January Tip of the Month
Ah, January -- a new year and big new plans -- they're easy to make, but not always easy to stick to. Instead, why not try some smaller projects, like checking and fixing leaking faucets. Yes, monitoring your meter can point out sudden surges in water flow, but that small drip, drip, drip might escape your notice. Yet, even one leaking faucet can add up to a loss of over 3000 gallons a year -- certainly not a drop in the bucket.
February Tip of the Month
Gardening is not generally the first thing to spring to mind when the month of February is mentioned, but being cooped up indoors with nothing but a few spindly houseplants does not mean there's nothing to do. On the contrary, this is the perfect time to start planning the coming season's garden, and native plants should go at the top of the list. Inasmuch as they are adapted to this habitat, they will need fewer resources in terms of water and fertilizer, will support native wildlife, including pollinators and beneficial predators and be more resistant to pests. The drudgery involved with supporting exotics, mowing the lawn and ripping up invasives may be a distant memory now, but you'll be glad of all your planning when you're back in the garden this summer, sipping iced tea instead of tearing your hair.
And, here's something else to plan for. Plan on being at Borough Hall at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 28, for the kickoff of our "Explore the Bay" Program. Check out our webpage on the Borough Website in the coming weeks for more details on this and subsequent events. Be there or be square!
March Tip of the Month
Although possible, it is unlikely that we'll be seeing any more lasting snow until the fall at the earliest, and the growing season will be starting in earnest this month, so it's time to take down the bird feeders, right? Well, no.
While many birds do depend on plants for food, it is not the young foliage, but rather the fruits, seeds and nuts that provide essential nourishment, and these do not appear until later in the season. Those birds that eat insects will not see abundant populations until later, as well. Meanwhile, this is the time when most birds are raising young and so need more food than ever. If you've been feeding birds over the winter, removing a source on which local birds have come to rely would be devastating, but even if you haven't, supplemental food would be quite welcome now.
Within a few days of setting up a feeder, you could have a crash course in local ornithology in your own backyard, but if you really want to know about the avian ecosystem, be sure to be at Borough Hall on the evening of March 20 (time TBA), when the next installment of our Explore the Bayshore program will look at birds and horseshoe crabs, and how they both fit in.
April Tip of the Month
Don't eat red meat, don't buy new clothes, don't drive a car, don't water your lawn, don't throw out kitchen scraps, don't, don't, don't, don't. Sometimes, as much as we care about the environment, taking action starts to sound like something that falls between deprivation and drudgery. If that's how it seems to you, how about a day at the beach? By collecting litter and recording what you find at a Clean Ocean Action Beach Sweep (https://link.edgepilot.com/s/26bd390a/l1NbceEGdkGPUWmT2XcAhA?u=http://www.cleanoceanaction.org/), you can provide useful data to nonprofits and government agencies, keep fishing lines and plastic bags from entangling and killing wildlife, keep birds and fish from eating plastic cigarette filters, which look like minnows or killies and not only harm the digestion of fish and animals all the way up the food chain but give them cancer if they survive, and, last but not least, help keep the beaches pristine and appealing for everyone. In return, you get a morning of mild exercise by the water with a bunch of congenial, like-minded people. Keyport's beach sweep will take place on April 13 at 9:00 a.m. beginning at Cedar Street, and pre-registration is required.
And did we mention, litter is bad for horseshoe crabs! To find out more, come to the Green Team open house beginning at 6:00 on April 17 where you can learn more, including how to see the difference your help can make. We'll be there until 8:30. Be there or be square.
May Tip of the Month
Did you have a great time at the Clean Ocean Action beach sweep, but now want something more? Did you miss the Clean Ocean Action beach sweep, but want a second chance? Either way, you're in luck.
If you've been following our Explore the Bay project, you'll already know that we're expecting horseshoe crabs to engage in their annual mating scrums on beaches along Raritan Bay, and biologists and volunteers will be taking advantage of the opportunity to count them. So, if you want a night out at the beach, mark your calendar for the evenings of May 7, May 23, June 6 and June 21, and check out Save Coastal Wildlife at savecoastalwildlife.org right away for times and locations. In order to participate in the count, rather than just observe, preregistration is necessary and places are limited.
Get to know your bay shore in a whole new light.
June Tip of the Month
Ask anyone in the Southwestern United States, Mexico City or, for that matter, in almost any country in the Middle East or Africa, and you will hear that it is vital to save every drop of water. And, while no one disputes how important that is, even in less water-stressed areas of the world, such as New Jersey, there is also such a thing as too much of a good thing, or, more accurately, too much of a good thing in the wrong place.
Stormwater runoff -- the amount of rainwater that is not absorbed by the soil, may not seem like a significant issue to the individual homeowner, but as more impervious surface is added to the landscape and more water leaves the property (or pools and stagnates and breeds mosquitos), the problems it engenders begin to multiply. First, there is flooding. If you are not at the bottom of a slope, you may think that what little water leaves your property makes no difference, but unless everyone else between you and the owner of the lowest property manages to keep all rain water on his own plot, the amounts of rainwater will aggregate and demonstrate how small an amount can cause inundation. Any rainwater that runs off into a gutter will not likely affect a neighbor's property but will carry with it all the pollutants you would expect to find on a roadway (and quite possibly some you wouldn't) to the waterway into which it drains. Moreover, none of that water is recharging the subterranean aquifers, which are the cleanest source of water that we have. Particularly in a coastal region like ours, as an aquifer becomes exhausted, salt water enters and renders it unusable.
There are myriad ways to address stormwater runoff, from cisterns to man-made water features, but the simplest is also the most aesthetically pleasing: the rain garden. It can be as large as you want it or as small as a shoebox. For information on how to build one, the USEPA website at https://link.edgepilot.com/s/d9e3cfd2/uzjRf68qZUWg4TFSXTSgwA?u=http://www.epa.gov/ contains a wealth of information, as does the Rutgers Water Resources Program at water.rutgers.edu, where a rain garden manual is available for download. And, don't forget the Keyport Garden Club at keyportgardenclub.com or the Keyport Public Library on Broad Street and at lmxac.org.
July Tip of the Month
A beach sweep in spring or fall is exhilarating; monitoring horseshoe crab populations is fascinating. What is best about these activities, however, is the data that they yield. With technology -- not least in the form of artificial intelligence -- making unprecedented strides, data collection has become increasingly important and useful in every field of endeavor, including that of all the environmental sciences. And, you don't have to wait for the next hands-on event to come around before you can do your part.
At https://link.edgepilot.com/s/45adf8a7/9f1_axz4f0CtNdedtR9akg?u=http://www.mycoast.org/nj, you can download a mobile app, use it to take a picture of a coastal area, and submit it through your browser. The context is automatically added, and the information is processed to generate reports on changing coastal conditions such as those affecting flooding and tidal and sea level changes. Keyport is already featured as one of "The Places We Love." Don't be left out.
August Tip of the Month
Among the many trillions of (not truly necessary) things one can buy on the internet is a T-shirt that says,"It's not hoarding if it's books." Yet, even an indifferent reader may find himself with more than he intended and -- more to the point -- more than he can comfortably store. An avid reader is no different -- he just reaches that point sooner, despite the fact that many of those volumes taking up space are not going to be read a second time. Putting them out with the rest of the recycling is preferable to tossing them into the garbage, but here in Keyport, we have a better way.
Our smaller than one-and-a-half-square-mile borough sports at least six "little libraries" -- pedestals topped with box-shaped cabinets, which adjure the passerby to take a book, to leave a book or both. There is one on Broadway south of Front Street, one on Maple Place east of the bridge, one on Main Street north of Maple Place, one on Broad Street in front of the Board of Education, one on Third Street in front of the Public Library and one on First Street roughly across from the fire station. Next time you want something to read when the Public Library is closed, check one out. And, next time you have an urge to declutter your bookshelves, do the same.
September Tip of the Month
Labor Day has its origin as a celebration in honor of the working man, but if you're a homeowner with a lawn, it marks the date when the real labor starts: testing the soil, weeding, thatching, tilling, fertilizing and overseeding, not to mention continuing the routine maintenance of watering, mowing and edging that began last spring. If all that is what you think of when fall rolls around, perhaps it's time to reassess the benefits of having a lawn at all or, at least, one that is as large as the one you have now. Replacing all or part of your lawn with beds of native plants saves water, chemicals, labor and money and may soon have you thinking of autumn in terms of pumpkin spice lattes instead of drudgery.
October Tip of the Month
November Tip of the Month
December Tip of the Month