CARBON GARDENS
Carbon gardens include any plantings that further sequester carbon into the earth. In other words, anything we plant helps to build up humus in the soil and carbon stores. We can all practise or encourage backyard carbon sequestration by becoming carbon gardeners, at home and in the community. The recognition is growing that by planting gardens and food forests, regenerating bush and better managing neglected land we can capture and sink carbon, but also encourage biodiversity.
Though the home garden seems a small patch, soil carbon sequestration is something anyone who has or cares for a patch of green - even a terrace garden - can easily do to help create a greater abundance in any local environment. Consider that in Australia we have millions of hectares of lawns, formal gardens and untended public land and disused land where there is room for a great deal of carbon sequestration.
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In order to achieve deep, stable carbon sequestration, we now know that the creation of humus is vital to foster relationships between actively growing plants, fungi and soil microbes, and all the other critters that build soil. Humus can be built up by the continuous addition of compost, which in turn encourages healthy microbes in the soil.
