Why Growing A Garden Is The Most Sustainable Thing You Can Do
There are many things you can do at home to live more sustainably, but there is one thing that really stands out for me and that is gardening. In my opinion, growing a garden is the most sustainable thing you do to help save the planet because there are so many benefits to it. In this post, I want to discuss why I think it is the most effective way and why you should get started. Creating your own garden and growing your own food is the best thing you can do.Let's start off with lowering your carbon footprint.
Lowering your Carbon Footprint
Growing food can drastically lower your carbon footprint. By growing your own food you don't have to drive to the supermarket or even local farmer's markets, therefore cutting down on the use of fossil foods to get yourself there. It also means you're not buying foods that have been grown in the countryside and transported long distances to get to the supermarket shelves, which also burns large amounts of fossil fuels.Many of the fruits and vegetables sold in our large supermarkets are grown overseas and shipped here. These food products use even more fossil fuels. Walking out to your small veggie patch out the back, or even on your balcony doesn't require the use of fossil fuels at all.
Less Plastic packaging
One of the biggest issues facing our planet is plastic pollution. Plastic can take thousands of years to break down and can cause serious problems to wild animals. Any plastic that is disposed of is buried underground in a landfill. Burying our plastic in the ground is also terrible for the environment. Therefore, another benefit to growing your own food at home is consuming less plastic. Unfortunately, our major supermarket brands haven't done enough in the plastic packaging realm. Many of the foods we buy come wrapped in ridiculous amounts of plastic, including fresh fruits and vegetables. By growing at least some of our food at home we can cut down on our plastic consumption.
Creating a biodiverse eco-system
By starting your own garden you're creating your own mini eco-system and encouraging a range of different critters to your patch. A yard filled with food plants not only feeds you but it also feeds the bugs, bees, birds, lizards and frogs. Think of a garden as a huge salad bar for all these animals to come and hang out. The more of these animals you can bring to your salad bar the more diverse and beneficial.There are many species of animals that are under threat due to disease and clearing of their food sources. Bees, for example, are one of those. By creating a garden that is bee-friendly we can help them to continue to thrive because without bees we humans cannot survive.A massive problem with large scale agriculture is the lack of biodiversity. This lack of biodiversity has created huge problems and is one of the major reasons why pesticides are used. When you look at nature, there is diversity but when you look at industrial farms there is usually only extremely large fields of one crop. Growing your own food at home means you can have a variety of different crops that benefit each other and the animals.
Control what goes into your food
When you grow your own produce at home you can control what goes into your foods. Organic gardening is super important and it is something we can and should all do at home. Most of the fresh produce we buy at our supermarkets is grown using synthetic chemicals, fertilisers and pesticides. We have no idea what chemicals are used in these foods, we have no idea where they have been grown and the conditions they are grown in. Growing our own foods means we can control every aspect of the growing process. We can create the soils, we can create the compost, we can create organic fertilisers and we can control the pests naturally. Growing food with natural products and nothing synthetic is good for you and the environment.Chemical fertilisers and pesticides harm our environment and animals. When chemicals are used to prevent and/or exterminate crop-eating pests, other animals like beneficial bugs are also affected. Chemical pesticides used in largescale agriculture also seep into our foods, into the ground and into our drinking water. We as consumers have no control in what goes into our store-bought foods, but we can control what goes into the foods we grow at home.
Compost waste
one of the most important components of creating a garden is making and using compost. You would be hard-pressed to find a gardener that doesn't create their own compost. Composting allows you to reuse organic waste and create healthy soil and feed the plant. Using your leftover organic waste to create compost reduces your overall waste output in the general rubbish bin and green waste bin.Reusing every piece of organic materials is vital to living more sustainably. You can use pretty much anything organic in your compost. There are so many different ways to compost and no matter what your situation there is one to suit you. For more information about composting check out these articles:There are so many other reasons Why Growing A Garden Is The Most Sustainable Thing You Can Do. Let me know your thoughts on these ones and also let me know your favourite reasons below.