For today’s contest, you have a chance to win the $85, 100% Organic Cotton Cardigan (pictured above) from our Spring Eco-Collection that has just arrived!

Now — want to win? Learn more about entering and walking away with a natural from hessnatur’s Spring Eco-Collection.

How To Enter
1. Just leave a comment below telling why you need some green in your closet. We’re going to judge based on orginality and creativity.

2. That’s it! If you’re the winner, hessnatur will email you and ship the product to the address provided in the commenter’s responsive email.

Good luck everybody. It’s time to start commenting about why you want the Organic Cotton Cardigan!

Contest Rules:
Must be 18 years of age to enter. Please, one entry per person! Giveaway is available to residents of the U.S. only. If we don’t hear from the commenter within twenty-four (24) hours, we’ll go ahead and pick another winner. No substitutions for cash are permitted with these giveaway. By submitting, you are agreeing to the full rules and restrictions. Comments will remain open for entries until Thursday, February 11, at 11:59 p.m. EST.

We  started our Spring Eco-Collection. Discover the beauty of green – in every color and style! My favorite natural is the Organic Linen/Cotton Sports Jacket.

At the end of last year, my girlfriend and I moved from a rented apartment to our first home together. Before making the decision, do we buy or don’t we, we thought a lot – and learned a lot – about sustainable and intelligent living, about the very real decisions that ownership would entail.

For example, the roof and walls of our house are wrapped with natural isolation material. This is to keep the heat from our heating system inside during wintertime and to leave the summer breeze outside during hot summer days. Not only that we have a wonderful climate in our house now – on top we safe money every day due to low energy consumption.

Another great advantage in our new house is a big cistern. You can’t see it, because it’s hidden under the porch. A system of conduits, pipes and filters brings natural rainwater into the cistern, rainwater that would normally run into a sewage duct.  Because of the cistern, we use rainwater to flush the toilet and use in the washing machine. Which is clearly a more sustainable use of rainwater. Also, the pH level in rainwater is much better than the level in the city-supplied water. Using rainwater for washing also makes our clothes, bedding and towels much softer.

When deciding to buy our house, we chose a more sustainable way to live. We now have wooden floors. And we have white walls painted with organic wall paint. Outside there is a garden – waiting for fruits and veggies to be grown.

Since we both work for hessnatur, we have been greatly influenced to live a “greener” life. As we say at hessnatur, “clothes are more than what you wear, they’re how you choose to live”. And that goes for houses, too. It’s how we choose to live.

By the way, the mailbox you see in the photo was purchased by us in Great Barrington, MA on our trip to the US last summer. A reminder of how much we love New England!

I really wanted to write a post about the importance of authentic organic cotton, but nothing says it better then this press release that we just sent out:

“Gene modified cotton from India tagged as organic cotton”, read the headline in The Financial Times. As the market leader in organic clothing in Germany, this is news that the company finds critically important. “When a product is tagged as organic, it has to be organic,” says Rolf Heimann, director of the Department of Innovation and Ecology at hessnatur.  To make certain that all hessnatur organic fabrics are just that has been a mandate at the company for 10 years.

In the current collection of hessnatur, about 6% of all organic cotton products come from cotton grown in India.  Most of hessnatur organic cotton, 94%, originates in Turkey and at the hessnatur cultivation project in Burkina Faso.  In every test that hessnatur has performed, and there are many, no gene modified cotton has been found.  “In the interest of hessnatur and its customers, we have very strict standards in the supply chain.  We check and monitor every step along the chain – from the cultivation of the organic cotton to the final product,” states Heimann.  Besides their own monitoring, hessnatur partners with outside organizations that, regularly and independently, monitor to make certain that the supply chain is “clean and transparent”.  The company also has a stable and long-lasting relationship with suppliers who are open to being monitored and share the hessnatur standard for environmental and ethical production.

Approximately 2 years ago, hessnatur began working with an institute to determine whether the cotton in the final product has been gene modified or not.

As the market leader in natural textiles, hessnatur is vigilant regarding this problem. In their own pioneering project in Burkina Faso (West Africa), the company supports the cultivation of organic cotton. Working with Helvetas, the Swiss Aid and Development Organization, hessnatur has been monitoring cotton seeds since 2005. It is possible to tell by looking at the seed whether or not it is gene modified. Gene modified cotton has an extra gene, which can be seen in a laboratory. Without the extra gene it is a natural cotton seed.  There is an additional risk of contamination when the cotton is in flower. Tests have proven that pollen can travel 50 meters at the most. So to avoid contamination, the farmers in Burkina Faso plant their organic cotton fields at least 100 meters from the fields where conventional or gene modified cotton is grown.

“We do not check once in a while”, says Heimann, “we check on a regular and permanent basis.” This is how hessnatur ensures that when they tag their cotton, organic cotton, it is.

Much to my delight, I have befriended another self proclaimed “plant geek” with a “thing” for sustainability. Together with his extended family, Justin Ridle is taking on the whopping project of establishing a 10 acre organic orchard from scratch. But calling it just an orchard doesn’t do justice to what this project could become.

The “Big Barn Farm” (formerly an ostrich farm, of all things) is all about establishing an edible ark of biodiversity to be enjoyed by generations to come. The goal is maximum bounty from the smallest footprint, using the least amount of natural resources. Planting vertical layers will imitate natural forests, for instance. Harvesting rainwater from the barn’s vast rooftop together with well placed swales will conserve water. Natural windbreaks, like pine nut trees, will protect the rest of the orchard from the elements.

For the best yield with the lowest impact, the orchard will use permaculture principles, and be populated not only by local heirloom plant varieties, but also exotic fruits and nuts well suited to the region, all grafted to native root stock and naturally resistant to pests and drought.

I found Justin’s description of medicinal/nutritional plants particularly fascinating, like mulberries and paw paws, as well as the just plain yummy sounding shipova and Chilean hazel.

True to my own heart, the Big Barn Farm composts cardboard, but it is taken a step further into sheet mulching. And speaking of mulching, I forgot to mention the wood chips! They are everywhere! Justin has been collecting and chipping the neighborhood garden waste for months to guarantee a nice bouncy loam for the garden’s floor, which saves water, adds nutrients, and fends off both frost and weeds.

His passion started at Bullocks Permaculture Homestead, and I’m thinking of giving them a visit as well. In the mean time, Justin has offered to come by our place for a bit of a botanical brainstorm and a lesson in grafting. And I definitely want to return to the Big Barn regularly to follow the orchard’s progress.

Justin’s family has 25 trees in so far, and a thousand more could come. I found the idea of planting so many trees daunting, but after so much planning, Justin is delighted to finally grab a shovel and get his ark underway, planting and growing into the future.