Looking to make your gardening practices more eco-friendly? Here are three simple tips to help you nurture your garden while reducing your environmental impact. From utilizing natural cover crops to choosing organic amendments, these strategies can contribute to healthier plants and a more sustainable garden.
# 1. Make use of existing cover crops by cutting them back and covering the area with a silage tarp.
If you have grasses, weeds, or traditional winter cover crops like fava beans or red clover growing in your garden cut or mow them down to small pieces so they can be used as valuable nutrients for next season’s crops. Covering the planting area with a silage tarp for one to two months will help to break down the green waste from the cover crops.
Environmental Planner Nicholas Carter, reports that “one acre of cover crops planted for one year is the equivalent to twelve tons of poultry manure in nitrogen content.”
# 2. Add composted mulch and woodchips to the planting area.
If you have brush piles and woody debris on your property don’t burn it — chip it instead, or source clean woodchips from a local supplier. Spread woodchips in your vegetable garden like you would spread a chemical-based time-release fertilizer over your planting area. With moderate everyday watering applications, a one-inch layer of vegetative mulch mixed with composted woodchips will provide nutrients for about 90 days; in comparison, a two-inch layer of animal-waste-sourced compost will only provide nutrients for about 30 days. In perennial gardens, you can use woodchips in larger quantities in order to suppress weed growth around your established perennial flowers and shrubs. Composted woodchips are the ideal time-release organic fertilizer.
Iain Tolhurst, an author and award-winning organic farmer based in the UK yields more than 20 tons of potatoes per acre by simply amending with composted woodchips and cover crops, and by utilizing companion planting and regular crop rotations.
# 3. Always choose organic and eco-friendly plant-based amendments and fertilizers for your garden.
Plant-based amendments are the most sustainable and safe to handle when growing food crops, whereas animal waste amendments can become vectors for human diseases. When buying soil mixes and amendments, inquire about coconut fiber, rice hulls, cocoa bean hulls, straw, alfalfa meal, kelp meal, woodchips, grape pomace, mushroom compost, composted leafy debris, and mulch. Be aware that animal-based amendments like manure, blood meal, bone meal, fish emulsion, and feather meal contain harmful toxins such as cryptosporidium and E. coli, and concentrated use over time can contaminate groundwater sources.
In conclusion, when planning a garden it’s important to always use the most beneficial and eco-friendly practices; to strive to be good stewards of the Earth, and to utilize the best practices that will provide the healthiest food with the biggest yields. In all land-based agriculture practices, we should always do our best to reduce erosion, be mindful of excess nutrient run-off, be weary of planting food crops around painted metal or treated wood, create a safe habitat for those who are working in the garden, and nurture a hospitable environment for birdlife and pollinators as well.
Our natural gardens can mimic natural ecosystems! By reducing erosion, and enhancing biodiversity we will benefit the planet and the health of future generations to come, it’s all connected!
The word is
The word is “wary” not “weary.”
Myra
Way to go, Joel! Great photo!
Great article. While I recommend plant based fertilizers I do reccomwmd my clients research their sourcing.. As an example, nitrogen plant based organic inputs are most often farmed products that use petroleum based fertilizers to grow the crop then they sell us the petroleum based fertilizer in a new plant based form. Currently the USDA certified organic program doesn’t support the founders or consumers desires. Petroleum based fertilizers and chemical sprays are legally allowed to enter our organic certified programs. I don’t feel it’s right that when I use soybean or alfalfa, some other farmer grew an entire crop with chemicals so I can have the luxury of having a plant available nitrogen source.
Thank you for your input Myra! I didn’t specifically mean to use the word wary, I meant to use the word “weary” but wary sounds great as well!
“We should be weary about planting food crops around painted metal or treated wood”
Thanks everyone, for reading the article and for your comments!
Kind regards,
Joel R. Thompson