Now that I've proven to myself in the garden that not every plant I touch automatically dies, I want to try introducing some indoor plants. Both Ilya and I had a few house plants when we were living on our own, but none of mine ever did very well because I always forgot to water them, and his were often attacked by the cats. With a new crawler in the mix, it certainly doesn't seem like an ideal time to bring them back into the house again, but I have some ideas for working around that... It turns out that plain old house plants are excellent at improving the quality of indoor air. As a bonus, they also reduce the amount of greenhouse gases released from the home into the environment. In addition to removing carbon dioxide and monoxide and adding oxygen, certain plants like these and also these absorb harmful VOCs (volatile organic compounds) like formaldehyde, benzene, and trichloroethylene. VOCs are present in all homes as a result of outgassing from paints, plastics, and other synthetic materials.
So my plan this week is to install a few high corner shelves in each bedroom and in the living room to put the plants on. The height will deter Masha from digging in the dirt for sure and hopefully will deter the cats as well. I've already gotten 4 plants from some awesome Freecyclers, and I bought some more at a local garden center (I learned that they are much cheaper to buy as baby plants - although they will obviously require more TLC/transplanting as they grow). Now I'm going to concentrate really hard on not killing them.
This week I will also test our house for radon. Radon is another threat to indoor air quality, especially in Iowa, where 7 out of 10 homes have elevated radon levels. Radon is a colorless, odorless gas that seeps into the home from natural decay of uranium in the soil. It is actually the second leading cause of lung cancer in the US today behind smoking. As we learned in medical school, the places where people tend to receive the highest exposures are in basements and in the shower - yet another reason to not spend more than five minutes at a time there if you don't have to. I will test the level with a kit that I got at Lowe's (probably also available at Menards and Home Depot) and send it in for testing (the lab fees were included in the price of the kit, which cost about $15). Find more info on indoor air quality from the Environmental Protection Agency here.
Here are the results of Crunchy Challenge No. 5: Kill junk mail dead.
2 comments:
The plants are fun and I haven't killed any of them...yet. We won't have our radon test results for a few more days, but I will post again when we get them.
Our radon level is slightly elevated at 4.2 pCi/L (4.0 is considered the limit).
Hmmm...what now? Apparently, the
EPA protocol for test results near the cut-off require another test. Then the results of the two tests are averaged, and mitigation is recommended if this average is still above 4.0. In any case, I think we will be looking into mitigation soon, since the test claims to be accurate within +/- 5%.
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