20 Sustainable Things We Do in the Garden

Being more sustainable in the garden starts with small, thoughtful actions. From choosing eco-friendly products to conserving water and saving seeds, the choices we make in our garden can have big impacts on our garden, our environment, and even our community. In this post, we’re sharing 20 sustainable things you can do in your garden, showing how simple and practical habits can lead to meaningful impacts. 

1. Rent Tools Instead of Buying New

Whether setting up a new space or managing an existing garden, you’ll probably want or need some tools to make your job easier and more efficient. There are an endless amount of tools you might want, but some of these tools will only be needed for very specific situations. How many times have you used a sod remover? Maybe you need it to set up a new garden space, but most likely you would only need to use the tool a few times. Instead of paying for all of these pricey tools that you might only use a few times, consider renting or borrowing them. We have borrowed so many tools from friends and family over the years, like shears, trash bins, tillers, and mowers. We are also lucky to have a local company that rents out tools, especially those that are way more expensive like sod cutters or excavators (stores like Home Depot often have tool rentals as well). Renting and borrowing tools has been a great way to test out different options and take care of one off tasks that we have. Plus, it means we’re consuming less products and can contribute more to our local community. Next time you want a new tool, consider borrowing or renting it first. Or if you really want to have the tool for yourself, look at local yard sales for a second hand option. 

2. Repurpose Items to Use in the Garden

Repurposing is one of the easiest ways to be more sustainable in your garden. Do you have cardboard boxes or old containers that you no longer need? Those can be turned into planting space! There are so many items that can be repurposed for your garden, whether it’s plant containers or using materials for a trellis, garden bed, or greenhouse. Some of our favorite repurposed items include cardboard boxes for weed suppression and garden space, milk jugs for mini greenhouses, and glass wine bottles for watering spikes. 

3. Visit my Local Library for Seed Swaps and Classes

Many libraries offer classes and services outside of the typical book rentals. At our local library, we’ve attended a number of classes, seed swaps, and community events centered around gardening. We’ve received free seeds (including ones we’ve never heard of before), learned about beekeeping, and had opportunities to ask questions to gardening experts. A lot of these classes were crucial for us when we first started gardening. Being able to connect and engage with other local gardeners is a fantastic way to learn about your climate and get tips on ideal growing practices. There are also a number of online and physical resources that we’ve rented to learn more about local plants and mushrooms. Some libraries even offer tool rentals, so it’s worth checking what classes and services are offered near you. 

4. Collect Rain Water with a Repurposed Food Barrel

Watering your garden with rain water is great for your plants and has a number of sustainable benefits. Collecting rain water is a free, natural water source that reduces the strain on municipal water systems and helps conserve groundwater. We purchased old food grade barrels and converted them into a rain water collection system that connects to our home’s gutters. The entire system cost less than $100 and we’re able to water a large part of our garden with rain water throughout the gardening season. There are also ways to connect rain water collection systems to irrigation so your garden will get watered automatically. You can even put a bucket outside whenever it rains to collect a little bit of water. 

5. Use Irrigation to Manage Water Use

Irrigation is the easiest way to manage your water use if you are using tap water. We use drip irrigation, where our tap water runs from a spigot through drip lines. Emitters on the drip lines are placed near the base of our plants and the system automatically waters twice a day. Since we can’t water our entire garden off rain water, irrigation is our best option for managing the amount of water we are using. We are able to turn the system off when it rains so we aren’t wasting anything. Managing our overall water use reduces climate change impacts for our household and our plants thrive with the consistent watering. For our system, we re-use the materials every year, even as our garden space changes. It’s a great option for re-using materials and has saved us a ton of money as well. 

6. Prioritize No Dig Practices for New Garden Space

When setting up new garden space, it might seem like the first step should be digging out the space, but there are a lot of benefits to using no dig practices. For most of our in ground planting garden space, we used lasagna gardening, which means putting a layer of cardboard on the grass, then layering soil and compost. The cardboard will break down over time, while suppressing weeds and killing off any grass that is growing in the area. This keeps all of the beneficial nutrients in your soil and you won’t disturb any of the insects that are in the ground. No dig practices are an essential part of preserving your local environment. 

7. Use Crop Rotation to Replenish Nutrients in Soil

Once our garden spaces are established, we use crop rotation to ensure nutrients are replenished in our soil. This method of gardening means you rotate crops in one garden space from root vegetables, then, legumes, then lettuces and brassicas, then fruits, and back to root vegetables. This method ensures nutrients that one vegetable plant will use up will then be replenished by the next vegetable plant. For example, carrots will use up nitrogen in your soil. If you plant peas after your carrot harvest, the peas will restore nitrogen to the soil. After peas, you can plant broccoli, which will need that nitrogen to grow properly. We use an Excel spreadsheet to track our garden space each year and try to follow the crop rotation schedule as much as possible. By prioritizing our soil health, we can ensure our plants and local ecosystem are properly supported. 

8. Plant a Living Fence

If you’re growing in a small space, you may be looking to add privacy to your garden. Planting a living fence, instead of using manufactured fencing materials, is a great eco-friendly option. We planted evergreens that are native to our area to give us privacy in our yard. Evergreens will give you coverage year round and support your local ecosystem as well. 

9. Use Natural Materials to Suppress Weeds

Every gardener will have a constant battle with managing invasive weeds near your desired plants. A great way to manage invasive plants is by using natural materials to suppress them. This could be cardboard for new garden spaces, wood chips or straw as mulch, or growing melons and squash to act as ground cover. Growing ground cover is one of the most natural ways to keep invasive weeds out of your garden space. There are non-edible options you can use, but we like growing melons and squash to maximize our garden harvests. We find these natural materials work a lot better than spraying the weeds with any chemicals. 

10. Use Corn Stalks as Living Trellis

There are a lot of options you can purchase for vertical gardening, but you likely have things you’re growing that could be used as a trellis. Another way to repurpose plants to help yourself in the garden is using corn stalks as a living trellis. While your corn stalks are growing, you can plant beans or other vining plants next to the corn. It will use the tall, sturdy cornstalk to vine up and you will be able to harvest more food in a smaller space. At the end of the season, you can also dry out corn stalks (or even sunflower stalks) to use as a trellis in next season’s garden. 

11. Plant Native Perennials for Biodiversity

Native plants are an important part of any garden ecosystem. They support the local wildlife and they are often adapted to your soil and climate, so they grow easier in natural conditions. One of the easiest ways to add native perennials is planting wildflower patches. Most local garden stores will sell a mix of native wildflower seeds. We love to use chaos gardening for these patches, where we throw out a bunch of seeds and let everything grow however it wants. These wildflower patches rarely need water, soil amendments, or weeding. You can also plant other native perennials that will regrow easily each year in your garden. We grow echinacea, evergreens, and fruit trees and bushes so we don’t have to manage as many plants, but still get a lot of harvests. The plants adapt to our local environment and rarely need much tending after the first year or two. 

12. Use Trap Crops Instead of Spraying Pesticides

Pesticides are often sprayed on gardens to get rid of unwanted pests, but these sprays can harm your soil and will get rid of all insects, not just the unwanted ones. A great way to reduce your need for pest control is using trap crops. These plants are put close to your garden space and used as a lure for those harmful pests. They will trap the pests and keep them off your desired plants. Some popular trap crops include nasturtium, marigolds, calendula, and sunflowers.  

13. Swap Natural Alternatives for Pesticides

If trap crops and plant maintenance are not working well enough and you need to spray something, try using natural alternatives like neem oil or using plant smells that deter pests. Pesticides are never beneficial to your ecosystem, so using natural alternatives wherever possible will be best for your plants and everything else impacted by the garden. There are several other options for managing pests like picking them off plants individually, using animals, like ducks, to eat pests, or releasing beneficial insects, like ladybugs, to manage pest populations. 

14. Save Seeds So Plants Are More Acclimated to My Environment

Saving seeds from your plants is a great way to save money and to produce stronger, more resilient plants in your garden. When you grow a plant and save the seeds, the plant grown from that seed will already be acclimated to your environment, so it’s more likely to grow well and produce a lot. This means your plants will likely not need as many soil amendments and water, though they still need some of that. Saving your own seeds also allows you to share with friends and family in the local area and to reduce your consumption of seed packets or plastic pots from purchasing seedlings. Most plants are easy to save seeds from, so save a few from your favorite plants each year. 

15. Grow What We Actually Eat to Reduce Food Waste

When planning out your garden, it’s important to grow foods that you actually want to eat or that you’re excited to see grow. For non-edible plants, we try to pick ones that we think will look really awesome throughout the season and give us hope for whatever season is coming next. For edible plants, we prioritize growing foods we know we like to eat already. There is always space to try out new plants, but the worst thing you could do in the garden is grow an abundance of something you don’t like. Consider growing your favorite vegetables or trying out a new vegetable before you grow it. And of course, you can always gift your garden harvest to friends and family if you have too much. 

16. Preserve Garden Harvests to Reduce Household Waste

Eating fruits and vegetables straight from the garden is something we look forward to every year, but we often grow more than we can eat. Preserving our garden harvests is an easy way to extend how long we can enjoy our garden, while reducing our household waste. We try to freeze, dry, or waterbath can as many foods as we can. This includes drying our own herbs, freezing pesto and peppers, and waterbath canning salsa, jam, and pickles. We end up buying less from the grocery store and we are able to re-use our mason jars and reusable bags for freezing each year. There are many plants that have medicinal properties as well, so we can dry them to use in homemade medicines, lotions, and tinctures, further reducing our household consumption of packaged products. 

17. Forage Common Weeds like Violets

Do you know many common yard weeds are considered edible? There are so many free foods that you can forage from your own backyard. Some of our favorites include honey made from dandelion flowers, syrup made from violets, and dip made from onion grass. Whenever you are foraging, make sure you are collecting from areas that are free from pesticides. We also like to leave at least 25% of whatever we are foraging to help the plant re-populate the area and to provide essential food for local wildlife. 

18. Compost Kitchen Scraps

Compost is an essential part of maintaining healthy soil in your garden space. You can purchase compost from your local garden store, but it often comes in plastic packaging. We’ve found a few garden centers that offer bulk pickup of compost, but you want to make sure you’re purchasing compost from a reputable source that heats it to the proper temperature. Otherwise, you may end up with invasive weeds already living in your soil when you add it to the garden. Composting can be as easy as throwing your kitchen scraps in a pile in your backyard and covering them with grass clippings. This will break down your food scraps and you can make your own beneficial soil for your garden. 

19. Use a Drying Rack Instead of Dehydrator to Reduce Electricity Use

One of our favorite things to grow in the garden is herbs. They add so much flavor to our cooking throughout the year and many herbs are perennials, meaning we don’t have to replant them each year. To store your own herbs and spices, you often need to dry out your plant before storing them. You can use a dehydrator to quickly dehydrate herbs or peppers, but a drying rack or just your counter can work just as well. It takes more time, but it saves on electricity use and gives you the same result as a dehydrator. We dry a number of plants in our drying rack, including rosemary, thyme, catnip, cayenne peppers, and seeds we saved from our plants. 

20. Barter with Friends and Neighbors

One of the best parts of owning a garden is being able to share the harvests with friends and family, but have you ever considered bartering with your harvests? On our property, we don’t have the space or time to manage chickens, but we have friends who do have them. We will trade seedlings early in the spring or vegetables later in the season for eggs. You can also barter for help on projects or for items like honey or homemade goods. Bartering is a fantastic way to be more sustainable because you’re able to utilize your community where everyone produces different things based on their space and interests. 

Good Luck in the Garden

Don’t forget that every small action in your garden adds up. Whether repurposing materials, planting natives, or preserving your harvests, we’re not just caring for our plants and ourselves, but contributing to a healthier planet. Sustainability is about consistent and intentional choices. We hope these 20 practices inspire you to take small steps in your own garden.