Ways to start an Eco-friendly Garden

There is something special about growing my own food in my urban garden that makes me feel good. What better way than growing our garden by reusing some materials or using eco-friendly materials. This post will talk about ways to start an eco-friendly garden at home.

I love gardening. The interactions with the soil, seeing our vegetables grow from seed and harvesting my own food. Living in a city and having the opportunity to do all those things, even on a small scale, are lifetime experiences for my family and me.

I have also learned how we can enjoy this experience with an eco-friendly view by reducing the amount of waste in the process. The zero-waste allows me to use-reuse and look for a greener alternative to create less waste.

Below, you can find some ways to accomplish going green, which works well in my garden.

Eco-friendly garden containers

I really like to use the egg carton method. The growth rate has been successful for me, and the materials are biodegradable. You can find more about how to grow seeds in an egg carton in my Indoor seed starting post.

I’m also using the paper tubes method because it has many advantages. Since we start our seeds indoors in late winter and don’t have much space living in the city, this method reduces the amount of space needed in the house before we transplant them into bigger containers. Also, longer containers let the roots grow better than the egg carton.

Everything depends on the kind of crop you are sowing. The plants with shallow roots will be fine in the egg carton, while those with longer roots will have more space on the paper tube. Paper tubes are also biodegradable.

Use and reuse

Here are other ways I use to keep me on my journey to green. I try to buy food with the least amount of packaging as possible, but living in a city, sometimes we don’t have many choices. I reuse the plastic containers where the salads come from to sow root crops like onions or beets.

Also, I reused the containers from my organic herbs plants that I buy in the supermarket. If my herbs haven’t grown enough by the time I need them, I buy organic plant herbs at the supermarket, which come in these small containers. After I use it all, I wash the containers and reuse them to grow more herbs from seeds.

I prefer to buy the herbs in containers in the supermarket rather than the individual stems that come in small plastic containers for three reasons; the plants last longer, cost almost the same, and I can reuse the container afterward.

Eco-friendly garden labels

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There are many ways to make eco-friendly garden labels, from rock painting to flour dough tags. Here I have two examples of garden labels I have used so far.

The first one is craft sticks. Because they are made from wood, they are biodegradable, easy to use, and we always have some at home for my daughter’s craft projects. We even made a bird feeder with craft sticks the last year.

The second one is by reusing our bamboo toothbrush. Dentists recommend changing our toothbrushes from time to time. So when it is time, I pull the bristles out, wash the wood really well, and use them as garden labels. They are thicker and last longer. When you write on top of your wooden labels, make sure to use a garden marker that is harder to come out with water.

Regrow vegetables from scraps

I like to use this method with my green onions. I have them in a glass container with water, I cut the stems, and they regrow. I buy them every month or two just to change them to fresh ones, but I keep cutting them and reusing them all the time. Remember to change the water once a week and add filtered water to the vase. Many green vegetables can be cut and regrow from scraps.

I also take some organic garlic cloves and grow them in containers.

Compost from kitchen scraps

This is an excellent way to start an eco-friendly garden. If you live in a small space like me, you can compost in small containers. The one on the left (in the photo above) is an oatmeal container and is made of cardboard that I reused to make compost. The one on the right is an actual compost container.

I do add eggs shell, greens scraps, dried grass I get every time they cut the grass in the park close to my home, and soil to create my compost.

I hope this post on ways to start an eco-friendly garden has been helpful. You may also like ” Amazing green vegetables – cut and regrow.”