I've been thinking quite a bit about 'sustainable gardening' lately. I promote (what I consider) are sustainable gardening practices in the classes I teach -- minimal inputs of water, fuel, pesticides, herbicides, and inorganic fertilizers, don't let leaves leave your property, don't kill things, promote diversity, plant mostly natives, think naturalistic planting design, minimize areas devoted to lawn, etc.
We've been happy with our 'natural garden' created with this approach in our own home landscape in the Piedmont of South Carolina. And we're continuing this in our second home in the mountains (where we'll probably 'retire'), where we're populating the slope around our small mountain house with native understory shrubs along with native trees.
Vegetable gardening is a bit more problematic; vegetables, by their domesticated nature, are nutrient and water hogs, so the gardener is ALWAYS grubbing around for more sources of organic matter and nutrients.
Homemade compost is excellent, but it's hard to produce enough that's high nitrogen, unless you have chickens, rabbits, cows, or horses. Chickens and rabbits are feasible in an urban environment if you're at home most all of the time, but not so practical if you're away for weekends or holidays.
But what exactly is sustainable gardening?
I'll assert that it is creating an ecologically-balanced landscape on the property that you inhabit, and that restores most of the ecology that once was on that site, along with making sure that no extra inputs of fertilizer or pesticides get washed into the stormwater drains.
That's what we've tried to do, in our attempt to create natural woodland and forest habitat and meadow on what once was almost 2 acres of lawn in the Piedmont, and incorporated organic vegetable gardens into the mix as well.
In the mountains, trying to restore an invasive-rich ravine into a rich cove forest of native trees, shrubs, and wildflowers is an amazing effort; my gardening companion has made remarkable progress already.
And converting part of the driveway and bare area below the house to vegetable garden beds is productive, too.
So, my first 'take-home' message, is let's get planting natives instead of 'ornamentals' in our gardens and landscapes.
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