To celebrate Earth Day-April 22, 2011, the Gardeners' Sustainable Living Project, is holding it's 2nd annual campaign for gardeners to share how they are actively practicing a greener lifestyle and contributing to protect our environment. If you visit this site and leave a comment indicating what you're doing to be a little "greener" in the garden, you'll be included in a drawing for 21 awesome garden products. If you go a step further and link to a post you've created that demonstrates your sustainable practices, you'll have the chance to win a compost tumbler or rain barrel. I obviously want to be included in that drawing!
What is sustainable gardening? - Organic practices (avoiding pesticides and chemicals), replenishing the soil (composting), water conservation (rain barrels, mulching, xeriscaping, incorporating native plants into the landscape), re-purpose, reuse, recycle...
What's my contribution to sustainability? Chickens and worms...
I have two of the world's greatest organic garbage disposers. My kitchen scraps and garden remains are given to the chickens who eagerly devour my leftovers and deposit a wonderful "fertilizer" in the process. Their waste, along with the coop bedding, is added to the compost bin and later incorporated back into the garden soil. What few table-scraps that they don't prefer (such as coffee grounds, tea-bags, egg shells) are given to my composting worms. These red-wigglers have a huge appetite and can recycle my trash into the richest compost at an incredibly fast speed. Their castings are then worked back into the soil and the cycle continues...
