Zero Waste Gardening: Small Steps to Reduce Your Impact

We all know gardening is a great way to get in touch with nature. However, the actual process of gardening—things like buying soil in non-biodegradable packaging, planting seedlings in plastic pots, watering thirsty plants multiple times a day in the summer—can eat up natural resources and create lots of unnecessary waste. While zero-waste gardening might sound like a daunting goal, there are small steps you can take to move towards a more sustainable, lower-impact garden.

Buy in Bulk

One of the largest waste producers in gardening is simply all the packaging your supplies come in! One way to reduce waste is to buy the amount of product you need and package it in either reusable or biodegradable containers. Urban Earth’s Soil Bar was created with this in mind—you can get just the amount of soil you need and package it in a paper coffee bag, reducing waste.

Use Biodegradable Materials

Natural fibers have been used in gardening for millennia, and though plastic-based products may be more common, more sustainable options get the job done just as well. Try using burlap in place of synthetic cloth when covering garden beds or winterizing potted plants, and use jute twine in place of plastic ties to stake plants to trellises.

Find Alternatives to Peat Moss

Peat moss, an aged form of sphagnum moss, is the basis of most bagged potting mixes you see on nursery shelves. However, because peat is slow to regrow and age, it’s not the most sustainable medium to grow in. A great alternative is coco coir, made from the husks of coconuts. Products like Foxfarm’s Bush Doctor Coco Loco Potting Mix use coir as a base, and you can also make your own mix using pure coco coir mixed with compost and perlite.

Reuse What You Have

The plastic nursery pots that your plants come home in may seem destined for the trash, but they’re actually surprisingly useful to hang onto! They’re great for potting up seedlings, and can be reused several times as pots before cracking and breaking down (just make sure to clean them well before reusing so you don’t pass on soil pathogens). Another way to reuse resources is buying secondhand tools and supplies. Here at Urban Earth, we often carry second-use toolkits comprised of salvaged tools we’ve refurbished, sharpened, and cleaned. Tools that seemed ready to throw away can be made brand new with a little TLC, and it’s one less thing getting thrown in the landfill. If you want tips to refurbish your own tools, let us know! We’re always happy to teach.

Remember: Every Bit Counts!

Anyone who’s embraced a low-waste lifestyle will tell you, it’s not about any one person getting everything perfect all the time, it’s about all of us doing a little bit more to change things. Just making a few small changes will have an impact, and the more people you get on board, the more those changes will be felt. Happy gardening!