Today is Blog Action Day, in which thousands of bloggers will post about climate change and the environment – including yours truly.
Now, if you’re a regular reader, you’ll know I’m a bit of a treehugger, and well, this is an organic gardening blog. I was a bit perplexed about what to write about: a new “green” product for the garden? Organic fertilizers? Community gardening? Well, I’ve decided to do it all. A kind of quick-reference list for beginners and hard-core gardeners alike. If you want to garden greener, here are my tips.
Greener Gardening Tips
- Ditch the chemicals. Chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides run off into our groundwater supply and evaporate into our air, causing widespread pollution and global warming. Plus, chemical fertilizers just (temporarily) treat the plant itself, while organic fertilizers treat the soil, improving and building it up over the seasons – leaving your garden healthier and more productive in the long term.
- Compost. You’ll reduce your contribution to the landfills, and make an organic soil amendment at the same time.
- Remove or reduce the size of your lawn. Lawns are bad news.
- If you must have a lawn, use a push mower.
- Use a peat alternative. Peat is a common soil amendment that is harvested from wetlands – which are home to many rare and endangered species.
- Grow more food (maybe in place of your lawn?). Reduce the distance (and greenhouse gas-causing emissions) your food needs to travel to reach your plate. Think of it as the one-mile diet.
- Be waterwise. Set up a rain barrel or build a rain garden. Use drip irrigation or a watering can.
- Plant more natives. They’ll do better in your climate, and probably need less water than exotic imports.
- Buy organic seeds. Buy ’em local, buy more heirloom varieties, and then save them (keep your coins out of Monsanto’s pockets).
- Get involved. Join a community garden. Volunteer to teach a gardening course. Do some guerilla greening. Have fun!
genelle says
hey I have an organic tip for you. we deal alot with invasive and noxious weeds at work and have been looking for a non-toxic approach. we found one that worked this summer. instead of spraying the knotweed with herbicide we used plain old seawater! we filled our pump sprayer with seawater and sprayed it on to the drip point like we would with herbicide and let it dry in the sun. we need to repeat a couple times.. but sooo much better than killing the whole area with roundup and leaving a void for other invasives to step into..anyway, that is my comment for you!
Andrea Bellamy says
Huh. It’s always the simplest things that work the best, eh?
Michael says
Very interesting blog. Keep up the outstanding work and thank you.