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Do you garden sustainably?
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Posted by
kimmsr 4a/5b-MI (
My Page) on
Sat, Dec 8, 12 at 6:47
Current issue of Fine Gardening magazine has a short quiz to ask yourself that can help guide you.
Steve Aikin finds a hammock in the garden helps. |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Do you garden sustainably?
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| Do you produce the majority of the calories that you consume, year-round? That is the more important question. Not hard to be "sustainable" when producing a few greens and tomatoes in season. |
RE: Do you garden sustainably?
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| Yea I agree. Sustainable by producing all food for yourself? If you hunt/fish/trap you may only need to grow some veggies, corn, grains, fruits, ect. |
RE: Do you garden sustainably?
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| or be non-flesh-eating and produce all carbs, fat and protein from plants. More demanding but possible in some climates. |
RE: Do you garden sustainably?
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| If the definition of that is not buying anything but seeds and plants, then yes. |
RE: Do you garden sustainably?
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| Sustainability is not only about food - it should also include whether or not you use fossil fuels and oil products in your garden. Do you use powered machinery? Do you drive around in a motor vehicle? Do you use plastics in the garden? Do you bring in non-replaceable materials like cement, rocks, metals, minerals? Kimmsr - what is FG's definition of sustainability? |
RE: Do you garden sustainably?
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| Flora, I don't see how those items you mention are "non-replaceable". Cement, for instance, is energy-intensive to make, but the materials it's made out of are common. Minerals are abundant, hauling them is energy-intensive. Refining metal uses lots of energy, but many types of ore are abundant. |
RE: Do you garden sustainably?
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| Cement is common world-wide, but if you're gardening sustainably in Hawaii you're not using cement if you want to keep in the spirit of sustainability unless you're using a small amount of it in an application with very little substitution. Liming your soil is sustainable and a great/cheap solution to better soil conditions (and lessen Aluminum toxicity) in many parts of the world, but it's unobtainable to the point of massive expensive and totally unsustainable in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. |
RE: Do you garden sustainably?
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| pnbrown - common or abundant doesn't equal replaceable. When you've dug limestone or iron ore out of the ground it doesn't grow back. These resources are finite, just as oil is. I don't think 'sustainability' is really a very useful term without some definition. Just by being alive on the planet we use up its resources. All we can realistically do is try to use them up as slowly as possible. |
RE: Do you garden sustainably?
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| I think a more accurate way to put is it is smart to reduce the use of energy-intensive products, which are the themselves sometimes made up of relatively scarce resources. Limestone is massively plentiful on the planet, but it has to be mined, crushed, and hauled. That is massively energy-intensive (though not nearly so as cement). The cost of a 50lb bag of lime for me is about $6, even on an island, which doesn't come close to reflecting accurately the environmental impact. As NC points out, the people who most need it can't possibly get it. I have a thread over at SMC about more sustainable options. A different example is borate, which exists in large deposits, and of course also requires a lot of energy to retrieve and move, but is only needed by the gardener in very small amounts. For a trifling environmental cost a big advantage can be gained by the food-producer. |
RE: Do you garden sustainably?
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| Pat, I can attest to the massiveness of limestone. When my well was being drilled in 1972, they hit sand at 30 feet down and limestone at 60 feet. They drilled through a bit more than 100 feet of limestone until the had established a good flow of water. The limestone likely continued on down for 200 more feet. I think that is is generally true all around here. |
RE: Do you garden sustainably?
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| The only power machinery we have is a mower. The more grass we remove, the less it is used. The only plastics here besides a utility cart (I'm not strong enough to pick up a metal wheel barrow to put it in the shed) are 2nd hand, like pots from purchasing plants, a cracked baby pool someone put at the curb, 5-gallon buckets DH said were going to the dumpster at his work, and a 55-gallon drum I found in a dumpster and use for compost. If I'm away from home and find a rock I like, I definitely bring it home. Not sure how that matters...? I rescue OM from other people's property that would be burned if the city picked it up, and nothing produced in this yard but thorny matter leaves the property. All of the OM from inside the house gets composted if possible also. |
RE: Do you garden sustainably?
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The article asks questions relating to how you use water, your labor, costs, and the toxins you use.
What is your driveway made of?
Are your plants grouped for water useage?
Where does the rain go?
How much attention do you give your soil?
Spacing guidelines?
What watering mehtod do you use?
Weed Control?
Lawn Care?
How do you control pests and diseases? |
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