TreeHugger Picks: Spring Gardening Tips
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 03.20.06
Now that spring has officially sprung, it may be time for many of you to start planting gardens, flowerboxes and the like in anticipation of a warm, fruitful summer. If indoor aeroponic gardening isn't your thing, here are some of our favorite resources and tips for greening your green thumb.
1) The Waterwise Garden is a great start for low-impact, green gardening.
2) Plants don't like synthetic-based fertilizers any more than we do. Feed them the good stuff, like TerraCycle Plant Food.
3) The same goes for when it comes to keeping your plants & gardens bug-free. Try organic insecticide to keep you, your plants and the planet happy.
4) Don't have any plants, but want some? Free Trees & Plants will give you some for just the cost of shipping.
5) For those with a burgeoning green thumb, but limited gardening real estate, why not try Leopoldo’s hanging basket or the Hortuba garden table.
6) When it comes to lawn care, Dave Pollard has a good mantra: "Save water, save time, save your health, save the environment. And say no to toxic chemicals."
7) Growing a green roof? Motherplants is a nursery devoted to growing plants specifically for green roofs.
Cool stuff. I got really excited about that organic insecticide but it doesn't seem to exist.
And home composting wasn't mentioned once... apart from the TerraCycle plant food which uses the nutrients produced in worm composting.
Home composting is easy, reduces waste from your trash can going by road (CO2 emissions) to the dump, where it gives off methane (CO2e emissions) and means you don't need to put fertiliser on your plants and don't need to water as much as the 'top-dressed' soil has a layer of material on it which reduces water vapour evaporating. The compost also supresses weeds.
How many reasons do you need to start a compost heap? Do it now!!!
There's loads of online advice too, for instance, the inventive American, Joe Jenkins' The Humanure Handbook, and the UK's top organic gardening organisation 'Garden Organic' has a wicked website: http://www.homecomposting.org.uk/
which will tell you as much as any other....
Alternatively Google me or go on Facebook and ask me your composting questions, all are answered!!!
John Cossham, York, UK
Good post.
Anything that not just adds to the amount of vegetation in our neighbourhoods, but to the variety is a blessing.
The smallest 'garden', e.g. a hanging basket, can yet be a source of nourishment for a variety of insects, so can help to create a habitat. And of course, where there are insects, there'll be birds.
Our towns and cities are under constant threat of being de-greened as our demand for more and more concreted jungle grows. It's truly scary. Especially in Britain where the number of private gardens being concreted over for parking areas is having a significant and detrimental impact on drainage in some areas.
I hope people heed this article, get out there, and grow stuff!
Steve N. Lee
eco-blog http://www.lionsledbysheep.com