GARDENING GREENER
Is your New Year’s Resolution to
become a Greener Gardener? I read
somewhere that each American makes 1.9 New Year’s Resolutions. If this is true around the world, think
how many millions of people resolve to improve. I wonder how many of those resolutions deal with losing
weight, exercising more, or improving our environment. With “GREEN” being the buzzword and
mentioned almost daily in the media, now is a good time to resolve to be more
environmentally friendly.
Gardeners are obviously green by nature of their activities, but we
should all take time to consider how to make our gardens “greener”.
Although there are items that can be purchased to help us attain
this goal, often we can go green and spend very little money doing it. Some of
the best green ideas are merely changes in or everyday gardening practices.
Water conservation can be a big part of a “green” garden. Certainly products like rain barrels
may help us here, but the real key to conservation is changing our watering
practices.
Many gardeners run the sprinkler every day for a short time
period. This is a bad practice as
it does not benefit the plant and it wastes water. Try watering once a week for a longer period of time. This will insure deeper penetration of
the water into the soil to really benefit the root system (as opposed to the
shallow penetration of water that occurs with frequent sprinkling).
Use soaker hoses to thoroughly and gently wet the soil. If you must use overhead sprinklers,
make sure you water in the morning so leaves can dry before nightfall. Otherwise you’re encouraging fungal
diseases.
Put as little as possible into the local landfill? Recycle cardboard, cans, and compost
materials. Wash and reuse plastic
pots, or return them to your local garden store for their use if they have such
a program (if not, perhaps you might encourage them to do so). Using clay pots, where possible, avoid
using plastic pots originally derived from fossil fuels.
Start a compost pile.
Add to your compost grass clippings, dead leaves, plant residues, and
other organic matter. Add vegetable kitchen scraps, but not meat scraps. Use the compost to enrich the soil and
to improve plant growth. Make sure you turn the pile often, and add the right proportion
of ingredients (carbon and nitrogen sources), to ensure you get good quality
compost.
Use
alternative controls for pests and diseases. These might include biological
organisms. The pesticide Bt, made
from a bacterium that attacks specific caterpillars, is a good example. Mechanical controls include such
methods as picking off beetles, and trapping slugs under boards or in
beer. Cultural controls include
more spacing to promote air circulation and reduced disease, or even proper
mowing to lessen turf grass diseases.
Avoid trouble by selecting plants that resist common pests and
diseases. Three are so many to choose from - everything from tomatoes that
stand tall against verticillium wilt, to roses that resist Japanese beetles.
Learn about the cultural requirements of your plants before you
invest time and money. Don’t put
sun worshippers in the shade or water guzzlers where there’ no irrigation. And test your soil pH so you know
before you grow. Give your plants
what they need, and they won’t stress out (neither will you!)
You don’t have to be obsessive about it, but good sanitation goes a
long way toward keeping your plants healthy. So don’t let black spotted leaves linger on the ground. Rake them and toss them. Don’t put diseased foliage in the
compost. Clean up spent plants and
soak your pruners and other tools in a diluted bleach solution so you don’t
spread fungal problems.
A new year is a new beginning,
because it is one where people evaluate their lives and plan and resolve to
take action to make the attainment of happiness more real and possible.
This is a good time to take our values more seriously, sow those
seeds of value and provide the nutrients for your life and the joy that it can
and should be. Happy New Year - Happy Life and Happy Gardening!!
