Sustainable living became a buzz word when the pandemic started and many of us spent a lot more time in our homes and were needing to find things to do. It’s a great way to save money and if you choose to have a home garden, picking your own fruit, vegetables and herbs is very rewarding.
For some people, when they first start looking into sustainable living it can be a little daunting. It can be difficult to know where to begin and what steps to take when it comes to living more sustainably. Fortunately, there are plenty of simple tips that anyone can follow to start living a sustainable life.
Reducing Consumption
One of the most important things to consider when adopting sustainable habits is reducing your consumption. This means limiting unnecessary purchases and buying fewer items overall.
We can learn how to repair or repurpose old items instead of throwing them away, which will help reduce waste and save money in the long run.
Additionally, we can strive to buy locally produced goods whenever possible as they typically require less transportation and don’t require artificial fertilisers or toxic chemicals during production.
Another step that beginners can take is to learn how to reduce, reuse and recycle. While many of us already recycle there is plenty of room for improvement. Your wallet can even benefit, by taking any soft drink cans and plastic bottles to recycling depots where you can get money back for recycling them.
Household Savings
Within our house we can choose energy-efficient appliances and LED lighting, which can save a lot of energy over time while still being cost-effective in the long run.
Additionally, if you own your own home, you can invest in renewable sources of energy such as solar panels which are great to produce clean energy on a small scale. This will also reduce your utility bills which your wallet will be thankful for.
Home Garden
Growing your own fruit and vegetables isn’t as hard as it sounds and you don’t need a big garden to do this. Just make sure that you don’t go over the top.
When we get a new idea some of us go ALL IN and buy all these different fruit and vegetables thinking that we’ll save ourselves so much money by not having to buy them from the supermarket.
While this will eventually be true, you need to consider the space that you have and what you will actually eat. You need to make sure that you’re going to put the effort in as well.
You need to water the plants on a daily basis, make sure you pull out any weeds while the plants grow and when the fruit does start to grow, make sure you’re taking them off as they ripen otherwise you’ll lose them to the birds or any other insects that might like to enjoy it before you do.
Talking about insects, it’s not uncommon that you may need to deal with them while you’re trying to grow your garden, so you’ll need to be up for buying products to keep on top of them. Make sure you buy good soil and mulch.
Ways To Save In Your Garden
Consider using recycled materials. You don’t have to purchase all new items for your garden if you don’t want to! There are plenty of ways to use recycled materials or items from around the house to create planters, trellises, and other features.
If you have the space available, consider setting up a compost bin to use in your garden. Adding nutrient-rich composted soil can help improve the quality of your soil over time, as well as providing natural fertiliser for your plants.
Gardening is a learning process, particularly when it comes to sustainable living. There’s plenty of research that you’ll be able to get your hands on and you can even join groups and learn from other people who are doing the same thing as you.
By taking these steps, anyone can begin to learn how to live more sustainably. With dedication and perseverance, living sustainably on a small scale can be easier than ever before. Most importantly, have fun!
Hungry for more information?! Here are a couple of previous blog posts that you might fancy:
Vegetable patches & fruit orchards in autumn
Here are some previous projects that you might like to have a look at:
If you need further suggestions, design or plantscaping for both indoors and outdoors, please contact us for an onsite 90 minute consultation.
Refer to our packages for further detail on how we can help you in the consults and subsequently throughout your garden implementation process.
Our passion your garden! xx
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