That's why I've scoured the internet to find the 80 best garden layout ideas for every size garden, and I'm excited to share them with you!
Grow in a greener way and you'll not only help the planet, but also save money, use fewer chemicals, and create less waste.
Gardener's Question Time expert Pippa Greenwood shares her sustainable garden ideas to reduce your horticultural footprint. Click through for 10 great
If you find yourself struggling to try to figure out how much to plant per person in the garden for a year's worth of food - look no further.
Here are 37 sustainable garden decor ideas for your home:
The less work and more productive way to garden
Want to make your garden more eco-friendly? This eco gardening guide has lots of easy sustainable gardening tips for greener gardening.
Forest gardens, or food forests, are one of the best ways to grow your own food. Create a permaculture forest garden in your backyard!
Sustainable landscaping is a way to create a beautiful garden that is environmentally friendly. Here are 16 ideas that can help you design a beautiful garden
Put these sustainable landscaping tips to use to ensure that you’re making green choices for the outside of your home.
Ever thought about starting a compost for your garden but just keep putting it off? Well, we’re here to help you get started with this simple step-by-step composting guide for beginners. From what you can and can’t compost, plus plenty of extra composting tips, keep scrolling for everything you need to know about how to ...
Forest gardens, or food forests, are one of the best ways to grow your own food. Create a permaculture forest garden in your backyard!
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California landscape designer Flora Grubb and her small son knew it when they saw it. "This is our house," they agreed, and she bought the Berkeley bungalo
It’s so easy to lower the carbon footprint of the whole house, and everyone can get involved! Here are the tips to make your house environmentally friendly.
Trying to adopt a more eco-friendly lifestyle? Here are 50 Easy ideas to get started. Going green and sustainable is possible in any home.
Landscaping ideas for sustainable gardens help fight climate change. Here is our guide to 16 eco-friendly tips for sustainability to make a difference:
Build a cleaner, more sustainable vegie patch using simple hydroponics. - by Better Homes and Gardens
Ecological landscaping benefits you AND the planet! Save money, improve air quality, and capture carbon in your yard with these eco-friendly landscaping strategies. Here's how to put your yard to work for the planet. WHY
Discover inspiring and creative backyard garden ideas to transform your outdoor space. Explore tips and designs for a vibrant garden oasis. Unlock the beauty of nature in your backyard.
Self Sustaining Homes: Explore the concept, evolution, and future prospects of eco-friendly, independent living & how to build your own!
Permaculture food forests are autopilot gardens that need little human intervention except in the beginning. Here's how to build one.
Making connections and working with, rather than against nature, is one of the guiding principles of permaculture design. Learn to grow, sustainably.
We visited Earthship MIMA, the only Earthship in Japan, in Mima, Tokushima Prefecture, and learned its sustainable housing secrets!
Permaculture gardening isn't only for big pieces of property, it can also be implemented in suburban backyards! These six easy backyard permaculture projects for beginners will get you on your way to a mini permaculture paradise!
A food forest is all about borrowing the best elements of a forest to create a self-sustaining, healthy food garden to feed you for years to come.
Beautiful sustainable home located on an island with rooms to rent. This post comes from an ad on airbnb for rooms, in what they define as an “Earthship". A sustainable home mostly built from recycled materials, which utilises clean form of energy like the sun and recycles water (which is re-used to water the plants). It makes the most of the heat and the cold stored in the ground, to heat and cool the building during the seasons. The home is located on Prince Edward Island, which is one of Canada's eastern maritime provinces. We assume Island life to be slow, reflective and this home, just adds to the romantic view. That said there are lessons that can be learnt and it's nice to see that slowly city life if catching up to the idea of this kind of clean living, I hope we get there soon... Visit DesignStack's Categories with the following link: Categories Press the Image to Enlarge it. Press the Image to Enlarge it. Press the Image to Enlarge it. Press the Image to Enlarge it. Press the Image to Enlarge it. Press the Image to Enlarge it. Press the Image to Enlarge it. Press the Image to Enlarge it. Press the Image to Enlarge it. Press the Image to Enlarge it. Press the Image to Enlarge it. Press the Image to Enlarge it.
Discover inspiring and creative backyard garden ideas to transform your outdoor space. Explore tips and designs for a vibrant garden oasis. Unlock the beauty of nature in your backyard.
Regenerative gardening makes your outdoor space more eco-friendly, self-reliant, and harmonious. Get started with these practices!
Perennial Garden Design. Our one-click garden design service for quick, cost-effective and smart growing solutions. Here we have a fantastic perennial garden design, aimed at people who want a low maintenance, high fruiting and flowering garden. Based on the average 8 by 20 meter urban garden, this design will survive in most soils (although best for 6-8 ph) and zones USDA 6-9 or UK Hardiness H4-H7. In this design you will receive: • 50 hardy plants with botanical and common names. • A clearly annotated garden design What is permaculture? Permaculture, 'permanent agriculture', is an ecological design system that creates abundant results because of its regenerative practises. Inspired by the principles and methods of natural eco-systems, we create designs that heal the soil, produce high yields of fruit, medicine and other necessary ingredients for a thriving environment for all types of landscapes and scenarios of life. Whats the benefits of using our permaculture garden designs? • Low Maintenance In natures designs, there is a job for everything. The leaves provide the soil with nitrogen, the plants trade nutrients and everything is recycled back into the eco-system in a miraculous closed-loop system with no inputs needed expect for the natural life-cycles and elements. Therefore, when we use natures methods of thriving to create sustainable landscape designs, little maintenance is needed. Ideally, the system will completely maintain itself, however, there will be some maintenance depending on the type of system but compared to traditional gardens where all the plants are only chosen aesthetically and need huge inputs from weekly gardeners to outsourced fertilisers, PERMACULTURE SYSTEMS ARE MUCH LESS WORK. • High yielding in fruits, veg and flowers You can expect higher yielding results because your eco-system is working as a team, co-operating, trading and thriving with one another. This is because the right plants have been chosen for the specific climate, soil and guild (Group of plants). When the intelligence of permaculture is applied to garden design, nature flourishes quickly and abundantly because all the plants are in the right place, contributing their unique benefits to an environment the needs them. • Improves soil health, biodiversity and production You may or may not know that plants have special powers. Some plants fix nitrogen from the air, into the soil, some air-rate the soil so fungi, insects and water can move freely and some dig deep down in the soil, bringing up necessary minerals and nutrients to trade with other plants. Permaculture design emphasises the importance of choosing the right plants for the specific eco-system, asking, what does the soil need? How can we improve biodiversity? What plants/trees are needed to create a thriving, low maintenance eco-system here? When we know our environment, we know the right plants to integrate and when we know that, we can heal the earth. We can create a THRIVING PLANET WITH PERMACULTURE. • Regenerative eco-system design In permaculture you will hear regeneration a lot. This is because our eco-systems are degrading in nutrients, biodiversity, soil fertility and much more... You can probably taste it in your food by now. Chemical fertilzers, traditional farming methods, pollution (I can go on) are just some of the many causes of this. The good news? Permaculture rejuvenates! Reversing the effects of mistreatment to the earth and penetrating it with a healing landscape design that radically improves all aspects of the environment. • Aesthetically Beautiful Landscapes We always ensure our designs are beautiful, but it's not difficult since we are using the same methods and principles as nature. And let's be honest, nature is breathtakingly beautiful. Have you ever experienced a forest? And to think most forests have NO-INPUTS, and if they do its only minimal like paths and outdoor spaces like view points. But the actual forest does not need fertilisers or added organic matter to help it thrive in it's beauty. Unlike the practises of traditional gardening which needs the heavy resources to account for the mis-placement of plants and therefore, the lack of nutrients in the soil.
It’s 2024 and everyone loves the idea of homesteading. And what’s more natural than a beautiful homesteading design that incorporates houseplants that can benefit your home year-round! Houseplants offer much more than aesthetically pleasing greenery. They are essential elements in homesteading designs, providing a host of benefits that enhance your off-grid lifestyle. From improving indoor … Create a Off-Grid Oasis in 2024: Houseplants as Essential Elements in Homesteading Designs Read More »
Discover inspiring and creative backyard garden ideas to transform your outdoor space. Explore tips and designs for a vibrant garden oasis. Unlock the beauty of nature in your backyard.
Learn how to plant a three sisters garden and why this trio of plants work so well together.
Solutions for Sustainable Living
Discover inspiring and creative backyard garden ideas to transform your outdoor space. Explore tips and designs for a vibrant garden oasis. Unlock the beauty of nature in your backyard.
Permaculture food forests are autopilot gardens that need little human intervention except in the beginning. Here's how to build one.
Once you have assembled your Vego organic gardening raised beds, the next task is filling the raised garden beds before planting. One of the most common questions we get from new gardeners is how to fill a new raised bed and still save money. There are many different methods out there that work well! From our experience, the Hugelkultur method is the easiest and most cost-efficient method to use. Summary Hugelkultur is the process of layering organic garden waste inside the raised garden bed, before adding soil to save on costs, in addition to attracting and preserving moisture. Of German origin, hugelkultur translates to “mound or hill culture.” It is especially applicable in areas where soil retention and drainage are poor, which is typical of soils found in urban areas. The materials used include large rotting logs, sticks and other debris that are layered with grass clippings, coffee grounds, compost, and other organic matter. As the material breaks down, it creates a flourishing environment for beneficial fungi and microbes that mimics the natural landscape of a forest. There are many advantages to the Hugelkultur method, including soil quality improvement, minimal maintenance, and water retention. The Hugelkultur Method to Fill Raised Garden Beds To create a bountiful garden bed, organic matter such as rotted hay, plant waste, and compost is added to the soil. Wood debris decomposes slowly, making it a stable source of organic matter. The optimal kind of wood used is one that is starting to rot, which can be obtained from branches cut from a dead tree or logs from an abandoned wood pile. This organic matter will decompose over time, and plant roots will travel deeper into the raised garden bed soil to obtain the nutrition. It will also work as a big sponge, retaining water to maintain an ideal moisture level. In the Hugelkultur method, for filling a raised garden bed, the large pieces are laid at the bottom as they will take the longest time to decompose. In the picture above, the piling logs may take up to 5 years before the base sponge breaks down into rich, wonderful raised garden bed soil. The smaller pieces are placed on top of the larger pieces to fill space, such as branches and sticks, and then grass clippings, leaves and kitchen scraps. Compost and topsoil are on the top two layers for your raised garden bed so you can start planting as the organic matter beneath decomposes. Some Considerations While Filling a Raised Garden Bed Using Hugelkultur Method Pests: Something to be aware of are termites, especially if you live in a wooded area with a high termite distribution, which can be attracted to the large amount of buried wood. However, most termites tend to live in dead trees that are still standing, rather than buried logs found in hugel beds. Garlic can be grown for pest control. Make sure to be vigilant against pests such as slugs, snails, and pill bugs. You can use organic pest control such as beer traps if slugs become a problem. Various Hugelkultur Methods: The classic method requires you to dig a deep trench around 2 meters and fill it with large logs, adding progressively more logs until it becomes mound-shaped. Most gardeners dig a shallower trench that is about 1 meter. Vego raised garden beds provide a convenient alternative that only requires you to fill the container on the ground with the appropriate contents. They provide structural integrity through an enclosed terrain that is easy to manage and will last for many years, making it the perfect framework. That way, you don’t have to spend time digging a trench or placing a fence around it, which can be burdensome and labor intensive. Additionally, it is more aesthetically pleasing than just a mound on the ground, which is unsightly to some. Wood Type: The right type of wood is important to consider. Hardwoods are recommended as they break down more slowly and hold water longer. However, softwoods are also acceptable. The woods that work best include birch, alder, maple, cottonwood, willow and oak. Avoid allelopathic trees like black walnut, red oak, and sycamore, as they contain chemicals that inhibit plant growth, as well as rot resistant trees like black cherry and black locust. Preparation: Be sure to add a fresh layer of compost on top prior to planting. The combined layers of organic material above the wood should be as deep as the wood base. This means a 30" bed can have up to 15" wood in it, while a 15" bed will have 6" wood to allow enough space for the growing medium. Moisture Levels: Maintaining moisture is an important aspect of hugel garden beds, as dryness is a commonly reported issue. Therefore, it is important to shift the soil into crevices to eliminate any dry pockets. One way to accomplish this is to continuously water the bed during construction to make sure there are no gaps. You should also use a good quality organic mix soil, which improves water retention. productarticletag_emailll[email]emailll_productarticletag Hulgelkultur Method Advantages Using the Hugelkultur method for filling raised garden beds has many advantages and has been proven to work. If you are seeking to cut down on costs, or looking for a sustainable gardening technique, then this method is for you. The vertical nature of the mound helps maximize surface area, which is useful in compacted, urban areas. Therefore, it is a method that is suitable for farmers, gardeners, and homeowners. Cost Efficient: Buying bags of soil from a store is quite costly, which can amount to over a hundred dollars for large garden beds. The Hugelkultur method turns garden and kitchen waste into useful material for filling raised garden beds, allowing you to save a substantial amount of money. You can also repurpose fallen tree branches or dead branches cut from trees instead of carting them away or burning them. The organic waste will decompose over the years, enriching the soil and providing steady nutrition for plants to use. Environmentally Friendly: When branches are burned, gasses and nutrients are released into the atmosphere, which contributes to global warming. By retaining them in the ground, they undergo carbon sequestration, a process that reverses CO2 pollution and mitigates climate change. Water Retention: Hugelkultur tends to hold water very well since the garden waste works as a sponge to hold moisture, releasing rainwater into the soil during dry seasons. This allows gardeners to save on water costs by reducing the frequency of watering. In addition, you don’t have to worry about overwatering your plants to the point they become waterlogged, which is detrimental to root growth and can choke out oxygen. Soil Temperature: While compost is decomposed by bacteria, hugel beds are primarily decomposed by fungi. As the organic matters decompose, they will heat up and create a microclimate under the plants, and warm the raised garden bed soil, which can be very helpful in colder climates. Soil Improvement: Hugelkultur also creates a mini biosphere consisting of microorganisms, fungi, and insects, emulating the natural landscape of a forest, with its spongy, nutrient rich soil teeming with microorganisms. Because the soil is naturally aerated, it employs a gardening technique known as no-till gardening. Plants grown in this manner are more resilient to disease, pests, and environmental stressors. They are also more flavorful due to the abundant nutrients. Minimal Maintenance: Although the initial setup takes some effort and preparation, there is not a lot of maintenance involved in these garden beds once they have been constructed. You only need to minimally maintain the garden bed by occasionally adding a couple inches of compost and fertilizers to the top to replenish it. They also require minimal weeding compared to conventional beds. Below is diagram for Hugelkultur in our Extra Tall 32" Raised Garden beds. You can use the same concept to fill your 17" tall garden beds or any other beds. You can build the garden in a sunny or shady location. Hugel beds are very versatile and can support many types of plants, including vegetables, herbs, and fruits. Make sure to match the plant to the appropriate growing conditions. Vegetables grow best when exposed to full sun. Greens like lettuce and spinach and root crops like carrots and beets will tolerate partial shade. You should try to plant a wide variety of crops, including both perennial and annual plants, as diversity offers more opportunities to harvest and results in a more plentiful yield. It is important to note that root vegetables such as carrots may have difficulty growing in Hugelkultur beds due to the depth requirement of at least a foot of soil. Tubers like potatoes can also disrupt the structure. For more detailed information, consult plant tags and garden catalogues for the climate requirements of other plants you plan to grow in your Hugelkultur garden. productarticletag_article[academy/difference-between-garden-soil-and-raised-bed-soil,academy/how-much-soil-do-i-need-for-a-raised-garden-bed,articles/how-deep-should-raised-garden-beds-be]article_productarticletag
The design for The Growroom, an urban farm pavilion that looks into how cities can feed themselves through food producing architecture, is now open source and available for anyone to use. SPACE10 envision a future, where we grow our own food much more locally. To spark conversations about how we can bring nature back into our cities, grow our own food and tackle the rapidly increasing demand for significantly more food in the future, we teamed up with architects Sine Lindholm and Mads-Ulrik Husum to create The Growroom. Standing tall as a spherical garden, it empowers people to grow their
Discover inspiring and creative backyard garden ideas to transform your outdoor space. Explore tips and designs for a vibrant garden oasis. Unlock the beauty of nature in your backyard.
Discover inspiring and creative backyard garden ideas to transform your outdoor space. Explore tips and designs for a vibrant garden oasis. Unlock the beauty of nature in your backyard.
It’s 2024 and everyone loves the idea of homesteading. And what’s more natural than a beautiful homesteading design that incorporates houseplants that can benefit your home year-round! Houseplants offer much more than aesthetically pleasing greenery. They are essential elements in homesteading designs, providing a host of benefits that enhance your off-grid lifestyle. From improving indoor … Create a Off-Grid Oasis in 2024: Houseplants as Essential Elements in Homesteading Designs Read More »
