houseofeleggua: Recycling Tips For Greener Witchery Being a Green Witch is not only brewing nice oils or creating incenses; much more important than those things is the belief that Nature is our true and only source, and that it must be respected and cared for as much as possible. Both for rural or urban witches, reducing our waste and recycling are the biggest steps into a greener, more conscious living, and the ones who make a true Green Witch in my opinion. Here are some helpful and very cheap (if not free) tips that we use on our daily life: The Garden - Save the water of boiling potatoes and eggs and water your plants with it. Not only this reduces your water waste, that water is full of nutrients for your plants. - Any herbal debris from your herbal garden can be saved and used to make “compost tea”: cut all leaves and stems in small pieces with scissors and place them in a piece of fabric (thrifted sheets are perfect). Add a stone or any other heavy object and tie the fabric to make your “tea bag”. Place it on a bucket of water, cover the bucket and leave in a warm place for a few days. Your herbs will love this water! This always works best with fresh herbs. - Don’t throw away that nettles after you’ve weeded them! Not only they have wonderful properties for your health, they also make the best cold infusion to fill your plants with nutrients. - Coffee grounds and powdered eggshell make a wonderful organic fertilizer. - To keep you plants free from most bugs, spray the plants with a garlic infusion; boil the water, put on the garlic cloves (as many as you want, I use a full clove head per gallon of water) and let it sit until it’s back to room temperature. Then, add a glass of apple vinegar and spray your plants with it, specially under the leaves. Most bugs will starve to death as they hate the taste of the infusion. Once you have ended with the bugs, “shower” the plant spraying clean water, to get rid of any residual taste. Note: do this only when you have bugs or you’ll end up with garlic flavoured herbs. Feathered And Furry Spirits - Your local birds need extra food on the winter, mainly carbohydrates to create fat to survive the cold season. Make bird food for them recycling stale cereals, muesli, cookies, cakes and bread. Mush your leftover mix to very small pieces and add two teaspoons of honey and a powdered eggshell for extra calcium intake. - Place some extra bird houses on the warmest wall of your garden. Birds always avoid air drafts, so keep that in mind. If you have a garden, you can also place sheltering places for animals. Wooden boxes, old buckets, just use your imagination! Leaving a little of your pet’s food outside is no big waste and could help animals who are breeding to avoid starvation. - Don’t forget your local shelters! Most of them accept donations of all kind, from old blankets, leashes, rubber toys… even if you can’t afford to give money, there is always something we can contribute with.

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