Organic Gardening and the Environment

Everybody's doing something about the environment, but nobody talks about it. Actually, a raised bed garden speaks for itself. We all know our food supply needs help and that pollution is a problem. You can nail two problems with one stone...or timber, or rubber tire...when you build raised garden beds. The environmental advantages of raised bed gardening include:

• Organic gardening compost to help raise healthy plants--sphagnum peat moss, organic manure, mushroom compost, leaves, grass clippings, rotted hay or straw--even leaves!
• Plants that are sustainable in any type of soil, even heavy alkaline
• Organic gardening that respects the seasons--if you've started your planting late, radishes, summer squash, lettuce, mustard greens, yellow wax beans, green beans, cucumbers and broccoli grow and ripen quickly. Roses are resistant to 100-degree summer heat, and raised garden beds make watering easier.
• Design that can use whatever you have on hand as a frame.
• Recycling! You don't have to bulldoze to have raised garden beds--all you might have to do is clear grass and topsoil. Your garden will say more about how you care for the environment than if you rant for an hour on NPR.