Growing Green and Living It! » general

Semi Annual Sale on Music of the Spheres Wind Chimes

OB — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 17:57:17 +0000

Our Music of the Spheres Wind Chime sale starts today and lasts for the next two weeks – ending on September 18, 2011. This happens only twice a year! During these two weeks prices on all of our Texas made wind chimes are sale priced well below our everyday price. Take advantage of this sale and stock up on holiday gifts. Enjoy free Economy Saver shipping to any of the 48 contiguous states.

Win a Seedkeeper Deluxe Seed Saving Kit

OB — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 11:56:37 +0000

Seed Keeper Deluxe - Seed Saving Kit

Head over to Southern Post Journal and leave a comment and you’ll automatically be entered to win a seed saving kit. Random drawing on September 15, 2011. Want to buy a seed saving kit? We’ve got them on sale at Olivebarn.com

Olive Barn Outlet Closes

OB — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 19:51:32 +0000

The Olive Barn Outlet in Houston has closed. The last day of the sale was June 30, 2010. Customer pickup for web orders will be available by appointment. With the transition complete, Olivebarn.com is focusing on sustainable gardening products. For the latest news on Olive Barn, see our what’s new page.

Watch The Story of Bottled Water

OB — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:23:36 +0000

“In the United States alone, we consume approximately 500,000,000 bottles of water each week. Imagine that: while 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water worldwide, other people spend billions of dollars on a bottled product that’s no cleaner, harms people and the environment and costs up to 2,000 times the price of tap water.

But there’s good news: Last year, for the first time in a long time, bottled water sales fell-not that much, but they went down. Consumers who want economy, portability and convenience are switching to refillable metal bottles. Restaurants are proudly serving tap water. And cities, states, companies and schools around the world are ditching the bottle to save money and do their part for the environment.”

A Chemical Reaction: Is Your Lawn Making You Sick?

OB — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:27:22 +0000

A Chemical Reaction, is a documentary movie that tells the story of one of the most powerful and effective community initiatives in the history of North America. It started with one lone voice in 1984. Dr. June Irwin, a dermatologist, noticed a connection between her patients’ health conditions and their exposure to chemical pesticides and herbicides. With relentless persistence she brought her concerns to town meetings to warn her fellow citizens that the chemicals they were putting on their lawns posed severe health risks and had unknown side effects on the environment.

To Learn More visit A Chemical Reaction.

Dirt The Movie!

OB — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:04:19 +0000

DIRT! The Movie–directed and produced by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow–takes you inside the wonders of the soil. It tells the story of Earth’s most valuable and underappreciated source of fertility–from its miraculous beginning to its crippling degradation.

The opening scenes of the film dive into the wonderment of the soil. Made from the same elements as the stars, plants and animals, and us, “dirt is very much alive.” Though, in modern industrial pursuits and clamor for both profit and natural resources, our human connection to and respect for soil has been disrupted. “Drought, climate change, even war are all directly related to the way we are treating dirt.”

DIRT! the Movie–narrated by Jaime Lee Curtis–brings to life the environmental, economic, social and political impact that the soil has. It shares the stories of experts from all over the world who study and are able to harness the beauty and power of a respectful and mutually beneficial relationship with soil.

DIRT! the Movie is simply a movie about dirt. The real change lies in our notion of what dirt is. The movie teaches us: “When humans arrived 2 million years ago, everything changed for dirt. And from that moment on, the fate of dirt and humans has been intimately linked.” But more than the film and the lessons that it teaches, DIRT the Movie is a call to action.

“The only remedy for disconnecting people from the natural world is connecting them to it again.”

What we’ve destroyed, we can heal.

To learn more visit DirtTheMovie.org

STORY OF STUFF: UPDATE

OB — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:01:22 +0000

Get the whole story…
Annie Leonard managed to fit a whole lot of information in 20 minutes but there’s still so much more! You can read the whole story by picking up a copy of her new book at your local bookstore or by ordering The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change at Amazon. We also encourage you to donate a copy of the book to your local library so that those who can’t purchase the book themselves can still access all the great information in it!

Olive Barn Focusing on Internet Business

OB — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:31:24 +0000

This week, we made a decision to close our retail store in Houston and convert it to a temporary clearance outlet. It was the only physical retail store we had, which was adjacent to our Houston warehouse. With the current economic conditions, we felt is was best to focus on our core business, selling on the web. That part of our business accounts for 90% of our sales, yet we were spending about 40% of our time attending to the Houston store. Simple math. Take the 40% of the time and plow it back into growing our ecommerce business.

Over the next week we will be liquidating the remainder of inventory from our Houston store that was not part of our web offerings. If you are in Houston, please sign up on our mailing list for the local mailings, to find out about dates and times for the outlet clearance sale.

You can sign up here. There will be some incredible buys.

To our previous store customers, we thank you for your past patronage and encourage you to shop online at www.olivebarn.com. We will continue to offer free customer pickup at our old store location.

White Mandevilla

OB — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:14:18 +0000

Mandevilla boliviensis This pretty White Manfevilla is a profuse bloomer all summer in my garden, and looks especially pretty in the evenings when white flowers really shine.

Fungus Among Us: Check Out This Video

OB — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 17:30:07 +0000

Truly amazing to watch these fungi grow!