Gardening in a changing climate
Gardens facing the challenge
Garden Organic
Understanding the benefit
In 2007, 116 of Garden Organic’s 30,000 members took part in a research project to estimate their environmental impacts.
‘One of the main aims was to find out if the carbon footprint of growing your own organic food was smaller than that from a shop,’ says Garden Organic research officer Gareth Davies. ‘It looks as if it is, but by a much smaller margin than we expected, because people are buying-in more organic composts and fertilisers than we thought.’
Gareth says the key way to reduce your carbon footprint - whether or not you are ‘organic’ - is to fix more nitrogen on site (such as growing green manures), and then compost it as garden waste.
He also suggests reducing powered tool use. ‘These make a big footprint, so reduce mowing frequency and grow meadows instead. Weedkillers and pesticides are also energy intensive, in manufacture and transport.’