Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
There are many ways that a garden can be helpful for the plant and reduce a carbon footprint. If you are anything like me and my family, you always are thinking about ways to be better and live longer. I am going to share a few things that I have been doing for a while as well as a few new things I would like to try this year to reduce my footprint on the earth even more.
First off, I want to make my garden has long lasting as possible so I can reduce the amount of trips to the grocery store for produce. This means being smart with my planting. Here in Wisconsin, we have a relatively short growing season. Currently, the ground, and all my raised beds are still frozen. I have a few things growing that I started last fall but, I can’t harvest nor plant until everything thaws. Almost all seed packets give a range on how long it takes for the plant to fruit and be ready for harvest. So, starting now, I have 2 sets of seeds started indoors. My first set, I started at the beginning of March. A few weeks later, I plant some of the same plants as well as some new ones depending on the plants fruiting length. Things that are a little heartier take longer such as melons, broccoli, and peppers. Once the ground is thawed and my soil is ready, I will plant all my indoor seedlings outside as well as start a new set of fresh ones. This pattern of succession planting will allow me to harvest every few weeks rather than having all this produce all at once.
Another simple way to reduce waste is to compost. Composting can sound intimidating and confusing but it is actually rather simple. We have a turntable bin in our garden as well as a large wooden box that we dump the bin into. It starts in the kitchen. When cooking or prepping, we throw our food scraps into a container and when the container is full, it gets poured into the turntable bin. The key is to turn the bin rather frequently to avoid it from freezing up, or molding. Once the bin is full, it gets transferred to the wooden box where it gets further mixed around until it becomes a suitable soil and all the food chunks are dissolved. This is a great way to put your food back into your garden. Composted soil is some of the most nutritious soil you can have. This is will also save time and money from going to the store to buy bags of soil that might not even be good. Not all soil is the same. One thing I want to get better at is utilizing my compost all year. Like I mentioned, Wisconsin growing season is quite short and when it is the off season, everything is usually covered by mounds of snow. Our compost usually freezes up from not being turned regularly.
When it comes to the seeds you plant, the most sustainable source for gathering seeds is from the produce itself. For the first couple of harvests, I usually will keep the seeds from inside the produce and actually dry them to use for next years sowing. This again is the most sustainable option and saves a trip to the store. You never really know if seeds from a packet are going to grow the way you want, or if they were treated with some chemicals to make them more shelf stable. This method ensures you will always have fresh seeds on hand for years to come. I typically like to store mine in jars. Baby food jars are perfect size because they are small enough.
One plant that I am trying new this year are fruit bushes. I have noticed a lot of fruit from the store comes from Mexico or other tropical southern places. They can also be expensive off season. Of course there are some fruits that just will not grow where I am such as bananas or pineapples. But, we do love berries and we buy them pretty regularly. I will have to keep you up to speed on the berry bush progress as we get into the growing season. As of now, we are starting blueberries and raspberries. We usually do strawberries in the raised beds already.
As redundant as it is, it is important to reduce your carbon footprint as much as you can control, reuse things when you can like soil and seeds, and recycle your scraps to help keep your garden sustainable, keep your money saved, and help the planet along the way.
