Energy efficient trends in gardening

Growing your own food has a multitude of benefits. It’s rewarding. It’s healthy. It helps lower the carbon footprint of what you eat, lowering emissions from your car driving to the store and the truckers delivering it to the store. In fact, the average distance domestically grown produce travels is 1,500 miles. Just to get it to the store.

From a purely selfish standpoint, there are also many benefits for you as an individual. You can save money—the National Gardening Society found that with $70 worth of seeds and supplies, you can grow 350 pounds of produce. And this obviously isn’t junk. It’s the food your body needs to stay healthy and happy.

When a hobby such as this one is literally entrenched in the Earth, it makes sense that the people active in the community keep environmental concerns at the forefront of their mind. Below are some of our favorite ways garden aficionados are keeping energy use in mind when it comes to their passion.

Making Water Butts

Get your head out of the gutter (although, technically, this item might be considered a type of gutter)—water butts are easy-to-install, DIY devices that collect rainwater. They allow you to use the moisture you gather to water your garden, without having to use the water you’d otherwise be paying the city for. The obvious benefit is it allows you to utilize what nature freely provides as a source for organic growth.

This is especially useful in drought prone areas where water restrictions are somewhat common. If you have your own supply, you won’t have to worry about how your plants will get the hydration they need to thrive if restrictions are put in place.

Something to keep in mind in the future is the possibility that water supplies may become somewhat volatile as the climate changes. In many areas of the country, particularly the West (and really all throughout the world) water rights are quickly becoming a hot button issue, causing some to speculate the cost of water to skyrocket in the coming years.

Case in point, Cape Town, South Africa, nearly ran out of water just two years ago. Stories like this emphasize how essential it may become to figure out ways to preserve and smartly use the most precious resource on earth.

So while collecting and storing may seem like a small thing right now, in the future it may be essential. And whatever we can do now to help the environment will pay off down the road.

Repurposing Materials

Reduce, reuse, recycle. We’ve all heard this phrase, and its importance, countless times. And it applies to many aspects of gardening—it’s why some people get into the hobby in the first place. Many people are applying this line of thought to old items that otherwise would end up in landfills, creating unique, stylish looks for their home gardens.

After all, what better use of items you’re no longer using is there than repurposing them to give life? If you upgrade your bathroom, don’t just throw out that old tub. You can use it as a planter. Same goes for old tires you have to replace on your car.

Sure, it may not fit everybody’s style. But you’d be surprised at how many old items can be turned into cool garden beds. All it takes is a little dirt, some sun, and the regular upkeep you’d do in a traditional garden bed. A little imagination doesn’t hurt either. Soon enough, one man’s trash could end up being one of his most treasured possessions.

Creating Vertical Gardens

The concept’s nothing new, but vertical gardens have been growing (see what we did there?) in popularity over the last decade. One of the biggest upsides to this is also the most self explanatory: it saves space, allowing more people to grow more of their own food. Without this technique, people living in apartments, townhomes, or condos wouldn’t have the same opportunity to grow food..

There are benefits to the plants as well. For one, they serve as a strong deterrent to many diseases and fungi, which can spread through a traditional garden’s plot through the soil. And speaking of pests, they help you avoid the problem of animals (e.g. rabbits or deer) eating your harvest.

Plus, from an aesthetic standpoint, they just look awesome. It’s why people have been growing vines over archways for millenia. These structures can also provide needed shade in the hot summer months. It’s a trend gaining popularity, allowing more people around the world more opportunities to experience the benefits of growing their own food.

Xeriscaping

Fancy word, simple concept. Xeriscaping is a return to growing plants more native to the habitat you live in. It is looking towards the future by studying the past. Odds are you’ve seen this, even if you didn’t know the name, particularly if you live in the western part of the U.S.

A Xeriscaped yard can oftentimes be identified when it replaces grass with soil, rocks, and other materials that don’t rely so heavily on a daily water intake. Doing so can reduce water consumption by up to 60%. It’s more than just saving water from redesigning your yard, though.

Plants native to your area intrinsically know how to survive in that climate. This means more growth with less work trying to figure out how to keep non-native plants alive in your garden (much less having them thrive).

In fact, many of the efficiency trends we see when it comes to gardening and landscaping are something of a return to our roots. Being more mindful, and less wasteful, goes a long way in helping the planet that allows us to grow the bountiful crops we have for so long. And with a little communal work, we can all do our part to ensure it continues to do so for generations to come.