Banana skins and egg shells, paper and cardboard, vegetable peelings and tea bags - much of the stuff you throw in the bin to be collected by the bin lorry can be composted instead. Avoid meat, fish, newspapers, and cooked food, and make sure no cat and dog dirt, glossy magazines, or disposable nappies get into the mix.

The two key ingredients of compost are carbon and nitrogen. You can find the carbon in your household recycling bin - paper and cardboard for example -and find the nitrogen in your kitchen bin in the form of fruit and vegetable peelings. Add some grass cuttings, manure (farmyard animal or chicken manure with straw in it is best), and weeds (nitrogen-producing materials) to the mix and you’ll eventually have some great compost. Equal proportions of carbon and nitrogen materials give you the best mix.

Chop everything into small pieces so that the composting process can work more quickly and effectively. It takes longer for the material to break down into compost the bigger the pieces are.

Put the whole lot into a composting bin which you can get from your local garden centre, hardware store, or from your local authority - some provide them for free. Otherwise, leave an area of your garden for a composting heap that you can keep adding material to.

The key to a good compost is balance - don’t overdo it with any one ingredient as it will oversupply some of the nutrients, which can sometimes do as much harm as good.

In order for the waste material to turn into compost, it needs air and water:

Keep the festering compost moist to allow the thousands of bacteria and fungi to do their work. If there’s too much moisture the heap will be fairly smelly but if it’s too dry nothing will happen.

Turn the compost over regularly with a garden fork and allow as much oxygen to enter the process as you can. The more often you turn it, the quicker the compost will be ready.

As composting materials rot, they produce heat and micro-organisms that speed up the rotting process. Larger organisms, such as flies, worms, and other insects live in your compost and contribute to the rotting process as well.

Eventually you get broken-down material that looks like dark earth. It can take up to a year for small-scale composting of household material to produce compost you can use in the garden but covering the compost heap with old carpet keeps the heat in and speeds up the composting process.

Construct a worm farm.

Buy a worm farm or box from your local council or garden centre, or make your own from scratch using storage boxes or crates that aren’t being used for anything else. You need four for maximum effect.

Make plenty of holes or perforations at the bottom of three of the boxes for the worms to move up through - leaving the box that will be at the bottom without holes so the worms don’t wriggle away.

Supply your worm farm with all the necessary start-up material.

You need the right types of worms — most experts recommend either red worms or tiger worms. The average garden worm isn’t right for the job.

You also need ordinary garden soil, and fruit and vegetable scraps.

Lay the materials and introduce the worms.

Line the bottom of the first (bottom) box with soil and newspaper, add fruit and veggie scraps, then the worms.

Block as much light to the box as you can by placing a hessian cloth or some more newspaper over the top.

Add additional boxes on top of the first one.

Monitor your farm for a couple of weeks to make sure that the worms are growing larger and multiplying. If they aren’t you’ve probably not given them enough material to work with, so add some more to the mix.

Add the same mix as in Step 3 to a second box and put that box on top of the first one. As the worms leave the bottom box and move to the new scraps in the second box, they leave behind an accumulation of compost material that you can spread over your garden or through your pot plants.

As the original scraps and soil mix begins to look like compost add your next box. You can also use the liquid that accumulates in the bottom box as a liquid fertiliser.

Caring for the grass

Grass is much better for wildlife than concrete but your grass doesn’t have to be all manicured lawn. If you decide that some lawn is essential, and that turning your whole patch over to vegetables isn’t an option, make it as green as possible by using environmentally friendly ways of keeping it trim:

• Keep the grass down using a hand mower instead of a petrol or electric one, thereby saving fuel and reducing pollution. If your lawn is too big, you can get a battery-powered mower that charges using solar power, or use green electricity.

Alternatively, get a goat, which will keep the grass down, fertilise it at the same time, and give you milk.

• Leave the grass cuttings on the lawn to feed the soil. If you don’t want to leave the cuttings on the lawn, put them on the compost heap.
• Use native grass seeds for the lawn as they’ll grow better in the British climate.
• Resist the temptation to reach for the hosepipe at the first appearance of a brown patch. Once a week is all the watering your lawn needs even in the hottest weather. Over-watering can weaken your lawn by encouraging roots to seek the surface.
• If your lawn turned brown in the sun last time you cut it, let your grass grow a little longer and don’t cut it so short next time. Longer grass stays greener than a close-mown lawn, is less likely to scorch, and needs less watering.
• Dig any weeds out with a trowel or fork rather than using weedkiller.
• Leave some of the lawn to grow wild with wild flowers and grasses or plant some trees and shrubs. Those areas will attract wildlife and reduce the amount of effort that goes into caring for the lawn.

All the time, effort, and water you put into looking after the lawn can be producing home-grown fruit and vegetables instead.

Shrubs and plants planting

The ideal green garden has native plants and shrubs that thrive well in the UK climate. Native plants don’t need additional water and can withstand the native bugs and insects, so you don’t need toxic chemicals to keep the plants weed and disease free.

Native plants attract native species of butterflies and birds. Grow as many varieties of native plants as possible to support the wildlife in your garden. Grow native plants side by side that naturally ward off each other’s pests.

Not all plants native to the UK grow in all parts of the UK. Talk to your local garden centre about the native plants that grow best in the climate and soil where you live.

Wildlife

If you feel you can’t go green in the garden by growing fruit and vegetables, you can still make a big contribution by creating an environment that attracts and supports wildlife. Many once very common species of garden birds, insects like bees and butterflies, mammals, and amphibians are now thin on the ground due to changes in farming methods and disappearing hedgerows. By offering them an area where they can make homes, feed, and breed safely without danger from pesticides and other chemicals, you help their numbers to recover.

What you plant has an impact on the kinds of wildlife that choose to live in your garden. Think carefully about the species you want and grow the appropriate plants to attract that species. If you grow the wrong plants you may attract unwanted species like ants, wasps, and moles into the garden or they may make it impossible for other plants to survive. If you use pesticides to control weeds other species in the ecosystem may be adversely affected.

Make your garden as varied as possible to attract as many species as possible:

Plants like roses, honeysuckle, and lavender each attract different insects like bees and butterflies.

A woodpile or a wildflower patch encourages another set of garden dwellers. You might find frogs amongst the woodpile if it’s damp, and if it’s big enough to offer a safe place a fox might move in.

A pond - created from an old bath or basin - draws everything from dragonflies and frogs to birds and snails.

Hedges are great for attracting birds and insects and providing space for small animals to make their homes. Grow as many different hedge plants as possible together in your hedge as each different plant attracts different species.

Trees and shrubs that produce fruit, berries, and seeds are sources of food for your furry and feathered friends.

Think carefully about what you want from the space you have. Even if you only have room for a few small pots, you have a choice of growing flowers or herbs. With more space, you can opt for shrubs, bushes, trees, flowers, fruit, vegetables, or a mixture of all sorts. In a bigger garden, you may want a patio, pond, or pool.

Before you start digging and planting think about the time you’ll have to spend on working on your patch, what kind of soil you have, the sorts of plants that can grow in that soil, and about the light coming onto those plants. Local garden centres are good at giving advice on the conditions plants need in order to flourish.

Sketch out the space and where you want to put all the vital ingredients - most importantly, your compost heap or bin. The following list sets forth some of the items you may want to include in your design and the issues to consider:

Decking and patios: Think carefully about the impact on the environment of any surface you put down for your seating area. Check with the retailer before you buy that wood for decking or slabs for the patio come from renewable, sustainable - or at least recycled and recyclable- sources.

Keep in mind that if you concrete over part of your garden to make a patio, water will run off that area and may cause drainage problems on other parts of the garden.

Furnishings: If your garden is another room in your home, it needs some kind of furniture. If you opt for wooden tables and chairs make sure that the wood is from sustainable sources and not made from tropical hardwood. Wooden furniture needs to be treated to stop it rotting when it’s left out in the rain. Often the treatment involves toxic chemicals, so

Make sure that the furniture you buy uses non-toxic preservatives such as linseed oil. Buy wooden furniture that has the Forest Stewardship Council’s stamp on it, certifying that it’s made from wood from sustainable, responsibly managed forests.

Lighting: Candles are very effective in the garden. Put them into glass containers to shield them from wind and rain. You can make your own lanterns from glass bottles.

The other green alternative is to use solar-powered bulbs that use the power of the sun to build up energy, which then later is released to light your garden.

Outside cookers: Make sure that you use the greenest material possible for your barbecue. Check that the charcoal comes from renewable wood. Don’t buy barbecue material treated to make it light easily: It’s likely to have an oil- or petrol-based fuel in it which won’t do much good for the environment or for your food.

Outside heaters: Gardens or yards are often used as extra rooms. Patio heaters are popular so that you can stay out later into the evening and for more of the year, but pleasant as heating the outdoors may be, burning gas or using electricity not only pushes up your bills but adds to the carbon dioxide you’re releasing into the atmosphere. Think long and hard before you opt for one of these heaters. They aren’t environmentally friendly.

If you do decide to buy a patio heater don’t leave it on when you’re not using it, and make sure that if you’re heating outside, your lights and heat are turned off inside to reduce your energy use as far as possible.

Plants: When it comes to deciding what to grow in the garden it’s impossible to generalise. You can go for trees, shrubs, fruit, vegetables, pot plants, lawn, or flowers depending on how much space you’ve got, how much sunlight your garden gets, what the soil is like, how much rainfall your area gets, how much time you have to spend working in the garden — the variables are almost endless. Design your garden to be as energy- efficient as possible, require as little water as possible in dry areas, and provide the best possible habitat for wildlife.

Water features: Most gardens aren’t big enough for pools and pondsut if you have room for a small water feature like a fountain or a tub, think carefully. Anything that needs electricity to make it function isn’t as green as an alternative that can be powered by the sun. Take care that children and wildlife won’t be harmed, avoid using chemicals in the water, and provide shelter for any frogs or toads that find their way into your garden.

Baked beans Popular with children and a good way to get them to eat pulses.

Canned tuna fish A convenient store- cupboard stand-by, but don’t rely on it too often, as tuna does accumulate any heavy metals from polluted waters it lives in.

Organic wholemeal bread or rye bread (pumpernickel-style or sourdough), or an `all-in-one’ white bread ‘with added goodness, which is very popular with children who refuse to eat wholemeal. Anyone avoiding wheat should check the labels carefully, as some rye breads include wheat. Most children find the flavour of pumpernickel-style rye bread too strong and the texture quite hard and chewy, but it is a useful alternative if your child is avoiding wheat and you can get them to eat it. It is more popular with older children.

Organic rough oatcakes such as Nairn’s are a good wheat-free alternative to bread and crackers. Rough oatcakes have a lower GL than finely milled varieties.

Organic wholemeal pasta Choose a gluten-free variety such as brown rice or buckwheat pasta, if necessary; buckwheat has a lower GL than rice or corn pasta.

Organic brown basmati rice The lowest GL of all rices, so it is more filling and less fattening. It has a nutty flavour and chewy texture and is far more interesting than plain white rice.

Organic soba noodles Made from gluten-free buckwheat, these noodles cook very quickly and can be used hot or cold in salads and steam-fries or stir-fries. Look out for the loo per cent buckwheat noodles sold in supermarkets, as some brands also contain wheat.

Quinoa A South American fruit seed, pronounced `keenwaa, which looks and cooks like a grain and is very similar to couscous. It contains all the essential amino acids, making it a perfect protein food, and it’s also low in fat and rich in minerals.

Polenta flour or cornmeal for gluten-free batters and coating Chicken Nuggets and Fish Fingers.

Organic whole oats Use for baking and cereals.

Coconut oil The most stable oil for cooking. It’s virtually flavourless and can be used for spreading, frying and baking — it is solid at room temperature and melts to an oil when heated. It will not raise cholesterol or produce harmful trans-fats when cooked, unlike polyunsaturated fats (see the Foods to Avoid section opposite). If you have difficulty obtaining coconut oil you can buy it from Health Products for Life

Extra virgin olive oil for salad dressings.

Sesame oil for oriental dressings and dishes, and to enliven couscous, quinoa or rice salads.

Tamari A wheat-free soy sauce that has a good, strong flavour.

Tahini (ground sesame-seed paste). Useful as a spread and for making hummus.

Pesto A sauce made with basil, pine nuts and Parmesan cheese, which cantransform a simple pasta dish.

Canned coconut milk A delicious alternative to creamy or tomato-based curried sauces.

Canned chopped tomatoes, tomato purée and sun-dried tomato paste are all useful bases for sauces such as chilli, Bolognese and curries. Cooked tomatoes contain more of the antioxidant lycopene than raw ones, making these a really healthy addition to meals.

Olives Avoid those that list colourings and additives on the label. Greek Kalamata olives are wonderfully moist and full of flavour. Buy ready-pitted to avoid children choking on the stones.

Nut butter Choose sugar-free ones, and look in health-food stores for different types of nut and seed butter; there are cashew, sunflower, hazelnut and almond butters, as well as peanut butter.

Xylitol A naturally sweet, low-carb sugar alternative (found in some plants) that doesn’t disrupt blood sugar levels and has a third of the calories of sugar. Available in supermarkets and health-food stores. When first using xylitol, increase daily intake gradually to allow the body to adjust, as large quantities can have a laxative effect.

Good-quality chocolate (about 50-70 percent cocoa solids). Lower in sugar than cheap milk chocolate, which relies on added sugar to make up for the lack of cocoa solids. Good-quality chocolate contains iron and magnesium.

Black peppercorns A good way to add flavour instead of salt. Plus, freshly ground black pepper contains a substance that helps you absorb nutrients.

Sea salt To be used in moderation.

Marigold Reduced Salt Vegetable Bouillon powder A delicious, full- flavoured alternative to stock cubes, it is suitable for vegans and is gluten-, yeast- and soya-free. It can also be added to dishes at any stage of cooking; there is no need to dissolve it in water like stock cubes. Most supermarkets stock it.

Dried herbs and spices (such as herbes de Provence, mixed Italian herbs, oregano, chilli powder and chilli flakes, cayenne pepper, curry powder, ground cumin, coriander and turmeric).

Organic or free range eggs are preferable from the point of view of taste, the welfare of the chickens and your own health. Eggs can be an excellent source of B vitamins, zinc, iron and phospholipids (fats required for cell membranes and a healthy brain), but they are only as good as the food the chicken was fed on. Look out for eggs from chickens fed on flaxseeds (linseeds), as these are a good source of omega-3 oils.

Low-fat cottage cheese and cream cheese Organic brands are hard to find, but if you do see them, choose those.

Organic feta cheese and soft, mild goat’s cheeses.

Organic butter A stable fat to cook with that is also free from the harmful hydrogenated fats added to many margarines.

Organic live, natural yoghurt Live sheep’s or goat’s yoghurt is more easily digested than cow’s yoghurt.

Free range (or organic) chicken or turkey (whole birds, breasts, thighs or drumsticks).

Organic salmon fillets Salmon is usually better liked than other oily fish such as trout, mackerel, anchovies, sardines, herring, kippers and fresh tuna. Fresh tuna is a great source of omega-3 fats but as it accumulates heavy metals from polluted waters, it has been shown to contain high levels of mercury. Don’t eat it more than once a month.

Smoked and unsmoked haddock fillets (undyed), or other firm-fleshed white fish such as pollack.

Organic mince Beef, lamb and turkey mince are all suitable.

Sausages with a high lean-meat content, from good-quality butchers or farmers’ markets.

Lean slices of ham on the bone for sandwiches, salads and snacking.

Hummus for sandwiches and snacks.

Bags of prepared frozen vegetables such as broccoli florets, diced peppers and peas - for when you don’t have time to prepare fresh.

Unsalted, unroasted nuts and seeds for snacking and cooking. Although these won’t be stored in the chill cabinet they should ideally be kept in your fridge to prevent their oils from oxidising and going rancid (you will know if they have gone off as they will taste bitter and revolting). Sunflower, pumpkin, sesame seeds and flaxseeds (linseeds) provide a good balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fats to sprinkle on cereals. Hazelnuts, walnuts, brazil nuts, pecan nuts and almonds are rich in minerals and essential fats but low in saturated fat (and ground almonds are very useful for baking). Peanuts, cashew nuts and macadamia nuts are fairly high in saturated fat, so limit these. Some people are allergic to nuts; seeds are much less allergenic, and flaxseeds (linseeds) and pumpkin seeds are particularly well tolerated.

At the heart of all the arguments for eating locally grown, seasonal produce is the need to cut down on what have become known as food miles. Food Miles is the distance - often thousands of miles - that food travels from where it’s produced to get to your plate. The transportation (by air, truck, or car) results in carbon emissions. Nearly half of our food is imported from abroad and over half of the organic food for sale in the UK is imported.

Food retailers say that customers want exotic foods from around the world. Maybe consumers want them because the retailers provide them but part of the reason may be that people travel more widely and experience different foods from different countries that they then want to be able to buy when they’ve returned home. Whatever the reason, there are now more than 40,000 different food products available in the bigger supermarkets and many of them have travelled thousands of miles and are responsible for about a fifth of the carbon dioxide emissions the UK produces.

Food flying thousands of miles to the UK from other countries is just part of the food miles problem. Even British produce can travel many hundreds of miles before it gets to your plate. The retailers buy from producers and often transport the food by road to big packaging plants; from there to huge storage facilities; on again to distribution centres; and finally to the shops from where you drive it home. To cut down on those miles, you have to buy locally rather than just buy items with the British produce tractor on the label.

Food that travels and spends time in storage has fewer nutrients than locally produced food. The sooner after it’s been picked or harvested you eat something the more nutritious it is. Ideally the best food is that eaten within a day of coming off the tree.

Another dilemma for you to consider is what to choose if you have to decide between organic potatoes from New Zealand and non-organic ones from Cyprus. Do you go for the organic on the grounds that you don’t agree with the use of pesticides in farming, or do you go for the non-organic on the grounds that they’ve travelled fewer food miles and are responsible for fewer damaging greenhouse gas emissions? Many scientists think that buying locally produced food is more important for the environment than buying organic. The decision is far from simple but don’t be put off. If you are making decisions that are making your lifestyle greener than it was you are doing something to help rather than nothing.

The fast pace of modern life leads to less cooking at home and more reliance on convenience foods that can be unwrapped and put straight in the oven.

If you buy ready meals you are less likely to know what’s in them and where the ingredients came from than if you prepare a meal from scratch with fresh, raw ingredients.

You may also like to have some information about the employment practices of the country of origin when deciding whether or not to buy certain foods. If you want to live a truly green and ethical lifestyle you’ll avoid food from countries that exploit workers or have poor records on human rights. Knowing what you want to buy, and from where, can take a lot of research. Not everyone makes the same decisions and you also have to bear in mind that if you decide not to buy produce from a particular country you may be helping to make life more difficult for the farmers, workers, and producers rather than the country’s government.

Eating local produce

Despite all the arguments about what food is best in terms of health, there does seem to be agreement that from an environmental point of view it’s best to buy local produce. If you go to the supermarket you’ll find fruit and vegetables from Spain, South Africa, and New Zealand, and meat from Argentina and Brazil — stuff that’s flown thousands of miles. Where is all the local produce?

The supermarkets are always trying to entice you with cheaper prices and so they buy from suppliers who supply them with what they need: what customers want at the right price. It may be cheaper to buy from abroad and fly goods in from Africa rather than buy them from Kent. Fruit, vegetables, and other favourite foods are increasingly imported into the UK from around the world. This not only reduces access to locally produced food but increases the amount of fossil fuels burned (and pollution generated) to transport the goods.

The supermarkets say that they are giving their customers what they want - avocados all year round at low prices, for example. Whether or not that’s the case, when avocados are available all year round at low prices, it’s easy to develop a taste for them.

If you want to do the best for the environment by eating local produce you may have to stop buying all those exotic treats that you’ve come to know and love, and go back to eating what local producers can produce at particular times of the year. That also means getting back into the kitchen and cooking again.

Eating what’s in season

If you eat according to the UK growing seasons, you enjoy winter vegetables such as parsnips and swede, and summer vegetables such as garden peas and lettuce. If you shop in the supermarket or the bigger greengrocers’ shops you can find just about every kind of fruit or vegetable all year round. You don’t have to think about what’s in season because you can have anything you want when you want it - but you won’t have a green tongue, so to speak.

If you buy only local produce to cut down on the impact on the environment of food travelling round the globe, you may also want to eat only seasonal produce too.

Local producers can grow food out of season but that usually means using artificial heating and lighting, and growing fruit and vegetables under polythene or in poly tunnels to stimulate growth in artificial conditions. It can be just as damaging to the environment for a grower in Kent to grow tomatoes out of season in this way as to transport them in from Spain.

Locally produced, seasonal food can be organically produced more readily than out of season food. Quite apart from the environment and health considerations of eating this way, there’s the added pleasure of rediscovering particular foods each year. When the season is over you can look forward to tasting it again next year, instead of becoming used to it all year round and taking it for granted.

A green, meat-eater

If you lust for a lamb shank and pine for a pork chop you can still be greener. Meat can be, and is, produced in the same organic and sustainable way that many fruits and vegetables are farmed. You can cut down your impact on the planet’s resources by reducing the amount of meat you eat, and choosing `green’ meat wherever possible.

Look for meats that have been pasture raised or grass fed, indicating that the animals were raised outdoors on pasture and that their diet consisted of grasses and hay — a much more natural and environmentally supportive process than feeding them on grain.

Some animals (especially chickens and pigs) are fed some grains to ensure that they get the nutrients they need, but the grains themselves can be organically grown.

Check what is meant by what it says on the labels:

PoFree-range: Check the labelling or a company’s Web site to find out whether the chicken or pig has been raised on pasture or simply uncaged in an enclosed free-range shed.

Natural: Labels may refer to beef and lamb, in particular, being produced naturally but this only means that it may not have any artificial colours, artificial flavours, preservatives, or other artificial ingredients — not that they’ve led the life of Riley outside, gambolling in the fields.

Lean: Buying lean meat may be healthier but it’s not any more sustainable than fatty meat. The only difference between lean meat and non-lean meat is that the fat has been taken out.

Some countries that don’t have large meat-producing industries, or are worried about local meat being infected (particularly in Asia and Europe), import their meat from ’safe’ countries, such as Australia. The energy required to transport that meat is huge.

A meat-eater can be just as sustainable with their eating habits, although the range of sustainable and organically prepared meats may not yet equal the range of vegetarian food available. You find less organic meat in your local supermarket compared to the increasing range of organically produced fruit and vegetables, tofu products, and other non-dairy delights now available. Don’t forget the other options for buying meat. Locally produced meat is more likely to have been raised organically and even if it isn’t the advantage of being truly local is that it’s greener than imported meat that’s travelled thousands of food miles.

If you’re finding it hard to get organic meat, ask your local butcher’s shop or butcher in the supermarket if they can supply you with some organic and sustainable options — increased demand increases supply. The environment will be better off and your local supermarket or butcher will have a guaranteed customer.

Now you have a waterproof roof. If necessary, you can wait a few days before putting on the shingles, but if you wait too long, eventually a strong wind will tear the paper off and you’ll have to do it all again. Applying asphalt shingles is easy; just follow the directions on the package. Getting the heavy bundles up on the roof is the hardest part. Professionals use some kind of machinery for this; you may want to improvise a block and tackle. Before you start the job, there should be bundles of shingles scattered about the roof so that there will always be some available when needed.

Asphalt shingles usually have three “tabs,” so that when the roof is finished, it appears to be made up of individual small shingles, when in fact it is made up of units of three of these. To begin with, lay a course of shingles along the bottom of the roof facing the wrong way—that is, with the tabs up. Nail them in place with galvanized roofing nails that are just long enough to penetrate two layers of shingle, the tar paper, and the roof decking. You can rent a power stapler for this, but a hammer and nails work about as well.

Apply a second course directly over the first course, but with the tabs facing down, then keep moving up the roof. The third course overlaps the second just enough to reach the slots between tabs and cover the nails, which are put in about ¹/2 inch directly above each slot. Each course also is staggered with regard to the course below so that the slots don’t line up.

At the sides of the roof, shingles will have to be cut to fit. Large tinsnips or a utility knife will do this; either will get gummed up with asphalt and have to be cleaned from time to time. It may be necessary to cover nailheads with roofing cement where cut pieces of shingle are used, but in general you won’t need quite as much as you may have feared to hold down the shingles themselves, because they are self-sticking: They have a built-in strip of tar, and after the first hot or sunny day, they willbe well stuck down.

Roofing compound and roofing cement are black, tarry substances that are an important part of this job. These substances are used to glue layers together and to cover any exposed nailheads to make them completely waterproof. Compound is thinner and is usually applied with a cheap brush; cement is supposed to be applied with a trowel, but many roofers use any old stick, like a piece of wooden shingle, since the material is very difficult to clean off a trowel. Whatever cleanup can be done is done with gasoline, kerosene, or a similar substance.

Wear absolutely the oldest, rattiest clothes for roofing; when you are sure you’ll never do any more roofing, burn them. Shingling is designed so that most nailheads are hidden. This keeps the use of the tar to a minimum, but you’ll still get it all over you. If the day is not warm, the tar will need to be kept warm somewhere so that it will flow.

About halfway up the slope, start laying out courses by measuring down from the top rather than up from the bottom. The top and the bottom may not be perfectly parallel. If you are way off, don’t correct the problem all in one course; adjust several courses, ¹/4-inch at a time.

To make a double layer at the top of a shed roof, cut off individual tabs and apply them over the top half of the last course. It should be possible to plan ahead and adjust the courses so that you’ll come out even. Nailheads will show here and have to be tarred.

If the roof has a peak, shingle up both sides to it. To cover the peak, cut the three-tab shingles in thirds. Apply these pieces over the ridge so that they lap the underlying shingles on both sides; make sure they also overlap each other about an inch. The nailheads will show here and will have to be covered with cement. The shingles must be warm enough that they will not crack when bent; don’t crease them. At valleys, carry alternating courses of shingles (first from the section of roof on one side of the valley, then the other) well across the valleys and up the other side.

If part of your house is one-story and part two, at some point a roof intersects a vertical house wall. You have already flashed this with tar paper. Now add metal flashing, which can be bought in rolls of various widths at a building supply store. Aluminum is cheaper than copper and just as effective. Cut pieces half the width of a shingle. As each course of shingle reaches the wall, apply an aluminum “shingle” that is bent to reach well up the wall. The lower half of the asphalt shingle, the part that shows, goes over the aluminum “shingle,” which in turn goes over the upper half of the shingle below. Eventually the aluminum that shows will be covered with the finish siding applied to the wall.

SAFETY PRECAUTIONS

You’re working on a high roof. A fall could be crippling if not fatal. Don’t take any chances, and don’t ever get inured to the danger. Whether it’s applying tar paper or shingles, the job gets easier and safer as it goes along. The first few courses are the most dangerous. You may do them from below, using ladders or scaffolding, or if the pitch is not steep, from above, lying on your stomach facing down. If the latter, don’t be too macho to use some kind of rope harness for security, but be sure you know how to tie knots, or you may wind up strangling yourself.

Put all tools and materials not in use well above the work zone, and keep moving them up. Fire anybody who leaves things around for someone to trip over or step on. It’s not a good idea for one worker to lay out the shingles and another to nail them down. Stepping on a shingle you thought was nailed down can lead to a wild ride. Use a broom to sweep off loose crumbs from the shingles from time to time, but keep the broom well above when not in use.

When you have finished, you will have a totally leakproof roof, and you will have added several tons of weight to the load carried by the rafters. This weight, spread over the entire area of the roof, will be easily supported and will help to hold the roof down.