Eco Gardens

It is a fact that many people who tend to their gardens every year are hurting the environment.

This is because they often use chemical fertilizers and pesticides to maintain it, which have a harmful effects on the soil and its insects.

Understanding this fact, many environmentally-conscious gardeners are turning their gardens into eco gardens in order to reduce their impact on the Earth.

By using natural methods for fertilizer, nutrients and pesticides, these gardens are able to thrive while minimally affecting their surrounding environment.

Natural Fertilizers

While the fertilizer sold at local gardening stores can be successful, it is undeniably terrible for the soil. After a few years of fertilizer use, the soil may be completely unusable. An alternative is to use compost made of organic waste.

Organic waste contains valuable nutrients such as nitrogen, which are essential for healthy plant growth. Using compost provides all the benefits of chemical fertilizers but with a much lower environmental impact.

Natural Pesticides and Herbicides

Another big factor that affects gardens are pests. When people see unwanted pests in their garden they rush to the store and douse their garden with a pesticide without considering its negative effect on the environment. While – as with fertilizers – these pesticides are often successful, they also kill neutral or positive insects that help pollinate the plant.

It is a common belief that only 3% of all insects found in gardens are harmful to the plants. The problem is that traditional insecticides kill all insects indiscriminately, whether they hurt the garden or not. Luckily, there are some natural ways to control pests that are much less destructive.

The variety of organic sprays on the market, for example, contain chemicals that are selective, which means they only target insects that are harmful to the plant. These sprays also break down very quickly when exposed to sunlight, so no harmful chemical residue remains on the plants or soil.

Herbicides, on the other hand, are the chemicals used to kill weeds growing in a garden. The problem with most traditional herbicides is that they kill everything growing in an area and not just the unwanted weeds. Unfortunately, there are very few natural alternatives to killing weeds other than dealing with the problem by hand.

Arguably the best of these alternatives is acetic vinegar, which has a 20% concentration and is much stronger than the 5% concentration contained in culinary vinegar.

Millions of people around the world enjoy spending their spring and summer hours tending to their garden. However, they fail to realize that the chemicals they use to maintain it are extremely harmful to the environment. Eco gardens use natural and organic alternatives for everything from pest control to fertilizer, which greatly reduces their impact on the environment.

Article by Michael Ravensthorpe

About the Author : Michael Ravensthorpe is a writer and researcher of nutrition from the United Kingdom. He is the creator of the website, http://spiritfoods.net, which contains interesting and useful information about the world’s healthiest foods, from salmonberries to custard apples.

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