Have you always dreamed of having a farm and living off the land? If you’re ready to start building, check out our tips on ensuring that your farm is productive and environmentally friendly!
Use plastic lumber materials
Plastic lumber materials offer many advantages to builders today, but one of the prime advantages is that it’s much better for the environment. You may idealize the classic wood farm, but plastic lumber materials for the barn, fences, and outposts are much more sustainable and helpful to the environment.
There are many reasons why plastic lumber is a superior material to wood, but perhaps the best one is that poly lumber is created out of recycled plastics from landfills. Choosing plastic lumber means eliminating waste and better longevity for your farm, as it’s more durable and requires less maintenance than organic wood.
Consider low-pressure irrigation
When considering irrigation systems for your farm and crops, don’t overlook the environmental benefits of a low-pressure system instead of a pivot. A pivot watering system may be convenient, but it uses a lot of energy and pressure and spews water into the air.
A low-pressure, trickle watering system consumes much less energy and is more efficient as it doesn’t lose any water to evaporation. With low-pressure irrigation, you save energy and water, both of which are precious resources.
Support local pollinators
Pollinators like bees and butterflies are essential to our ecosystem and healthy flowers and plants in the area, but their numbers are steadily declining. You and your farm can help by setting up bee-friendly flowing plants and avoiding pesticides harmful to pollinators.
Research the pesticides you use for your crops to ensure you’re not damaging the local pollinators and the local ecosystem.
Pro Tip: Consider building a small bee house on your property, so bees have a safe place to nest, raise their young, and repopulate.
Rotate crops
Any experienced farmer knows the importance of rotating their crops. In fact, doing so is valuable to your farm’s future crop yields and the environment too. Cultivating the same crops over and over can produce disastrous results for your farm and the environment.
The same crop on the same soil year after year can ruin the fertility and richness of the soil and invite swarms of pests to eat away until the land is uninhabitable for crops.
Plant cover crops
Another tip for building an environmentally friendly farm and an effective strategy for crop health is utilizing cover crops between growing seasons. Cover crops aren’t for harvesting; rather, they protect the soil from erosion by holding nutrients and suppressing weeds during the cold season.
Think of them as holdover crops that keep the soil rich and firm until the seasons change. Cover crops mean healthier soil, which is both good for you and the surrounding environment.
