10 Ways to Apply Regenerative Agriculture at Home

It’s no exaggeration to say we owe our lives to farming.

Sometime 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, humans shed their largely nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle and shifted instead to a farming-based existence. The development of agriculture was a historic human turning point, leading to the formation of permanent settlements, the rise of civilizations, and the explosive growth of populations.

For millennia, indigenous farmers around the world relied on agricultural methods based on instinct, cultural beliefs, and knowledge passed down through generations.  Many of the sophisticated ideas we think of as modern – crop rotation, intercropping, agroforestry — are ages old. 

Once the Industrial Revolution came along, though, some of those tried-and-true practices were set out to pasture. In their place came a modern farming system characterized by large-scale, intensive production methods. And while those systems fed billions of people, they took their toll on the land, too.

Today, amid pressing challenges ranging from the chemical depletion of soil nutrients to concerns about climate change, scientists, researchers, and farmers are turning the clock back. They’re embracing a concept called regenerative agriculture, a descendent of the “organic farming” movement of the 1970s . Simply put, regenerative agriculture prioritizes soil health, biodiversity, ecosystem resilience, and long-term sustainability.

If those things appeal to you, the good news is that the fundamentals of regenerative agriculture scale down to home gardens. You don’t have to be plowing the back 40 to participate in this global movement. It’s easy to put the principles of regenerative agriculture to work in your own backyard. 

A Healthier Garden for a Sustainable Planet

To implement regenerative agriculture in your backyard garden, try these practical strategies.:

• Improve soil health by turning kitchen scraps and yard waste into nutrient-rich compost. 
• Consider planting cover crops to protect soil, add organic matter, and prevent erosion.  Cool-season cover crops include winter rye (excellent for erosion control and soil building); oats (fast-growing and easy to incorporate into the soil); and clover (adds nitrogen to the soil); warm-season cover crops include Buckwheat (which suppresses weeds) and legumes (which add vital nitrogen to the soil).
• Avoid or minimize tilling. Tilling disrupts the soil structure, making it more susceptible to erosion and can lead to soil compaction. It also disturbs earthworms and beneficial soil microbes.
• Collect rainwater for irrigation.
• Create swales — shallow depressions — to capture and slow down rainwater runoff.
• Grow compatible plants together to benefit from their interactions, like attracting pollinators or repelling pests. 
• Create habitats for pollinators and pest-eating predators such as ladybugs and lacewings.
• Apply organic mulch to retain soil moisture, suppress weeds, and improve soil structure. Or try sheet mulching, which involves layering cardboard, compost, and mulch. You can even go all-in with lasagna gardening. It’s similar to sheet mulching but with additional layers of organic materials.  
• Give Hügelkultur a go. Hügelkultur (pronounced "hoo-gul-kul-toor") is a European gardening technique where a mounded garden bed is constructed from decaying wood debris and other compostable materials. As the wood decomposes, it releases nutrients into the soil, creating a rich growing medium. The mound acts as a sponge, capturing and holding surface water runoff for plant use. In that sense, it’s like a raised rain garden.
• Rotate your crops. Sure, you might have your heart set on growing enough zucchini each year to feed the neighborhood (if not the entire community) but planting different crops in the same area prevents soil depletion and reduces the likelihood of infestations (and having to use chemical means to kill pests and diseases). In general, you should avoid planting the same crop family in the same spot for at least three years.

Looking Back for New Inspiration

If most of these suggestions sound like common sense or even old news, you’re right: Many of the principles are simply about working with nature rather than against it, just like people did centuries ago. 

Regenerative gardening offers endless opportunities for learning, experimentation, and satisfaction. It can be your introduction to soil biology and plant interactions, give you a chance to stretch your creative problem-solving muscles, and help you produce nutrient-dense food that’s more flavorful than anything you can buy. Most of all, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that your garden is helping to make our planet healthier, one plant at a time.