Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Lifestyle
Bianca Nogrady

‘Let things go feral’: how to do carbon-positive gardening in your own back yard

Woman picking up organic tomatoes for local market
The most obvious way for a back yard gardener to get more organic matter and therefore carbon back into the soil is by composting all plant-based organic waste, including leaves. Photograph: DisobeyArt/Alamy

My vegetable garden is a jungle. The grass is waist-high, the weeds have consumed my gardening tools and representatives from all classes of the animal kingdom – possibly also a jabberwocky – are enjoying a comfortable existence in there, eating my salad greens and each other.

Letting things go feral seemed like a good idea. I had recently learned about carbon-positive agriculture, sometimes called carbon farming, and wanted to apply those principles on a smaller suburban scale in my Blue Mountains vegetable and fruit-growing endeavours. The goal: ever more luscious tomatoes, enormous zucchini, sweet raspberries and bushels of tart, juicy apples.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.