The world as we know it is changing. There are species, of animals and plants, completely gone and others threaten to follow if we don’t put the environment at the top of our priorities.
In the life of gardeners and farmers, regenerative gardening offers an answer.
Regenerative gardening puts the environment’s needs before your own, ensuring the soil’s and the overall ecosystem’s health.
Of course, the practice is more nuanced than these few words, so allow us to go in-depth!
The Importance of Regenerative Gardening
Regenerative gardening has core values that leave long-lasting benefits. These values include:
1 – Helping Soil Health and Structure
Healthy soil stands as the cornerstone of regenerative gardening. After all, healthy soil is essential for plant growth, water retention, and a thriving ecosystem.
As a result, key practices to this method include composting to enrich the soil with nutrients, minimal tillage to preserve structure, and planting cover crops to prevent erosion and suppress weeds.
As time passes, these practices build a resilient soil ecosystem that supports robust plant growth, enhances biodiversity, and improves the garden’s overall sustainability.
2 – Guaranteeing Biodiversity
Regenerative gardening thrives on biodiversity, which plays a significant part in its success.
When you continually cover your garden’s soil with various plants, you naturally attract different insects and wildlife.
This practice enhances the ecosystem and creates a balanced environment where beneficial organisms flourish.
So, as your garden becomes more diverse, it supports a complex web of life, where each plant and creature supports the health and happiness of the whole.
3 – Saving Water
Regenerative gardening helps us save a lot of water, though indirectly most of the time. How so, you ask?
It’s because one of its main practices includes mulching and composting, for example, where gardeners layer the soil with organic materials like straw and wood.
This mulch helps retain moisture, reduce evaporation significantly, and regulate soil temperature.
Practical Techniques for Regenerative Gardening
To change your garden’s dependence on synthetic fertilizers and human intervention, try the following techniques:
1 – Composting and Using Organic Matter
Recycling, reusing, reprocessing. There are many names for this process but it all comes down to one fact: You’ll reuse old material to create something almost as valuable.
That’s why composting is essential to regenerative gardening.
It mimics nature’s recycling process, creating a nutrient-rich substance that dramatically enhances soil health.
It’s among the many forms of mulch you can use including straw, wood chips, grass clippings, and leaves.
2 – Cover Cropping
One of the most valuable aspects of cover crops is their ability to build soil organic matter.
As cover crops grow and die, they turn to organic matter, feeding soil life with vital nutrients.
Cover crops also play an important role in biodiversity, as they provide habitat and food for beneficial insects, pollinators, and resilient ecosystems.
Also, let’s not forget they protect the soil from strong sun rays, keeping it moist and safe from evaporation.
There are many cover crops to choose from including rye, clovers, and buckwheat.
3 – No-Till Gardening
You can help nurture it by adding organic matter, covering it with crops, and adding mulch when needed.
However, the core principles of regenerative gardening state that you shouldn’t disturb the soil, not even through tilling the garden.
This can sound odd to many as tilling the soil helps mix organic matter and break up the crusted soil, making it easy to plant seeds.
However, no-tillage ensures the soil keeps its natural layers and its delicate ecosystem.
When you avoid tillage, you allow beneficial microorganisms, fungi, and even tiny earthworms to live undisturbed, which in turn helps improve soil health over time.
4 – Natural Pest Management
Most farmers depend on pesticides to remove unwanted pests in their fields.
However, these chemicals often do more harm than good and keep beneficial insects from actually living between your crops.
Of course, this is the complete opposite of a healthy ecosystem. So, what’s the answer to this? Easy! Plant crops that attract pollinators and beneficial insects that target harmful pests.
You can plant marigolds to repel nematodes that can wreak havoc on your tomatoes!
There’s also basil which helps deter mosquitoes, flies, and other pests with its strong aroma. Mint and rosemary can keep away flies and spiders too!
Final Thoughts
Regenerative gardening guarantees all green thumbs out there a win-win situation. It asks you not to disturb the soil through tillage and to use compost to improve it even more.
It also encourages biodiversity by promoting a diverse range of plants that attract beneficial wildlife and insects, creating a balanced and healthy ecosystem.
Through these simple practices, regenerative gardening offers a way for us to work with nature rather than against it, helping restore the environment and strengthen our gardens!
Growing up with a mom who filled her home (inside and out) with all sorts of plants, Lisa got her start in gardening at a young age. Living now on her own with a home and yard full of plants (including an indoor greenhouse), she shares all the gardening tips she’s gained over the years.