Creating A Deer-Free, Healthy, Eco-Friendly Garden

Creating A Deer-Free, Healthy, Eco-Friendly Garden

By: Jennifer Homes

Poor soil quality, inadequate water, pests, weeds, deer, and other wildlife are listed among the top 10 problems gardeners face. Now, food is vital for human survival, and with the population estimated to increase by 200,000 people daily, new ways of food production and solutions to the above problems need to be presented. Enter eco-conscious gardening, a technique that helps produce high yields without the use of chemicals that further contribute to global warming. Thankfully, one can start their own eco-friendly garden at home by simply using natural methods of improving soil fertility, controlling pests, and watering. All this, of course, without overlooking the importance of having a garden that is properly safeguarded from deer and other wildlife. If you want to create a deer free eco-friendly garden, deviate a little from the commonly used gardening practices, and try out the following steps.

Warding Off Deer Naturally
Before creating a beautiful eco-friendly garden, you want to make sure you protect it from wildlife. Deer can be very destructive, trampling over new shoots and grazing on the plants in your garden. In the eco-friendly spirit, go for natural solutions. For starters, physical barriers like one of Benner's Garden fencing kits will help. Secondly, consider scarecrows. Although an ancient practice, they are a simple and effective way of keeping wildlife off of your garden. Although Benner's Gardens have a range of repellents, you could make an all natural DIY repellant using eggs, milk, water, detergent or Tabasco sauce. Alternatively, you can spread kitty litter, human hair or dog hair along the edge of your garden. Setting up an affordable motion detector that makes noise when triggered is another sure way of keeping deer off your eco-friendly garden. Once you have secured your garden, you can now get down to the nitty-gritty of eco-friendly gardening.

Prudent Use Of Water
Water is a very important commodity in our lives, without which humanity would cease to exist. It is also vital for the growth of the plants in your garden. Learning eco-friendly and good water use practices is therefore important. The first thing you should do in your eco-garden is install water harvesting tanks. Water collected during the rainy season should be used in irrigating your garden during drier seasons. While watering your plants, try to avoid using sprinklers, since a lot of water goes to waste on bare surfaces. Using a drip line would be more prudent, or a hosepipe. Reusing water is another important aspect. After doing dishes or cleaning the house, use the wastewater if it is not soapy, to water your garden. All these practices are eco-friendly, as they help conserve water reserves by minimizing the use of municipal water.

Making A Compost Pit
Synthetic fertilizers are bad for the ecosystem. Aside from depleting soil quality and leading to eutrophication, they contain ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide, sulfur and nitrogen gases, which lead to global warming. It is therefore advisable to use organic fertilizers instead. One can create their own organic manure by making a compost. A lot of useful waste can be found at home: old newspapers, egg shells, vegetables, leftover food and fruit peels. These wastes can be recycled to provide manure for your garden. Manure boosts soil fertility in an all-natural way, helping you increase the quality and quantity of your produce without damaging the environment.

Leveraging On Symbiotic Relations
To avoid the use of pesticides and herbicides that are not healthy for your garden, apply natural means of fighting pests. Plant flowers like sunflowers on your garden to attract useful bugs such as ladybirds. The ladybirds will in turn help ingest aphids that usually eat garden plants, lowering yields. To deal with other pests such as caterpillars, slugs and snails, one can attract birds. To do so, a garden owner just needs to have bird baths and food strategically located in the garden.
Companion farming is another important aspect. When two different but compatible plants are planted together, they complement each other, ensuring healthy growth. An example is planting chives and tomatoes together. The smell of chives turns away aphids that attack tomatoes.

Planting Native Plants
The main essence of an eco-garden is to enhance savings. This is achievable by planting native plants. Native plants thrive easily with little or no additional care required if grown in specified regions. They require less water, fertilizer and care than non-native species. Attracting good bugs and birds is also an easier task with native plants, since they are common in the locality. Having knowledge on the list of native plants in your area is important for someone who wants to try out eco-gardening.

Having an eco-friendly garden neither requires extra resources nor high expertise. Simply follow the above steps and turn your garden into a deer-free, eco-friendly one. By using all natural solutions, The Nature Conservancy suggests that global warming could be reduced by a significant 21%.