10 Tips to Go Green in Your Yard

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Consider these best practices and new products to become eco-savvy in your yard. 1. Know your soil and feed it wisely. Whether your yard is a few acres or a Invisible Structures offers grass and gravel systems that provide walking, driving and parking spaces as well as structured green spaces that allow surface water to drain. (c) Invisible Structures small city lot, it’s wise to understand the makeup of your soil. Start with a basic soil test kit available at many local garden centers or through your county Cooperative Extension office. Follow the individual test instructions. Typically a garden trowel or shovel is all you need to collect soil samples.  The test report will tell you the soil’s pH, which is its alkalinity or acidity; its major nutrients, such as phosphorous (listed as P); potassium (listed as K); and nitrogen (N); and its composition, such as sand, clay or loam. With the test report as a guide, apply only the nutrients needed for what you are growing. Adding unneeded fertilizers wastes money and results in water pollution from runoff. Slow-release or natural organic fertilizers provide nutrients as needed and in small amounts—the ways plants need them. 2. Recycle yard and food wastes to make compost. Decomposing organic matter never looks so good as when it is in your composter. Compost, that dark and crumbly soil amendment, offers special bonuses. It strengthens the soil structure, making it more porous for such beneficial creatures as earthworms and better able to hold water and nutrients. It creates a healthier environment for beneficial fungal and bacterial activity. Even better, you can make compost out of leftovers. With a composter established, add leaves and flowers from your yard along with vegetable trimmings, fruit peels and coffee grounds from your kitchen. Turn the compost pile every few weeks to aerate it and keep it moist in dry weather, and it will be odor-free and ready to enrich your yard. View our video, “How to Make a Compost Heap,” for step-by-step instructions here.   3. Use mulch. Mulch is any material placed around gardens, shrubs and trees to reduce weeds, conserve soil moisture and stabilize soil temperature. And, for the organic types, it can feed the soil as it recycles itself. Mulches ranges from the organic—such as aged wood chips, shredded bark, newspaper, leaves, cardboard and straw—to the inorganic—such as fabric, plastic or gravel. When using mulch, keep it away from plant stems and tree trunks to prevent rot.

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