mower at a discount in exchange for turning in your working gas powered lawn mower.

Every year the AQMD has a limited supply of lawn mower units available for the program. This year we were lucky enough to register for a Neuton CE 5 which is going to cost us $100. The unit retails for $389 so this is clearly a great deal.

This year the program offered three models - the Neuton CE 5, Neuton CE 6, and the Black & Decker 24V mower. The CE 5 was $100 and the CE 6 and B&D models were $160 (they retail for $489 and $399 respectively). A great deal for sure.

Unfortunately this years' supply of 4,000 lawn mowers has be budgeted so you'll have to wait until next year to get yours. You can sign up to receive an email notice next year by going here.

For more information about the program you can go to the AQMD website.

Kellogg Brand Garden Soil & Rebate

In an effort to actually grow something in our garden we had to build a raised bed as our dirt patch (aka backyard) was not going to cut it.

Once we built our bed we had to decide what to fill it with. After searching around and price shopping we settled on Kellogg brand Garden Soil. It's rich in all natural, organic materials including kelp meal, worm castings, bat guano & natural forest products.

It comes in a 3 cuft bale for about $7.33 at Lowes. The best thing about it for me was the $10 rebate Kellogg is offering until the end of the year. Basically you get $1 per bag, limit 10. So you need to purchase at least 10 Kellogg branded products, fill out the form and they will send you up to $10 bucks.

We didn't know about the rebate before purchasing but were very happy to stumble upon it after the fact.

Here is the link for the rebate. (an online form)

Alternatively you can use this pdf printable form.

Spring: Sofa's Sprouting Streetside

So if you live in a big city you know that spring means that sofa's, couches, etc. start to sprout on city sidewalks. Having attended UCLA I remember quite a few sofa burnings in my day.

Well if we're going to clean up our cities, sometimes it takes us being a little bit proactive and helping keep the streets clean. Did you know the city of LA will pick up pretty much anything if you just let them know its there? I'm sure many cities have the same program.

Here's a convenient link.

Just type in John Doe for your name if you like and the address where the illegally dumped items can be found and in just a few days they will be gone!

Remember it all starts with just one person!

Free Whole Foods Reusable Bag

So Whole Foods was doing a giveaway through Sunday of a reusable bag. And I was all bummed cause I didn't realize it had ended, but I decided last night on the trip to whole foods to give it a try anyway. And guess what they still gave it to me! In fact we had printed 3 coupons and they gave us three free bags. So here is the coupon, print it out give it a try. You have nothing to lose and might get a free bag! Apparently I am my mother's daughter cause I can't pass up anything free.

Cheerios Help a Heart Campaign

Cheerios is donating 1 dollar to WomenHeart, an organization that offers free cholesterol screenings for women in need, for every code entered at www.cheerioshelpinghearts.com.

So buy some cheerios and enter those codes!

How does your garden grow?

I'm not a gardener, but for some reason more than anything this year all I wanted was to have my very own veggie garden. I think the last time I attempted to grow something I killed it before I even got it into the ground.

But this time was going to be different! We've failed many times already but I think our garden is finally starting to take shape, who knew all the things you had to do just to get some veggies to grow.

Here are some pictures of the making of the actual veggie bed as well as some pictures of our new seedlings! Tomatoes, Radishes, Kholrabi, Okra, Green Beans, Snowpeas, Squash, lettuce, and lots more!

I think I'll feature a veggie a day and throw up some tips we learned. Cause you have to kill alot of plants to learn how to do it right. ;)

Earth Day Coupons

So the other day I was watching Oprah. I know, I know, she's super annoying sometimes. BUT, she had some cool Earth Day Coupons.

Sigg: 20% off

To-Go Ware: 20% off

Enjoy!

Save the rainforest 100sqft at a time with help from Tropicana

Being from Florida and growing up not too far from their Bradenton headquarters I have always been a fan of Tropicana OJ.

I was delightfully surprised when I recently discovered through my register receipt from the grocery store that Tropicana was saving the rainforest with my help, 100sqft at a time. They have set up a website www.tropicanarainforest.com where you enter a unique code and they will preserve a 100sqft of rainforest in exchange. The unique code is printed on each carton of OJ or in my case I also got it via the coupons they print along with your register receipt.

This seems like something so simple to do and the best part is that you feel good about yourself when you do it.

Welcome!

Welcome to Lite Green Living. We're a simple married couple trying our best to find some harmony in the craziness of LA city life. We're not quite crazy green tree huggers, but we like to consider ourselves the lite green couple that you might be able to relate to.

We do our best to find ways to conserve energy, cut down on trash, recycle, build a victory garden, reuse before throwing away, become flexitarians, and anything else fun we discover along the way.

We're not hippies, we're over educated and under paid ;). And like you we're starting to find that the simple things in life bring the most joy.

This blog is just a day in the life of light green living.