Over the past week or so of warmer weather, I’ve been enjoying the soft, liquid music of the bamboo wind chimes that I have hanging in my garden. Wind chimes are commonplace in the East, where they’ve always been part of the household or village temple. They are popularly used to balance energies in Feng Shui.

These beautiful patterned bamboo wind chimes are handmade in Indonesia by a small family run business. They are crafted from bamboo waste, making them very eco-friendly.

When buying a new fridge, choose one that’s A rated to save energy.

But you don’t have to buy a new fridge to have a more energy efficient fridge. Here are some tips to help you get better efficiency from the fridge you’ve already got.

1. Always allow hot food to cool to room temperature before putting it into the fridge.

2. Try to consolidate visits to the fridge to avoid opening the door repeatedly, and when you do open the fridge door, keep visits short.

3. Keeping your fridge full saves energy. If there’s not enough food in the fridge to fill it, put plastic bags filled with scrunched up newspaper into the voids.

4. Defrost your freezer regularly and keep it full too. Double up your recipes and freeze half for a handy pre-made dinner another time.

Yesterday I looked at energy saving alternatives to the traditional kettle. Today, I’m looking at the tea itself. To ensure that you’re choosing tea that doesn’t cause any harm to planet or people, make sure that it’s organic and Fairtrade. Here is a selection of what’s available.

Kettles use huge amounts of energy to boil the water for your cup of tea (or coffee). If you’ve got one of those electricity metres with a little red light on it that blinks as you use energy, just go and have a look at what it does when the kettle’s on. Even better still, see exactly how much energy you’re using for that cup of tea with an electricity monitor.

How would you like to slash that high energy use every time you decide to have a cup of tea? Here are some energy-efficient alternatives to the kettle.

The Tefal Quick Cup is a fantastic alternative. Not only does it heat only the amount of water for one cup, but it does it in a just 3 seconds. That’s 65% quicker than the average kettle, which also means that you’re saving loads of energy. On a less positive note, it requires a disposable filter to use, which does take the edge off its “green” credentials, and it brings the water to just below boiling, which is not ideal for tea, but perfect for a cup of coffee. It’s available at around the £50 mark, and replacement filters will cost you around £5 every month or so.

The Eco-Kettle is a wonderful piece of eco-friendly kitchen equipment and one of the most popular green gadgets in the UK. Rumour has it that Prince Charles has one, and I’ve got one too. It boils water the same way an ordinary kettle does, but it has two separate compartments, one for storing water so that you can fill it right up, and one for boiling just the amount of water that you need. You can choose to boil enough water for one cup, or two, or three, all the way up to eight cups. Just depress the button on top of the kettle to release water from the storage reservoir into the boiling compartment. The Eco-Kettle costs in the region of £30.

These washing machines have top marks for energy efficiency with their A+ ratings, as well as some other desirable features.

The Beko WMXD760 front-loading washing machine has a super-fast 14 minute 2kg load programme, and an express programme of just 30 minutes for a full 7kg load. This gives great flexibility for targeting your wash day requirements and consequently saving water and energy with each load. What more could you want from a washing machine? Well, two things that I can think of, performance and price. This Beko machine scores well on those two points too. It scores an A for its cleaning rating, and costs in the region of £340, an excellent price for a machine with these features. It’s available in white and silver.

LG really do stay true to their strap line Life’s Good with this front loading machine. It’s the LG Steam Direct Drive Washing Machine, with an 8 kg capacity that uses cutting-edge washing machine technology to save water and energy with every wash. This eco-friendly washing machines use 35% less water and 21% less energy than conventional machines, and the automatic steam only refresh programme gets rid of creases to save you from ironing. It is available in a wide range of colours and priced around the £570 mark.

The Electrolux Insight Time Manager front loading washing machine has an 8 kg capacity and a number of versatile programmes enabling you to adapt the duration of your washing cycle to suit you. It offers special curtain, duvet and lingerie programmes, as well as a 20-minute 5-shirt wash. This model is available in white and silver and is priced from around £460.

Tips to save energy when you do your laundry

1. Choose concentrated detergents and fabric softeners to reduce use of resources for packaging and transporting them.

2. Dry your clothes outside on a washing line.

3. Wash at lower temperatures, with modern detergents this is just as effective as using warmer water.

The BlogGreen guide to a greener month ahead.

Buy it…

Wake your skin up to spring with this Japanese brown organic rice body scrub from Bod. The natural starches in rice have been used by the Japanese for centuries to soften the skin, leaving a natural shine. Bod’s organic rice body scrub removes old skin and allows new skin to flourish, leaving it glowing with health and radiance. This product contains only natural ingredients, and definitely nothing chemical or artificial.

See it…

Bluebells flower in April and May. It’s nature’s way of telling us that spring is here, and there’s nothing quite like walking through sun-dappled woods on a carpet of bluebells to wake up the soul. The National Trust publishes a list of the top 10 bluebell walks: Ashridge Estate, Hertforshire; Blickling, Norfolk; Brockhampton Estate, Herefordshire; Calke Park and Abbey, Derbyshire; Coughton Court, Warwickshire; Emmetts Garden, Kent; Hardcastle Crags, Yorkshire; Hatchlands Park, Surrey; Kingston Lacy, Dorset; Lanhydrock, Cornwall; Mount Stewart, Northern Ireland. Find more information at the National Trust website (www.nationaltrust.org.uk).

Make it…

Rosemary also flowers at this time of year, and there are plenty of culinary uses for these beautiful fragrant blue flowers. As salads make an appearance back on our tables, rosemary flowers are the perfect way to add some flavour and colour. Or throw a handful of flowers and a bit of butter into your runner beans or carrots for a delicious flavour, especially if you’re serving them with roast lamb.

Plant it…

Get your kitchen garden going to enjoy a bountiful harvest in the summer and autumn. It’s the right time to plant perennials like horseradish, rhubarb and asparagus that you will be able to enjoy year after year. Also, sow your peas, carrots, beetroot, spinach, cabbage, cauliflower, potatoes, radishes, onions and parsnips now. For variety and to ensure that you don’t end up with gluts of just one type of vegetable, sow a few of each type and then repeat in a couple of weeks time. Now’s the right time to plant fruit and berry bushes too . Later in the month, think about sowing beans and sweetcorn. And indoors (on the windowsill or in a greenhouse), tomatoes, peppers, celery and aubergines need to be sown.