Recent News On Sustainable Gardening

As you probably know, growing some of your own food - especially in a sustainable manner - is important in helping to preserve both our environment and our health. Growing sustainably means utilizing natural methods such as companion planting, crop rotation, and natural predators, as well as choosing plants native to your area and growing conditions, to create a naturally diverse and at least partially self-sustaining ecosystem in your garden space.

We try to bring you current and relevant resources to assist you in your sustainable gardening efforts, and here are some recent articles we thought you might find of interest on the topic. From gardening sustainably in a changing climate, to sustainable gardening in winter, and other helpful tips, these articles bring you important information for your sustainable garden.

The "Eden Garden" is a community project that over ten years has turned part of St Paul's churchyard into a sustainable garden promoting biodiversity and giving an opportunity for city children to learn about gardening and wildlife. See http://www.stpaulssw4.org/content/view/19/33/ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Video: Sustainable Gardening in a Changing Climate | Cornell ...
https://blogs.cornell.edu Tue, 26 Nov 2013 22:10:03 GMT
View a talk Sustainable Gardening in a Changing Climate that David Wolfe, Professor, Department of Horticulture and Faculty Fellow, Atkinson Center for a.
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Sustainable Gardening | 51 Jiqiren
http://www.51jiqiren.com Fri, 17 Jan 2014 06:28:30 GMT
Industry experts have been developing different techniques to make fully-sustainable gardens, affecting everything from how the gardens are built down to the drops of water that nourish the plants. Martin Hudson, CEO of ...
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Sustainable Gardening: Interview With Author Rick Austin
http://www.inquisitr.com Fri, 27 Dec 2013 21:29:14 GMT
Gardening in winter, especially in a sustainable manner can be quite difficult. Bestselling garden design author Rick Austin recently sat down with The.
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Landscapes for Life: A Homeowners Guide to Sustainable Gardening.
http://sarahpdukegardens.blogspot.com Mon, 25 Nov 2013 22:25:00 GMT
Gardening can tackle all three, and Duke Gardens can teach you how to create a sustainable landscape in its five part series, “Landscapes for Life: A Homeowners Guide to Sustainable Gardening.” The course is based on a ...
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Garden Planning: Crop Rotation for Vegetables

When growing vegetables in the garden most people tend to grow the same crops year after year. This is not surprising really, as we grow the crops that we prefer to eat and we also tend to repeat the plants that we have the most success growing.

One thing that most gardeners seem to do is grow the same vegetables in the very same place in the garden each year.

You will tend to have a spot for your tomatoes and a spot for your pumpkins and so on.

Crop rotation on a small scale at The Ecological Garden at Odder.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The problem with planting the same crops in the same place each year is the effect it has on the nutrients in the soil - not to mention buildup of pests and diseases.

Plants will extract the nutrients that they need from the soil for their specific requirements each season. By planting the same crops in the same places you can get nutrient deficiencies.

This is where crop rotation can enhance the value of your soil. By rotating where you plant your vegetables each season you will be giving the soil the opportunity to produce better results as there won't be the same demands on the nutrients in the soil when there is a different plant growing their from last season.

To improve the soil quality even more, you should dig in the remains of the crops once the season has finished allowing some of those nutrients to be put back into the soil. In the off-season you can also grow cover crops in the garden. These are crops that are grown specifically to add nitrogen to the soil. These crops have high nitrogen value in their roots and when they are ready, you dig them into the soil. (We'll cover these crops soon in a future post.)

In doing this you can expect a better harvest each year as the new planting of vegetables will have more nutrients to feed them. You will also control soil-borne disease causing organisms, and reduce pests naturally, since the pests won't be able to find the plants they like in the same spot every year.

Plotting out your rotation of crops for the coming season is an important part of the garden planning process each year. You can do this in a notebook, or on the computer, and there are even garden planners and software you can purchase to help with this task. Check out the helpful resources below for more info on crop rotation.


Helpful Crop Rotation Resources: