Gardening: How Helping is Hurting

Good morning! Today is Wednesday April 15^th and the warm weather has finally arrived! With the warm weather, fresh produce and colorful flowers have begun to bloom and maybe you have started gardening right in your backyard. Today, we will go over the environmental impact of gardening including fertilizers and additives to your garden that you may think help, when in reality, they hurt. 

Growing food from the comfort of your home may make you feel rewarded, proud, and wholesome; however, many overlook the environmental footprint that gardening inputs on our environment. Using chemical fertilizers that aim at aiding your plants and crops in growth can input added pressures to surrounding ecosystems. Products such as MiracleGro and Round-Up make your gardens thrive because of the chemicals within them. One of the major environmental impacts of these chemicals are in rivers, ponds, and other bodies of water local to your garden. When the synthetic materials within your soil leach into the ground and runoff with groundwater into these bodies of water eutrophication can occur. Eutrophication occurs when the nutrients within the groundwater over-enriches aquatic ecosystems and causes extensive algae growth. The large amount of algae requires large amounts of dissolved oxygen; taking away life for other aquatic organisms.

Put into perspective, you love cucumbers and want to plant a garden bed full of cucumbers. Good idea, right; no. A lack of biodiversity in your garden can be detrimental to soil health. If your garden consisted of just cucumbers, there would be a decrease in pollinators and there would be a lack of diversity in the nutrients within your soil. This will make planting other fruits and veggies tougher in the future since the soil only contains certain nutrients.

The main mission of The Environmental Edit is to raise awareness for environmental advocacy. This need was highlighted by a recent study on the United States’ rating on our environment. It was found that only 35% of Americans rated the environment as “excellent” or “good”. 66% of Americans think that the quality of the environment is worsening. Both of these findings from a GALLUP Survey are near record highs and emphasize the importance of sustainable practices and environmental conservation.

Which of the following gardening practices provides the greatest environmentally friendly benefit to home gardens?

A)   Installing a decorative fountain with chlorinated water to attract birds.

B)   Planting native wildflowers and shrubs to support local pollinators.

C)   Applying chemical fertilizers every two weeks to maximize plant growth.

D)   Tilling the entire garden bed every spring to prepare the garden for a new round of crops.

Correct answer at the end of the newsletter!

In order to maximize produce and minimize your gardening environmental footprint there are many sustainable actions you can take while gardening. One way of doing so is eliminating chemical fertilizers and herbicides used to grow produce. An environmental-friendly alternative to chemical fertilizers are compost mixtures that naturally provide your garden nutrients. A way to maximize soil health and increase biodiversity is to intercrop and plant multiple crops in the same garden bed at the same time. This will increase pollinator activity and strengthen soil structure and health. A common strategy in strengthening soil health and structure is to leave garden beds undisturbed through the off-season while allowing old crops to decompose in the garden. Doing this will add nutrients and life to your soil!

That will wrap up this edition of The Environmental Edit. Next week, we will have an Earth Day special so stay tuned. The answer was B. I hope you enjoyed reading and remember to share this with friends and family. Have an amazing rest of you day!