Thinking about your last BBQ of the summer season? Labor Day weekend is just around the corner, so take advantage of the remaining summer nights—enjoy friends, grill locally-grown corn and peaches, and eat outside. And unless you're setting the table for just a few, there's always the dinnerware to consider. With so many options on the market, it can be difficult to determine product differences and benefits. So, here are three brands that aren't only eco-friendly, but will also add a whole lot of flair to your table setting. More

I'm always on the lookout for a better bag when it comes to my pup's poop. It's a dirty topic, but one that pet owners deal with every day. I'm intrigued by these bags which claim to be tough yet degrade at the same rate as an apple. More

Most apartment and small space dwellers can agree on something they envy of homeowners: outdoor and garden space. A group of New Zealand students share that jealously and are hoping to fix it with their clip-on garden in a box, Plant Room. It is literally a box bolted to the exterior of an apartment building, that will expand the square footage of your space, provide room for a vegetable garden, clothes line, rainwater collection and solar hot water production! More

A few days ago, I took some food scraps out to our happily rodent-free compost bin in the back yard. It was a quiet morning, and I heard a soft noise coming, I thought, from the neighbor's yard. Then I realized that noise was emanating from the compost bin. And the compost was bobbing up and down. So I carefully peered in, afraid of what I might find… More

Name: Worm Factory 360 (left)
Price: $119.99
Rating: Recommend*

Name: VermiHut 3-Tray Worm Composter (right)
Price: $50.00
Rating: Weak Recommend*

It has now been one month since we started testing our new Worm Factory and VermiHut, and while it usually takes a few months for these types of bins to reach their optimum performance, we're going to rate them based on our experience so far. We'll update you again in the future, but for now we can say the more expensive Worm Factory 360 actually did perform better. More

Although we compost and recycle, we still generate some trash. We jumped for joy the day we discovered BioBags but now, after giving them a good long run, we're not so sure that they'll make our shopping list ever again. More

Q: I'm considering buying the NatureMill Plus home composter for my kitchen, but before I do, I wonder if any Re-Nest readers have purchased it and if they could share their experiences with the product? Good? Bad? Worth the money?

Sent by Sarah More

The biggest problem with fruit flies is the rate that they breed and take over your kitchen or compost. It seems like they'll never go away once you have them, and it can be incredibly frustrating and disgusting to walk into a room when dozens of flies scatter in every direction. Here are five tips and a roundup of previous posts on how to deal with fruit flies without using harmful pesticides. More

A couple of weeks ago, we built a compost bin in our backyard. It's already saving us lots of space in the garbage (and yes, attracting a few critters—until my fiance souped it up this weekend), but we know that come early spring, we'll want to have some compost ready. So friends of ours gave us a compost kit and, well, it looks very promising.

The secret ingredient we'll soon be adding to our compost pile? Microbes. According to our kit, they will encourage better breakdown, help prohibit bad smells, and even help us get to the usable compost a little bit faster. More

The first grade programming at my elementary school included a field trip to the Dairy Farm at the University of British Columbia. It was a full day at the beautiful seaside campus at the western-most point of Vancouver. The build-up to the visit and the absolute magic of being six and going to a real farm still linger with me. So now, as an adult, I am thrilled to be able to recapture some of the joy I felt as a child and to appreciate the farm on a very different level. The UBC farm really is an amazing urban resource and sustainable food model for urban centres around the world. More