So, What Does Climate-Friendly Gardening Mean? – Climate-friendly gardening involves using natural gardening practices to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Also, these practices encourage healthier soil by improving the absorption of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas – which also reduces the issues with global warming.

First, let’s understand the problem with greenhouse gases. By the way, the term greenhouse refers to the way heat emitted  from the sun’s ray’s are trapped underneight the gases causing the heat to be bounced back to earth instead of out into the atmosphere. While about 70 percent of greenhouse gases are attributed to fossil fuels, cement production and other processes such as cutting down forest, the rest is caused by human use of land such as farming livestock. This adds enormous amounts of greenhouse gases to those that are constantly naturally occurring in the atmosphere, which leads to increasing the greenhouse effect and global warming. The earth’s direct greenhouse gases are mostly made up of:

• Carbon dioxide (CO2) – 76%
• Methane (CH4) – 16%
• Nitrous oxide (N2O) – 6%
• Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)
• Perfluorocarbons (PFCs)
• Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)
• Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3)

Did you know the the earth has a natural and normal greenhouse effect due to trace amounts of water vapour (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) in the atmosphere and that if it wasn’t for these, Earth’s average temperature would be a chilly -18 °C
Earth’s indirect greenhouse gases are made up of:

• Nitrogen oxides (NOx)
• Carbon monoxide (CO)
• Non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOC)
• Sulphur dioxide (SO2)

Carbon Dioxide – The way gardeners may cause extra carbon dioxide (CO2) to be released into the atmosphere happens due to not considering the habitats they’re destroying or changing, or the unnatural cultivation of the soil using fuel-based fertilizers and chemical pesticides.

Peat moss – Stop using peat moss or any compost that contains peat because it’s damaging to the environment due to carbon dioxide being released from the earth as it is dug up from peat bogs in vast quantities.
Renewable sources – Use renewable sources for building materials, such as bamboo, recycled material such as wood or bricks and second hand items or objects. Try to make the best use solar lighting if you can.

Cover your soil – Don’t leave your soil bare between growing; use ground cover plants that adds the right nutrients to your soil or autumn and winter flowering plants.
Use human power – Avoid gas and electric and instead use gardening tools that are manual or battery powered. Check out our top ten choice of eco-friendly gardening tools…
Use rainwater – Avoid watering your garden with tap water; instead use rainwater catchment through water butts or barrels or even using your children’s old paddling pool water.

This is of more concern to animal farmers than gardeners, but methane production can be greatly eliminated by:

• Keeping soil aerated. Raking and turning over top soil to help with this.
• Keeping compost heaps moist and turned by forking. This also helps to prevent fungi building up, internal temperatures from heating up and keep rats away.
• Getting rid of weeds properly through hand digging or using natural plant competition.

Keeping garden ponds aerobic and flowing through the use of waterfalls. This limits ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, phosphorus and hydrogen sulphide being created by sludge at the bottom of ponds and improves aeration of the water especially if you keep fish in the pond or waterfall. Algae organisms in the water are less likely to bloom that are created by phosphorus especially during the summer months. (remember to have a net over the pond if you have young ones).

By doing the above, you’ll reduce the production of methane within the ecosystem of your garden, keeping it at more natural levels.

Ozone (O3) is a highly reactive gas composed of three oxygen atoms. It is both a natural and a man-made product that occurs in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. (the stratosphere) and lower atmosphere (the troposphere). Depending on where it is in the atmosphere, ozone affects life on Earth in either good or bad ways. Is ozone gas harmful to humans? yes it is, whether in its pure form or mixed with other chemicals, ozone can be harmful to health. When inhaled, ozone can damage the lungs. Relatively low amounts of ozone can cause chest pain, coughing, shortness of breath and, throat irritation.

Ozone also has its benefits because it acts as a shield to protect Earth’s surface from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation. With a weakening of this shield, we would be more susceptible to skin cancer, cataracts and impaired immune systems. So, can I reduce ozone in my garden? You can cut down on your energy use when in the garden. Government and private fossil-burning power plants are a large contributor to ground-level ozone. Reducing the amount of energy (created by power-plants) you’re using will help you do your part and reduce the emissions in the air.

Gardeners may cause too much nitrous oxide to get into the atmosphere from gardening practices such as by using synthetic plant fertilizers and grass enhancers or working in the garden when the soil is wet causing the soil to compact and burning garden waste. You can cut down on this by using natural practices instead, for example by using the right plants such as legumes as cover plants to increase soil nitrogen and so forth.

Use climate-friendly gardening practices such as planting strategically, weeding properly, keeping soil healthy, and moist without fossil fuels and more. When you can do something naturally to control the environment such as planting shade trees or building water features by catching rainwater, or strategic placement of wildlife attracting plants, you’re going to have a healthier garden plus not contribute to greenhouse gases.