Green Thumb and Green Life: Eco-friendly Gardening Tips

Gardeners may have a “green thumb”, but that may not make them ecofriendly green. While it intuitively makes sense that planting more flowers will help the Earth, there are many facets of gardening that can actually do harm to the planet. Fort Collins, Colorado has the 15th worst ozone levels in the United States according to the American Lung Association, so we don’t want to do anything to aggravate the problem any more. However, that doesn’t mean you should give up on taking care of your greens altogether. You just need to change the way you do it to be environmentally sustainable.

Healthy Plant Food

Besides water and sunlight, plants need a certain amount of nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen to grow. Fertilizers are a way to introduce such nutrients into your garden. However chemical fertilizers, while cheaper and faster to use, are harmful to your soil as well as the good microbes and fungi living in it. By using organic fertilizers, you can avoid these risks and create a greener garden. Alternatively, you could make your own compost, which is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint. Using a leaf blower, you can easily gather enough leaves to use for your compost as well.

Making Good Plant Choices

When deciding on what to grow in our gardens, most of us want either plants that look beautiful, or some fruits and vegetables we like to eat. However growing plants that are non-native to your locale can carry some serious risks for your environment. Like other invasive species, they may excel at growing so much that they may displace other native species, driving them to extinction. They may also bring in new pests who didn’t enjoy the previous selection of vegetation. In order to keep a healthy environment be sure that you choose some native plants, some of which have their own benefits

Preventing Unwanted Intruders

Where we see a garden, others see a buffet. The usual solution to these unwanted guests is to hose down the area with chemical pesticides. However these chemicals can be harmful to your family as well as the other helpful insects and animals in your garden. Instead of reaching for your spray bottle, consider using the environmentally friendly alternatives. You could also create your own manmade ecosystem in your garden by adding certain plants that give off scents that repel hungry bugs, or add some good bugs to eat the bad ones.

Gardening should be a way to make the world a more beautiful place, not just your backyard. Therefore, you should be sure that your garden promotes the beautiful nature of the world. Help the planet say healthier longer with these eco-friendly tips.  By Sally Writes