Four Tiers of Eco-Friendly Commitment

Tier 3

In Tier 1, it is recommended to add things to your life to reduce bills. Here, more things are added that require more money to put up, more effort, and more time, so it's like Tier 1's adjustments but more involved. Not for the faint of heart but very, very worth it. I have included Tier 1's stuff in the interest of being comprehensive so you don't have to look from page to page. Generally speaking these upgrades could take more than just one year especially if you don't have the money to put them all up right now. Also, many are not applicable for people who live in apartments or on the street, or who are broke. Just know they exist and add what you can when you can. 3/22/21 started adding specific Instructables: note that for everything on this page there is likely at least one Instructable for it

UPGRADES FOR THE SELF

Switch to all biodegradable personal care products, if they're water soluble. This includes but isn't limited to shampoo, soap, deodorant, conditioner, and laundry detergent. If you can't find biodegradable, go with unscented. You can make your own versions of all of these btw. See DIY Everything
Upgrade your wardrobe so you don't freeze in winter, get drenched in rain, or fry in summer. Besides helping you deal with weather conditions, if you're wearing this stuff inside the home you won't need to overcompensate with excess heating or cooling.
Start carrying around a purse, laptop bag, or backpack, if you aren't already. Preventing you from buying yet more captive consumerism goods like bottled water and junk food is good for the environment.
In whatever you're carrying, start stashing this stuff: two large water bottles (I like Nalgenes or 3 Ito-En green tea bottles), silverware wrapped in a napkin/bandanna and rubber band, a reusable lunch box that doesn't leak such as a bento box filled with goodies, and if needed a reusable container filled with breakfast and/or dinner.
Develop a habit of reusing things to the best of your ability.
If you want, then stan hemp, bamboo, and bee products with me. They are amazing, versatile things with a lot of potential for creating products that save the environment.
Learning about voluntary simplicity, gratitude, and Stoicism all help quite a lot with not buying or wanting too much. This is good for the environment. If you can get your hands on a copy of The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday, Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach, and Romancing the Ordinary by Sarah Ban Breathnach, read them once, they'll change your life. In particular the more grateful you are for what exists in your life, the richer you are.
An old belief is that the land itself, as well as the Earth, is alive and sentient. I have felt it myself. To determine for yourself if this is true, meditate in nature while sitting directly on the ground. Once calm and you are deep in meditation, try to see if you can sense anything from the Earth and the land. If you find and develop this connection then you will soon be able to understand specific messages from the land, the Earth, and plants, which is really helpful for if you're trying to figure out if you're just imagining things or not - specific messages can usually be proven accurate or inaccurate through experiment. For instance, I always ask a plant out loud for permission before I pick some when I am foraging, and embarrassingly, once the intuitive answer was "no," I ignored it, and I accidentally poisoned myself. Other times, plants will "tell" me what they want so I can grow them better, and as a result I kind of have a magic touch with gardening. If you think this is a hippie load of crap that's fine, but give it a fair and complete trial before you make a final judgment call. You might be surprised.
Really pay attention to the world outside. Focus on the details - the season, the sky, the way the ground feels beneath your feet, the stuff filtering in through your senses, small and large creatures. If you focus well enough you'll realize that you're rich just from the fact you live on planet Earth. People don't pay for the privilege of seeing a sunset or listening to the wind but that doesn't mean they wouldn't pay a very exorbitant, high price if they had come from another planet to visit. Living on this planet, especially if it is healthy, is priceless. And embarrassingly for us, nature provides us all of these gifts without charging us a dime, yet we want to put a price tag on everything. This kind of attitude is precisely what is destroying these priceless gifts of nature and it's been this way for centuries - it has got to change.

UPGRADES FOR KNOWLEDGE

If this looks a little like Mad Max you're on the right track. We either learn this or we suffer.

Start to learn handyman stuff, especially plumbing, maintenance of machines and vehicles, electricity/home wiring stuff, and HVAC
Start to learn how to garden and farm, if you haven't already, including growing stuff indoors and how to cope with global warming on a farm; microclimate creation, permaculture, and drip irrigation are going to be crucial
Start to learn construction methods so you can build what you need out of what's at hand
Start to study air purification methods
Start to study water collection, purification, and storage methods
Start to study waste management methods, including all waste: garbage, sewage, recycling, upcycling
Start to study electricity generation and storage methods, especially renewable ones such as from dams, wind turbines, solar cells, and solar parabolic dishes
Start to study off-grid tech and ideas for heating and cooling, such as geothermal, high heat capacitance, passive solar tech, and other things to ensure one does not suffer or die by overheating or overcooling
Start to get good at vehicle maintenance and even creation. It will be needed sooner than ya think. Even knowing how to make a bike that can haul a bunch of stuff on a cart behind it is better than nothing.

HOME UPGRADES

Windows

Double-glazed, storm, or vacuum filled windows
Either flattened cardboard boxes, enough to put in all the windows, or Owens-Corning pink foamboard sheeting; these are extremely helpful during nights in winter - you put them up each night. These aren't used if you use plastic film instead. In summer, this also helps reduce the heat indoors.
Plastic film to seal windows in winter if you would rather be able to see out of your windows
Either heavy curtains with wraparound curtain rod that closes off the edges, or tacks and plenty of sheets. Note: Black sheets or curtains are better in winter since they convert the sun's light to heat, and white sheets or curtains are better for summer since they don't.
Caulk with which to seal up drafts around windows - NOT rope caulk, that stuff dries up and screws up within a couple of years
Rolled-up towels or sewed draft blockers for the bottoms of each window

Doors

Door draft blocker that slides on the bottom of the door and is made of plastic
Sewn door draft blocker made of weights and polyester batting or rolled-up towels
Small rooms built on to function as airlocks so all the cold or hot air doesn't come rushing out every time you open the door
Pool noodles cut to size, slit lengthwise to reach the middle, and jammed up underneath indoor doorways that let drafts through - use caution; you don't want to suffocate

Lighting

Keep your eyes peeled for solar fiberoptic lighting. It's coming.
Switch everything to LED lightbulbs.
Hang up sheer privacy curtains everywhere so you can get natural light without having to feel exposed every time you walk by a window. Tacking up white sheets also works.
If you are able, install skylights in every room you can. Make sure you can cover these if it gets hot, though. and be sure they are insulated so they don't let out heat in winter.

Cleaning Supplies

Remember that these are not going to kill coronavirus. They're cleaning supplies, not disinfectants. Clean, then disinfect.
Generally speaking swap all your cleaning supplies to those that are biodegradable.
Paper towels are indispensable for cleaning the bathroom, so swap those out for 100% recycled ones.
Use biodegradable all-purpose cleaner, or make your own: make an all-purpose cleaner by diluting 1 tsp unscented dish soap in a quart-sized bottle filled with half vinegar and half water. Add essential oils or perfume to scent; up to 60 drops total. Or go with my personal favorite: plain cheap vodka and 60 drops of lemon essential oil in a quart-sized spray bottle.
Instead of a heavily scented soap to add to the mop bucket try Dr. Bronner's liquid soap or a similar liquid castile soap. Those are biodegradable. Or just add a half cup of vinegar to the mop bucket each time.

Kitchen

This is going to sound kind of weird, but get really good at cooking. The better you get at it, the less food you waste and the less the delighted diners want to waste.
Buy those mesh drain traps so you don't have to perpetually Drano your sink. While you're at it get some for every drain in the house; the bathroom might need a flexible plastic one to cover its drain; pick those that work for your situation.
Learn to forage and get good at it, but leave no trace and reseed all places you pick from. Also, if foraging for leafy stuff, pick only portions from the plant that you would pick if you were pruning said plant so it gets stronger and healthier in the future. Always leave more than what you took. Also, it is always wise to ask out loud if you may forage for a specific plant, and wait for an intuitive answer - and also to stop foraging when you get an intuitive "stop." To learn, check out Eat The Weeds, Grow Forage Cook Ferment and Trillium Wild Edibles.
Instead of paper towels, use plain white washcloths or soft white absorbent towels in a small size. Or even rags. Clean them by scrubbing them against one another in a sink full of soapy water, draining it and wringing them out, then covering them with boiling water and weighing them down with something heavy and heatproof. Let them cool, then wring them out and let them air dry.
Beeswax food wraps are a reusable swap for plastic wrap. Make or buy some, and wipe off with soapy water to clean.
Build a solar slow cooker and use it in the summer months. Cover it when not in use to prevent lighting something on fire! Although this isn't very practical short term, it is helpful for emergency prep and as a backup in case your power goes out. Ditto the next suggestion.
Build a heliostat for boiling water, and use that whenever you like - however, it's a good idea to run the metal pipe behind the heliostat so you don't get exposed to high UV every time you go out there, and to cover it between uses so you don't light something on fire!
Beeswax food wraps Instructable

Heating and Cooling

Check this out. The Whitest Paint Ever It's not yet on the market but when it is, paint, paint, paint! Another piece of new tech to look out for is this stuff Cool Tubes
Find, in person or online (search make and model), the owner's manual for appliances and HVAC stuff like heaters and AC units. Read the manuals and then optimize the system with what you learn.
***I MAKE NO GUARANTEES THAT THIS WON'T KILL YOU*** Many electronic thermostats these days, at least in non-expensive housing, need to be replaced at least once a year. Otherwise they just don't work, really. Their only saving grace is that they're cheap. Look up the make and model of yours if you have one, buy a replacement online, and once it arrives, ensure that your home's electrical system has good grounding. Then, find the make and model's installation manual and operation manual online and read those, turn off the electricity breaker for your home or apartment so you don't get shocked to death, and install it carefully. Then, turn on the electricity again. Chances are the user's manual will say this replacement of the thermostat should only be done by a professional, so make your own decisions here.
Insulate, insulate, insulate. The higher the R-value, the better the insulation, and usually the most expensive, so shop around. Start with the attic by adding as much as you can; Instructables has good guides for this but also ask at a local Home Depot for advice. This guide is a good one, so read it. This Old House Also roam around DoItYourself.com to find helpful guides. If there's exposed ductwork in the attic, insulate that first. Here's a good example of the main ingredient for that Master Flow Duct Wrap. Then, air seal the attic, using that This Old House article previously linked and the Instructable article at the bottom of this Heating and Cooling section. Next, add insulation to the attic however you can; starting with the roof gables is easier, and then you can add to the floor. Insulate below floor joists in the basement. Insulate pipes to prevent them from freezing and to reduce how hard the hot water heater has to work. Insulate garage doors. If you have the ability, insulate walls as well if it's worth it to tear them apart or drill a hole in them. Here is one product that seems to be relatively affordable Techshield Radiant Barrier. If you have good balance and a couple of wood panels, you can bring them up there to move back and forth to stand on those little islands and layer a lot of fiberglass insulation over the attic floor AND the rafters, and this would provide even better insulation. For like $40,000. Just do what you can here.
If you have a ground floor and no basement, then either get a large horde of gallon-sized water bottles or a large horde of 5-gallon water bottles and put 20 to 40 gallons of stored drinking water or plain tap water in every room. Yes, every single room. 20 to 40 gallons does the trick in a room about 8 by 8 feet, scale it up or down as needed. Place them either in the middle, like under a coffee table or something, or next to wherever the heating or cooling vent is. These function like heat batteries; they're heat capacitors because water is an excellent heat capacitor. This means whenever the weather changes, the bottles either absorb the extra heat or release it, but slowly. Meaning if it's cold at night and hot during the day, they stay cold as dawn breaks and then absorb the heat from the rooms, making the rooms cooler, then they release the heat at night to make it less cold.
Get Great Stuff and caulk. Seal up every gap that is drafty. Baseboards, walls, holes in the walls.
If you can add an addition to all exterior doors, like a mudroom or extra porch with insulated walls, you'll effectively create airlocks to reduce heat transfer between indoors and outdoors, making your home way more efficient. Plus, it's a convenient place to chuck your stuff when you come inside.
You might find it worthwhile to look into a PTAC, which is what motels use to both heat and cool their rooms. They're less expensive than installing an entire new system for heating and/or cooling in your home and can be a good supplement to what you already have. Here are a couple examples. Example 1 Example 2 However, ensure that the power output and voltage required by the PTAC matches what your home puts out and that the outlet and the wiring leading to the PTAC can handle the voltage and power output or you could create power surges and/or burn down your house. Consult an electrician if you aren't familiar with any of this. Also PTACs are notorious for causing moisture and ventilation problems because they do not dehumidify and ventilate like an AC unit does. PTAC Units Article Here's some more info PTAC Crew
Painting the roof white might be worth it. Here is one example of the paint used Lanco 5 Gal White Seal
Home Depot sells these pink panels made by Owens-Corning. They are helpful to cram in windows to reduce heat loss or gain, especially on cold nights in the winter. Try them. Your utility bill will thank you. Reused cardboard boxes or storebought heavy-duty cardboard boxes also work, but not as well. You might want to use duct tape to keep it there, but then you'll later need to use Goo Gone to get the duct tape gook off the windows.
If you can, install heavy curtains everywhere. If you can't, tack up or (better) nail up multiple layers of sheets or blankets. Four to five layers of sheets work well; two average blankets layered together work well. This works better with cardboard or pink panels.
When buying a new air conditioner or refrigerator to replace old ones, buy an inverter AC unit or a bunch of them, and an inverter fridge. They're more efficient, and better yet, they don't go 'max cold' every half hour then turn off in order to roast you or your food. Inverter appliances provide a constant stream of cooling that increases or decreases according to the need; they do not have just 'on' and 'off' settings.
Consider maximizing winter heating gains from south-facing windows by building a greenhouse as an addition to your house there, if it works for your situation.
Build a solar tin-can heater for any garage or workshop you have. In fact, build at least one anyway just in case the power goes out.
Plant a line of evergreen trees to block prevailing cold winter winds
Get a bunch of window AC units and a bunch of space heaters. Making the room where you're at comfortable is better for the environment than cooling the whole place. Also it helps during the inevitable unpredictable heat waves and hard freezes caused by global warming.
~~Plant a bunch of deciduous trees that grow large and leafy in the directions where the greatest amount of sun shines on your home to shade your home in summer~~ Actually plant deciduous trees all around your home at this point, global warming is no joke
Look into installing a geothermal heating and cooling system
The oldest method of building in England is actually one of the most energy efficient. Cob walls, thatched roofs? Good insulation. Alas, the only way to do that with modern building methods is to build from scratch using Owen Geiger's Instructables for earthbags, go for adobe building, or really go ham on exterior wall insulation, roof insulation and attic insulation. However, any additions to a home made from modern stuff (like 2 x 4's and drywall), such as a front porch mudroom or a back porch or a garage extension, can certainly be made from earthbags, adobe, or the Earthship method of building with tires and a good mix of cob.
If you have the ability, then engineer and install a solar heating system based on heliostats and underfloor pipes.
Temporary Window Double Glazing Potentially helpful for apartments that leak all their heat through the windows, though you'll probably need to scrub off the adhesive with Goo Gone or something when you take off the acrylic panel. Good for people who can't install storm windows. Can also attach the acrylic panel using some other kind of method besides magnetic strips.
Attic Air Sealing
Attic Insulation DIY
Car Sun Shades in Windows Might be good to put the shiny side closest to the window and a piece of pink foamboard on the inner side
Garage Door Insulation DIY

Waste

Dig a pit in your backyard and chuck compost in there. Cover it with straw, grass clippings, leaves, or sawdust after every trip to the pile, or dirt if that's all you got. If you don't know what compost is, or how to get it done, look it up. It isn't hard. Between compost pile trips, store up the compost in a a couple of covered plastic bins; foodservice buckets with lids are fine, but leftover plastic coffee holders work great.
Make a recycling and waste area. Plastic bins are the best here, be they rubbermaid type or actual blue recycling bins with the little symbol on them. Put the right kind of recycling in the right bin, and be sure you rinse out dirty stuff and dry it well before you just chuck it in there. Drive these out to the local recycling plant monthly or pay (through the nose, damn it!) for recycling pickup along with trash pickup.
Get another couple of plastic bins or cardboard boxes for donations to charity, and/or selling stuff. This selling stuff can be online or in person.
Fill a pillowcase or a few with fabric scraps; set aside a couple pillowcases just for that. If you don't sew, give it to someone who does when it's full.
Hopefully someday soon biodegradable trash bags that don't fall apart when they get wet will exist. When they do, use them.
Make a craft area which you stock with art supplies. Put it right next to the recycling bins. If you like to upcycle things, you can definitely turn this into a side hustle.

Water-Related

Install a solar hot water heater if you can. Or, replace the huge gas tank kind with an electric one. They heat up faster too.
Faucet aerators attached to all taps, and low-flow showerheads installed to conserve water
Go for a front-loading washing machine. They're more expensive, but more efficient, and get the most eco-friendly model you can find.
Dual-flush toilet installed OR if you live in the country and get permission from county officials (otherwise you could contaminate the water table), straight-up dig a privy and get a whole bunch of straw and sawdust to throw in there after every use. When it's full up, move the privy, wait a couple years, then plant a tree where it was or close to it.
If you live in the country, it isn't actually necessary to pee anywhere but on the ground. It's fertilizer and it conserves water.
Greywater system - why these are not everywhere, I have absolutely no idea
A septic tank's leach field might be a good option if you live way out in the country. It's certainly more eco friendly than many other alternatives. However, this is both complicated and expensive to set up and maintain.
If you irrigate your yard, go the extra mile for stationary stuff such as trees, shrubs, and perennials, and install drip irrigation for those things. They thrive, you save water, win win.
If you install a shed, roof it with something nontoxic such as metal, and then rig up a rain barrel attached to it. You can then use that to supplement waterings in your yard.
Read the Rainwater Harvesting series (I, II, and III) by Brad Lancaster, and you'll never look at water the same way again. If it'd help, adopt some of the principles from it to see what works in your backyard or on your land and see what happens.
Check your area's laws regarding water rights and rainwater collection. Re-roof on top of your existing roof with radiant barrier and corrugated metal, and then reroute all gutters to a daisy-chained bunch of rain barrels. Next, install a solar pump to water any garden you have with this setup, ideally with drip irrigation but whatever works. Instructables has a few tutorials for this.
If at all able to do heavy construction, dig a very large hole in your backyard to construct a concrete rain tank with it, and then hook up another solar pump for it. Nope, I don't know how this can be done but I know it needs to be done ASAP for a lot of people. We have global warming and drought incoming. Alternatively, construct your own large water tank. Velacreations on Instructables gives one example, as does Owen Geiger.
Cheap, Easy Rain Catchment

Electricity-Related

Some locales offer wind, hydro, or solar power from the same utility provider that offers fossil fuel power, for a higher cost. Look it up for your electricity provider and switch to the pricier, greener plan if you're able.
Or better yet if possible go completely off the grid electricity-wise. You can hire out some exorbitantly priced solar power company to do it all for you and manage the system as well, or you can DIY it (Instructables; always Instructables). Managing your own solar power is majorly difficult, but... you can prevent your power from going out.
Here is a solar power company that does it all for you. Sunpower At least there is a tax credit for installing this stuff, supposedly, so thank goodness for that. To see if you can afford it, get an estimate from the company and go from there. Highly recommended for literally everyone living in Texas right now because ERCOT wants us all to suffer. Here's another option that seems to have good reviews, but not exactly the largest service area Zenernet. Regional solar power companies however are probably worth seeking out, especially if they have good reviews from family and friends.
LED screen technology is excellent for reducing the power load from things like TVs and computers. Seek out products like that, especially Energy Star rated ones.
Instructables is full of nifty DIY projects for charging small tech like phones and laptops using nothing but tiny wind turbines or backpack-sized solar panels. Look into it and try a few if you can, but only if you're willing to put in extra effort to ensure you don't accidentally create a power surge and destroy your device's electronics. Nowadays there are a couple of products specifically for that which you can buy premade, see Shopping
Newer appliances with the Energy Star rating are great, and the more efficient the better.
This might sound strange but an electric lawn mower is not a bad thing to have, especially if you're using clean power.
A smart, programmable thermostat that actually works. Program it so it's uncomfortable when you leave the house and comfortable when you arrive, but still keeps your stuff safe and your pipes from freezing.
Put up a clothesline, and/or buy metal solar clothes dryers that fit on your porch. You can get those from Bed Bath and Beyond online. Then use said clothes dryer or line instead of the dryer whenever possible.
Put an insulating blanket on your hot water heater or better yet, install an electric heat-to-order instead of constantly-hot hot water heater instead. Or just install a solar hot water heater and call it a day.
Installing automatic lights that turn off when you're not in the room actually helps a lot. Just don't install them in rooms where constant light is necessary.
DIY Off Grid Solar Instructables Collection Attempt at your own risk.
For mad lads: yet more off grid solar Attempt at your own risk.

Bathroom

Install a bidet.
Upgrade to 100% recycled toilet paper.
If female, look into Naturacare pads, or (not for the faint of heart) a menstrual cup.

Gardening

#1: Never, EVER use nonorganic pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides. They're killing bees, and also people, while contaminating water supplies. And some take decades to biodegrade. There are plenty of heavy-duty all-natural ways to kill garden pests, such as nicotine traps, pyrethrum, neem, bacillus thurigensis, and so on. There are also lots of ways to attract beneficial bugs that will fight off the bad guys. Look into it. I do however have to say there are two things I've noticed. 1. lots of the time, people think that 'cides are great for gardening because they reduce the amount of work. If you plan on eating literally anything out of there, this is a really dumb idea. 2. often, people use 'cides because they really, really, really suck at gardening and think that's the only way to get good at it. Surprise! You do not get better at gardening by using 'cides at all. You just screw up the soil, and then you have nothing, good job. Save your money, improve the soil, and sow crops that don't insist on dying or getting eaten. There's a reason traditional farmers and gardeners often say that a 50% survival rate of crops is pretty much par for the course, at least in the first few years. Don't bitch about it; it's normal; plant more and different crops.
Do not use chemical fertilizers. Long term they ruin the soil.
Indoor gardening is always a good supplement to outdoor gardening. Be sure it's in front of a South-facing window if you're trying to grow edible stuff. Get good info on this from The Container Gardener's Bible by Edward C. Smith and The Indestructible Houseplant by Tovah Martin. You might be able to find those at a local library.
If gardening on a patio or roof, put up wind blocks so your plants don't fly out into the sunset. You will also need to install a watering system to keep them nearly constantly watered because of the moisture loss; get a sprinkler with a timer system and experiment with it to see how many times per day and for how long the pots need a soak. And/or save up for a drip irrigation system on a timer. Get the biggest pot you can because those dry out less. If at all possible, consult Edward C. Smith's Container Gardening Bible and convert it into a self-watering pot, because watering potted plants five times a day in August is a special kind of hell. Or, buy self-watering pots, although these might be a little bit shady in terms of how toxic or nontoxic they are. Mix up dirt in these like you would in a raised bed (see below) or using my method for potted plants (in this paragraph). Cramming food scraps etc. into the soil to compost might actually work here too, depending on if there's anything actually growing in the pot at the time. In any case top up these pots with new fertilizer/potting soil mix every time the soil settles a bit, which is usually something like three times during the growing season and a major top-up during the cold season. During the spring and summer, be sure to use liquid organic or nonorganic (your choice) fertilizer in the water at the exact ratio defined on the bottle, to make sure the plants get fed, like maybe once a week or once every couple weeks. Add half a spoonful each per cubic foot of soil (2 tsp if you're really that anal about measurements) granular fertilizer and fish meal every month at least as well, and gently work that into the top couple inches of soil with a spoon. If the leaves look a little pale or the plants look a little tired in their pots, definitely fertilize. Here's my mix for potting up potted plants outdoors, which I mix up in a plastic rubbermaid container but can be done in a wheelbarrow: Per 1 cubic foot moistened Promix organic potting soil, a handful of fish meal, a handful of Espoma organic granulated fertilizer, about 1/4 cup Fox Farm tomato and vegetable liquid fertilizer, and a lot of patience. Mix it up. Put it in the pots. Plant seeds in these whenever it makes sense to, such as when the weather is just starting to warm up in March, or in late September when it's cooling off; gently drench the seeds with a ton of water once or twice a day until the little sprouts don't insist on dying if they miss a watering (this is usually about a month after they're planted). Don't waterlog that soil either; you want it consistently moist like a wrung-out sponge, not dry like dust and not looking like a swamp. Next year I plan to experiment by adding a handful of composted rabbit pellets directly to the dirt, some azomite, as well as a handful or two of dirt from a friend's land, and like half a gallon of moistened coconut coir. I also plan to use a straw mulch on the surface of all the plants and maybe some rocks to hold that down, so they lose less water. I'm not gonna sugarcoat this: my method is damnably expensive and I spend like $200 on all these ingredients plus seeds online every single spring, but I consider it an investment and the spent soil goes into compost to later use in my yard so what can you do.
To water an outdoor potted garden, it is actually best for the plants to put them under the open sky when it rains if you can, or water them with collected rainwater. But don't be a purist here, any water is far better than none. Stick your finger down an inch or so into the soil; if it's moist, you probably don't need to water. If it's dry, water very thoroughly. Another way to tell is to gently lift one side of the pot because a waterlogged pot is heavy and a dry one is not. Generally speaking you'll usually want to water these thoroughly once a day, preferably in the morning. But in hot and/or sunny weather, you'll need to water more than once a day. Watch carefully for wilting, heat waves, droughts, high winds, and very sunny days. All of these will mean your plants will need more water, more often.
Leave a little corner of your garden wild.
You're going to want to put up a fence to keep out deer, cats, dogs, and rabbits, and possibly bird netting as well. Chicken wire is good for keeping out rabbits. Best to make it extend a foot into the ground so they don't tunnel. Heavy-duty tall fencing is good for keeping out deer. I also hear that a heavy sprinkling of garlic powder around the borders of the garden plus scented Irish Spring soap on a rope helps to keep them out. Put bird netting on trees when they start to set fruit, and over strawberry patches. If you really have a problem with creatures eating your food, then you're going to have to make raised beds and put mesh cages over them. Directions for this are in Instructables and also Edward C. Smith's The Container Gardener's Bible.
Composting is easy if your soil isn't completely waterlogged. Dig a pit and chuck non-fatty non-animal-based food scraps in there, layer it up with "browns" aka grass clippins and leaves and yard clippings, dead plants and plant matter (as long as they're not diseased or potentially will throw seeds or reproductive matter into there), and some layers of soil - used potting soil also works -, and once it's full just wait 3 years. Dig another one to repeat the process. If your soil is so waterlogged you create a little pool when you do this then create a little fenced in area to create a pile of the same; same process. If you have friends or family that tend to enjoy throwing away clippings from their non-herbicided and non-pesticided lawns, trees, and shrubbery (why?!?!!!) take it off their hands and chuck it in your compost pile. Same with those autumn leaves that always get bagged up and thrown away. If Starbucks is giving away extra used coffee grounds chuck it in your compost pile. If your friend has some extra straw bales and doesn't know what to do with them, again, compost pile. Sawdust from untreated wood is excellent if the pile is too damp all the time; befriend a carpenter and take it off their hands. If your natural grocery store is giving away rotted food chuck it in your compost pile. Free fertilizer. To speed up the process turn over the pile with a shovel a couple times a year or more often. There is a list of stuff you shouldn't compost that includes animal products, nonbiodegradable anything, pet or human waste, diseased plant matter, weed seeds, and anything that would ruin the pile's biological action of breaking down into good fertilizer.
More things people aren't usually aware you can compost: nondyed hair clippings, fingernail clippings, cooked food as long as it's nonfatty and not animal products, the nonreproductive parts of weeds, wood ashes
A lesser-known composting technique is to simply bury food scraps and wait for them to rot. If you can't compost for whatever reason, this is still better than trashing your food scraps because it nourishes the soil. However, don't dig it up before it's nice and rotted.
Start by planting trees and shrubs. They'll start giving you lots of oxygen and clean air for your efforts soon and are way harder to kill than annual stuff like crops. However, go to Arbor Day for directions so you plant them correctly.
It was mentioned in Tier 1 to set up a bird feeder with organic bird seed and a birdbath. You can take this a step further by planting a small area for wildlife that includes shrubs and trees which both shelter and feed birds. Mulberry trees are very well loved by birds; if you split a mulberry apart and plant a seed every 25 feet or so, you can potentially create a mulberry line if the seeds come up, or just offer to dig up a young mulberry tree from someone else's yard because those things like to seed themselves everywhere, especially on fence lines, and they love waterlogged compacted soil but will grow anywhere there's enough water
If there is a place in your yard that stays full of water, then make a rain garden there to help wildlife. However, it'll need mosquito tablets of bacillus thurigensis and also some fish to prevent mosquitoes from breeding
Building several things in your backyard can help wildlife: a bathouse, birdhouses, a bee hotel, a pond or rain garden as mentioned. If you're really brave and your neighbors are okay with it, you can even set up beehives, but that takes a commitment to beekeep properly.
Plant the flowers. Many kinds will bring good insects to help protect any crops, and they help feed bees. They aren't just pretty. However, it's best to use local wildflowers in a large variety to ensure they find something they like.
Plant milkweed to help monarch butterflies. While you're at it, you might want to plant other stuff known to be loved by them.
Learn how to garden well in a backyard and you can reduce your food bill by a lot. You can also reduce your environmental impact, get exercise, and improve your family's nutrition. Start small though, it's difficult at first. Beginners tend to underestimate the fact you'll spend every other day weeding for hours and doing other manual labor during the entire growing season - like, March through to October. Also, the amount of "food" and water plants eat is kind of ridiculous. So much manure. So much compost. So much irrigation. Take all the grass off with a hoe and chuck the sod somewhere else, then rototill. Rototill every single spring or you won't eat much. Be sure you mound up the dirt in Israeli rows (2' by any length rows that hug hills and prevent water from running in little streams downhill, 1' high, with 1' gaps between rows, sides compacted with the back of a shovel) for the highest crop yield and drought resistance. There is an alternative to this which is raised beds, but those can get expensive mighty quick. And one more thing: both pruning and vertical structures are your friend.
Some people go a little extra when it comes to nourishing the soil in their farm or garden. They buy all kinds of soil amendments at an exorbitant price, sprinkle it all on there, and then do the same exact thing next year. A good example is in Self Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre by Brett Markham. It is nice, because it improves the nutrient content of what you grow, but it isn't strictly necessary. Try making compost tea, nettle tea, comfrey tea. Go a little extra by making more compost heaps and collecting things to add to them often, such as used coffee grounds from every Starbucks in the city, sawdust from the sawmill, even compost ingredients from all your friends who don't garden. Try growing mushrooms in your garden's soil not for the sake of mushrooms but for the sake of mycelium (see: Mushroom Farming by Tradd Cotter). Ask around so that all the farmers in your area know who to give manure to. If any of your friends have rabbits or chickens or other suitable livestock, show up and collect the manure. That said, I swear by fish meal for fertilizing my garden and I willingly buy it because it works. Be sure to mix it thoroughly with the dirt and store most of it indoors, plowing it into the dirt if you have to, because otherwise it attracts flies and neighborhood cats like nothing else. Also it seems to be impossible to get greensand, powdered limestone, or rock dust unless you buy it and well, that's important because it can not only add minerals to your soil but it may help with carbon sequestration Source
Manure is the gold standard for enriching the soil. It's fantastic stuff. So if you know anyone who has a horse, or owns a rabbit; anyone who raises chickens or goats, or cows, or even alpacas, ask for the manure, especially if it's been rotting in a pile for a few years after the barn or stalls have been mucked out. Bring home truckloads of it. It's more precious than anything else for feeding plants. However, fresh manure might be too high in nitrogen and can burn your plants, so needs to sit around for a few years before you add it directly to soil. Horse and cow manure are notorious for causing this problem. There are exceptions to this rule. Rabbit pellets, for instance, can be added directly to soil, preferably in the cold season so they can break down over the winter. Don't buy manure unless it's directly from the farmer since all the storebought stuff is very very questionable and doesn't really help the soil much for some reason.
If you have a large pile of well-rotted manure, work it into the soil by either forking it in there with a pitchfork or shovel, or rototilling it in there. Do this whenever you think your plants need a little more food. You could alternatively just spread the manure on the surface, or add it to the compost pile, but that's not as effective for feeding deep plant roots.
Let's say you have soil that is absolutely worthless, like it's in a city or something and it's compacted, waterlogged, probably polluted, full of weeds, impossible to rototill, etc. What do you do? Make raised beds. This process is both labor intensive and expensive but it is actually the cheapest and most effective way I could find to make this work. You (like me) might only be able to afford to make one or two of these, which are like 3' by 5', per year, and that's okay. In a place without termites, construct them out of untreated wood or pallets, screws, and a drill. In a place with termites, use cinderblocks, bricks, or something similar. Sometimes you can get lucky finding this material on Craigslist's Free section. It's best to make these things at least 2' tall; 3' is probably sufficient for the lushest soil and the biggest plants but would need to be a permanent construction, like maybe some kind of metal or bricks and mortar. Find a place, and take off the top layer of sod and weeds with a hoe. To make double certain the weeds are out, you could boil a bunch of vinegar and pour it on, but that's a little excessive and you'll probably be fine. Anyway, construct the raised bed over the de-sodded section. Line the fuckers with landscape fabric, put a bunch of rocks and/or gravel on the bottom about 5" high, if you have the money line it with landscape fabric again to avoid mixing gravel with dirt, and then fill 'er up. Since again, you don't have soil, and fill dirt is hard to get unless you own land in which case you wouldn't have this fucking problem in the first place, here is a sample recipe. Get a shit ton of coconut coir or straw from a farmer friend and moisten it up. Also get a shit ton of potting soil, whatever's cheapest, a lot of compost materials such as leaves and grass clippings and leaf and shrubbery trimmings, food scraps for said compost, a couple bottles of organic liquid fertilizer, a couple boxes of organic granular fertilizer, a box or five of fish meal, and if possible a lot of manure from a friend that owns animals. Plus yet more compost materials if you can find them. And if you have a friend or family member that owns land, a couple 5-gallon plastic buckets of straight-up dirt from their land should help. Mix this up in the beds themselves as best you can. Plant a bunch of clover seeds or something in the top, water it in, and let that cover crop over the winter. Wait till the following spring and then mix up the dirt with a pitchfork. These will need topping up every year, with more dirt, so scrounge what you can. It is recommended to compost more materials in each bed over the winter in order to give 'em plenty of food for the following spring.
To feed growing plants during the spring, it is a good idea to make manure tea, nettle or comfrey tea, and/or compost tea. Make up a bunch of buckets of whatever you want, especially manure tea, and then dump it right on the soil. Flowers especially like manure tea.
You might want to try growing things known to be nutritious weeds or borderline invasive. Things like lamb's quarters, nettles, spearmint, and blackberries. That way even if you really suck at gardening you'll still have something to improve your diet.
An old farming technique for backyard farming essentially goes the same as Julia Child's quote: "In cooking, you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude." So it is with this: you plant a whole bunch of different stuff and see what dies and what doesn't. Nothing's guaranteed. Over the years you'll figure it out.
Learning to grow the food is half the battle. Learning how to store it, preserve it, and store the seeds for next year is another thing entirely. Master that and you'll be fed for the whole year and for years to come. The Heirloom Life Gardener by Jere & Emily Gettle explains how to save seeds. The Ball Book of Canning and Preserving is great for learning how to dry, freeze, and can the harvest. The Joy of Cooking has some editions with canning and freezing information for food and basically anything you make from Joy will turn out alright, so definitely take a look. I'm still trying to find good resources for storing and preserving food; will let you know when I find them.
One thing that's less known about gardens is that you can grow all kinds of useful stuff in them besides food. Tools, herbal medicine, beauty supplies, dyes, perfume materials, decorations, potpourri. Experiment. The more you can produce for yourself the less you have to buy.
DIY Basic Raised Beds

TRANSPORTATION UPGRADES

Keep your tires inflated at the correct psi.
Drive the speed limit
Don't use your car, for the most part.
Get a bicycle and upgrade it so it can carry stuff. Learn to repair it, learn to ride it as a commuter bike, and most importantly learn where it is safe to ride and where it isn't. Too many bikers get killed on the road.
Keep your eyes open for new affordable electric vehicles. They will be hitting the market very soon along with a whole bunch of charging stations.
If you don't have the patience and have plenty of experience with both electrical work and car repair, then look at Instructables for tutorials on how to convert an existing car, bicycle, or motorcycle to run on electricity and do it.
PVC and Milk Basket Bike Basket
Build Your Own Electric Car You'd need to already be a mechanic to understand this. Attempt at your own risk.
Electric Car Charging System Attempt at your own risk.

LAND UPGRADES FOR LANDOWNERS

Several remediation ploys I have heard of which may or may not work: to drain swamps and rid the place of mosquitoes, plant eucalyptus trees and put gambuzia fish in the waterways and ponds. To suck up excess water from waterlogged land, plant a lot of sunflowers. To reduce radiation in soil, plant a lot of lupin. To reduce pollution from pig farms, plant a ton of poplar trees. To start a forest, look up Miyawaki forests. For oxygen fast, plant a bunch of birch trees.
To properly manage land in your location, contact your county agricultural extension agent and ask about it, plus also research it. Some places require proper woodland management to prevent damage from forest fires; some require a yearly prairie burning, and so on. It isn't as simple as just "buy the land and it'll be fine."
If you farm, consider putting basalt rock dust on the farmland. Apparently it helps with CO2 sequestration, but it also can improve the tilth of your fields. source
Consider making manure tea out of rabbit pellets, filling a sprayer with the stuff and spraying down your fields. It's a natural fertilizer and it works. Or, just get a bunch of rabbit pellets and scatter them on the land. Some farmers offer these in bulk for a fee. Of course, you can also scatter other kinds of manure on the land to give it better tilth, or let certain kinds of livestock graze there, but to be honest I'm not sure which kinds of livestock are good for the environment and which are not. Cows, for instance, are absolutely awful for the environment. Their gases are greenhouse gases, and that's just the way it is. Some farmers have given them seaweed supplements and garlic supplements to reduce their gaseous emissions and help the environment so if you're already raising cows, look into that.
If you are raising cows, ~~consider potty training them. https://interestingengineering.com/scientists-toilet-trained-16-cows-in-15-days-to-curb-greenhouse-gas-emissions~~ 6/18/22 (no that doesn't make any sense what was I thinking?) Also consider raising something else since cows are absolutely terrible for the planet.
Off the grid, only if you get permission from local authorities, there's no chance of contaminating the water table or nearby water sources, and you and your family are the only ones who use the ahem, facilities you'd build, build a bunch of outdoor vault composting toilets. Have straw, sawdust, other 'browns,' and compostable t.p. in each outhouse, toss in plenty of 'browns' (straw, hay, sawdust, grass clippings, leaves etc.) after you do your business, and then when they fill up, dig another pit in a new place and move the building structure there. Wait 3 to 5 years after filling up the original hole, and then you can dig out the composted human waste and use it on things like tree crops, such as pecans and chestnuts. Or just plant a tree in the same spot. It's (to the best of my knowledge) probably as safe as using human waste to fertilize gets, and a fantastic fertilizer.
Look into hedgerows. There might be room for one on your land, especially if you are a farmer. Chances are you already planted one, but if not, they're important. Classic plants for these include osage orange, mayhaws, hawthorn, eastern redcedar, and blackberries.

***MORE STUFF***

GETTING RICH AND USING THE RICHES

Using whatever means you have at your disposal, including Finance, get ludicrously, ridonkulously rich. Or as close to that as possible. You can also pool money from a community of your friends, family, and acquaintances for a specific purpose.
Once you have extra moneys:
Buy land for Native American tribes. Put a wilderness clause on it to ensure the nature on it stays healthy, and then let them do whatever they want with it. History has proven Native people managed land infinitely better than the European invaders (like me) ever did. Also it's the right thing to do. Seek out whatever tribe is closest to you and have a conversation about what they're looking for. Or alternatively, if you are Native, set up a GoFundMe for buying land and let people pool funds to get it for you. Trust me, there's a lot more support out there for this kind of thing than there seems to be.
Donate a heck of a lot to Team Trees
Buy as much land as is humanly possible and donate it to the government with the stipulation that it must become a National Park
Buy yet more land and make it into wilderness preserves. Ditto ocean, when that's a thing. Some governments are insisting that 30% of the land mass on this planet must be made into wilderness preserves. That's insane. It has to be 70% at least. As for the ocean, it should be at least 90% wilderness preserves, because our planet's health depends on the ocean's health. Someday we'll likely have tech that allows us to make floating cities and then we'll really have a problem, but we'll get there when we get there.
Buy a dacha (land allotment on the outskirts of a city for growing a garden) for your friend group and/or family. While you're at it, buy and donate a few more to other families if you feel like it. You'll need to build a good shed, however, plus a fence, and possibly also somewhere to stay that's out of the rain.
Buy a ton of condoms and distribute them to every clinic, library, and public building you possibly can. Free condoms = less population growth = fewer human rights violations = a healthier environment. It's not just an environmental issue but a human rights issue. Plus bonus, you get to avoid the abortion debate entirely, yay.

CLEANING UP THE GODAWFUL MESS

Years ago I wondered how to create the ideal potting soil or garden soil in a city. The answer is something like "wait a thousand years for rocks to erode, forests to decompose, and animals to excrete, then let the final blend ferment its microbial and microscopic community for another couple thousand, or do all of this the hard way and get an inferior product anyway." Only regenerative organic agriculture or responsibly growing your own food prevents the disaster of soil degradation. Protect the dirt! Ecosia blog entry on soil
Support any political or legal decisions that involve fining polluters and those who litter in a manner that increases with the severity of the mess, with increasing amounts of jail time after a certain level of grossness (i.e. BP oil spill). Vote for people who support this, as well.
Support legal decisions that advocate for the Earth, especially ones that treat the Earth like a person under the law, much like a corporation but with more rights
Support political decisions that create universal high-speed internet, high-speed public transit, distance learning, distance work, and the USPS. Why? Because it's more efficient than everybody driving everywhere all the time, creating traffic jams, and polluting the hell out of everything. Oh also it'd create an economic boom.
Pay attention to new developments in technology that improve efficiency, help the environment, or otherwise improve things for nature, and immediately adopt them if you're able.
When they finally come out in a form that doesn't rip in two seconds when exposed to water, and when the pandemic is over, start carrying around biodegradable small trash bags and pick up trash every so often outside to do #trashtag, using heavy-duty rubber gloves. Remember to sterilize said gloves after each use by washing with soap and water, then by spraying down with (or soaking in) disinfectant. Until biodegradable trash bags come out, do #trashtag anyway whenever you can (after the pandemic). At the same time you do trashtag, you can replace the trash with seed bombs of flora native to the area or just scattered seeds native to the area, or even clover seeds, and that provides double the good.
Do your best to plant a tree whenever you can. Arbor Day, Earth Day, your birthday, your wedding anniversary, all of these provide good reasons. If you don't have land to plant it on, see about organizing with your community to create a commons where anyone can plant trees to commemorate events, or speak to people who do have land or even to the city to ask about planting some in parks. Other places include at your workplace, at your school, on college campuses, and in just about any public place with dirt. Here is a guide to planting saplings from a nursery: Arbor Day and here is a guide to starting trees from seeds: Ecosia. Here is a guide to managing large plantings to prevent monocultures and other problems Ecosia Guide Be sure to water the trees for the first two years during summers if they're hot and if there's droughts, which is likely these days.
Look up Miyawaki Forests. The technology is not yet well explained or well known worldwide but when it catches on ohboy.
Really get into seed bombing. This is a technique (again) taught on Instructables. Choose organic seeds that are native to your local area which used to grow wild there but no longer do, and chuck them EVERYWHERE, especially in waste areas where local plants have been dug up and destroyed, vacant city lots, your own backyard, etc. The bees will thank you.
Trench Compost Fairly easy way of composting

Tier 4 now under construction

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