Fresh vegetables straight from your garden taste better than store-purchased produce and they retain more nutrients going straight from the vine to your plate. A backyard vegetable garden also benefits your food budget because you won't need to purchase as much from the supermarket. The garden makes an entertaining and educational family activity from spring through fall.

Options for green living in an apartment are limited because you don't control many aspects of the building or how it is run. Gardening and composting are a possibility, even if you're stuck on the top floor of a large apartment building. While an outdoor compost heap is usually large, an apartment version naturally needs to be more compact without any smelly odors to drive your neighbors mad. Small compost containers, called kitchen or countertop compost containers, fit an apartment environment well.

Stay out of the kitchen and outside with your guests at your next backyard barbecue. With a little creativity, everything can be cooked on the grill -- except the salads. Use complementary flavors, stagger your courses and watch your coals, and your next backyard barbecue is sure to be a resounding success.

When visitors to your home enjoy the beauty of your backyard pond, most don't realize the work that goes into maintaining that beauty. Algae growth, fish and turtle waste, and falling debris can make keeping a backyard pond clean a constant chore. Besides doing a big cleanup of the pond, there are steps you can take to help keep your pond clean throughout the year.

Vegetable gardens are typically associated with the summer months, but an indoor container garden allows you to enjoy fresh produce year-round. While the selection of vegetables is more limited, you can enjoy green beans, fingerling carrots, lettuce, herbs, peppers, tomatoes, radishes and dwarf versions of your favorite vegetables. Another option is to start your vegetable plants indoors from seeds and transplant them outdoors when the temperatures warm up. A sunny location within the home makes your vegetable garden grow better.

Composting turns certain waste products into a nutrient-rich material that you can then use in your garden. Large compost piles in the backyard might come to mind, but you can compost even if you have no outdoor space for a compost bin. No matter what the scale of your compost method, your efforts reduce the amount of waste sent to the landfill.

Cut down on the amount of stuff you throw in the garbage and do something healthy for your garden by starting your own compost bin. Making your own composting bin takes very little effort. All you need is a plastic bin or trash can, a drill and material such as vegetable scraps and dried leaves to compost. Organic matter will break down and provide you with compost for your garden as long as you keep the contents of the bin balanced.

You can grow an herb garden, even if you only have a tiny windowsill or small back porch. Herbs do not need a lot of space to grow. Many will thrive in 6-inch-deep pots, provided they have plenty of sunlight, good soil and not too much water. The quickest way to start an herb garden is to grow four or five herbs in a single, long window box. Place the window box on a sill, or set it on the ground outside.

You need a few things to grow vegetables from seeds: warmth, sunlight and determination. Growing vegetable seeds is a surprisingly simple process. The hardest thing about it may be deciding what vegetables to grow, based on your tastes and the amount of garden space you have. Depending on the type of vegetables you plant, you can either start the seeds inside and plant the seedlings outside later or plant the seeds directly in your garden.

A wooden fence is a great way to maintain privacy in your backyard, but you'll eventually have to clean it of dirt, mold or algae. Since wood is a porous surface, dirt can get deep into the crevices where you can't see it, making it difficult to clean. You don't have to hire a professional to keep your fence looking like new. With regular cleaning--every few years or more--you can maintain your fence and be sure it stays in great shape.