Garden

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Gardens are great. There are lots of them too – about 2,000,000 acres all told in the UK. Some say they are the most important wildlife resource we have, what with the predominance of monoculture in agricultural areas (i.e. only one type of plant growing in large fields). Going green in the garden is therefore an exceedingly good idea, as well as being healthier for us humans.

The shop has all sorts of goodies to help you with your gardening or enhance your enjoyment whilst lounging about outside. The same general rules govern garden stuff as any other: maintain things well, buy less, throw away less, buy sustainably produced wood (try and miss out rainforest products all together), buy second-hand and buy recycled where possible. There is more about garden goods and gadgets later.

There is a new movement called land sharing, which brings together people who have more land than they can use with people who have too little but want to do more gardening. It's a great way of sharing and getting involved with those around you, so if you can't find a local allotment or would like part of your plot cared for by someone else, visit the the Channel 4 Land Share site to get involved.

The best thing to do in the garden is to go organic, or at least as organic as you can manage. It takes a couple of seasons for the garden to get back its natural equilibrium after years of being doused in chemicals, so do not be disheartened if things go a little pear-shaped to start with. With organic gardening you should not have to spray anything at all on the plants: the natural predators should keep the pests in check. That said, you can help tip the balance with simple techniques.

Companion planting is meant to be an effective defence against pests such as white fly, mites, blights and the like (I don’t actually know what any of those are, by the way, so apologies if I get the names of the nasty little plant-biters wrong). I have tried it myself, and although the whole allotment thing was a complete disaster, it was not because the plants got attacked. They were fine and would have remained so if I had remembered the bit about watering them. Anyway, examples of companion plants are: marigolds for root crops and squashes and tomatoes, garlic for roses, basil with tomatoes (excellent idea), onions or coriander with most other vegetables, nasturtiums with fruit trees and cabbages, carrots with leeks, dill all over the place. The three all round good guys are marigolds, nasturtiums and garlic. You can find a full list at Wikipedia.

Physical pest removal is also important; it usually involves pulling things out or squashing things. Manual weeding is good for the soil as well as removing weeds, but putting down ground cover is an alternative. Ground cover also keeps water in the soil in dry spells. Gravel apparently keeps slugs away, as do crushed egg shells (some say they need to be baked first). Honey and beer traps are good for catching slugs, but keep the lip 6 inches off the ground to keep out the good ground beetles. The traps also do for wasps. Another way to deal with slugs is the Dusk Patrol: they are largely nocturnal, so go a slug huntin’ as it gets dark.

Fertilising the soil is very important, especially now you will not be using chemical fertilisers. If you grow peas or beans you should dig the roots back into the soil once cropped, as they contain lots of nitrogen and will fertilise well. Liquid fertiliser can be made by dangling manure, compost or other mulchy type yuk in water and letting all those nutrients flood out; just like brewing a nice cup of tea.

Compost is the other mainstay of organic gardening. Those with big gardens have it easy as they can stick a compost heap out of sight and out of mind. For smaller gardens, the only practical option is a compost bin of some description. Wiggly wigglers have lots of worm composting bins and the worms to put in them, which work very well and can handle everything including cooked food and meat.

For the more wormless styles of compost heaps or bins, it is best to keep cooked food, fish and meat well away. The best things are grass cuttings, general garden clippings and raw veg waste from the kitchen. Woody prunings will give a compost great body, but take ages to mulch down. Egg boxes and animal bedding are cool, but paper and poo are not. One thing to remember about compost bins is that they need to drain – it is the effluent that stinks, so let it soak into the soil where it will act as liquid fertiliser.

Manure is great to mix with compost and can often be had for free if you collect it from stables, farmyards or the like. Fresh stuff may need to be aged a bit before use, as the rule of thumb is the older the better. Potash is also a good soil improving additive and comes from burning wood. Domestic or garden fires can produce this as well, but DO NOT put coal ash on your garden: it is mildly toxic.

Peat takes 1000's of years to accumulate quietly in sheltered bogs that form extremely diverse habitats for all sorts of rare bugs and beasties. Until, that is, they are ripped apart and hauled off to garden centres, leaving behind a desert of mud.

There is absolutely no reason to use peat, so don't. Use the peat substitutes, which are usually made out of green waste (often from gardens in the first place). They are just as good as peat, with several studdies showing that plants grow better in the artificial stuff than real peat.

Grass is often a major part of the garden and can take a lot of water to keep healthy. This can be reduced by promoting deep root growth, which is best done by watering thoroughly but infrequently. The same is true for all small plants and ground cover. Grass is best left reasonably long, around the 2 inch mark, as this reduces stress (to the grass) and evaporation.

Garden tools come in all shapes and sizes, with hand-tools being the eco-heroes as you put in the power. After that, electrical gadgetry is fairly sound, then petrol-driven stuff. The new generation of petrol-powered machinery is a lot less polluting than the older versions, with the super-efficient 4 stroke or 2 stroke engines cutting out most of the emissions and reducing fuel consumption. There are some of these available in the shop.

Water butts are a great idea and cost from only about £10. There are sizes and shapes for almost every garden and the rainwater they collect will be better for your plants than tap water (no treatment chemicals). Remember to raise them up a bit or you may have problems getting a watering can underneath the tap; most spouts will fit into the Hozelock attachments, which means then can directly feed a hose pipe.

Patio heaters are one of the most direct global warmers possible. Do not do it. How about a jumper or coat instead, perhaps?

There are lots of ideas for garden furniture, such as recycled cardboard and plastic items, which are rather fun, but for mainstream stuff follow the normal rules. Remember transport miles and that sustainable rainforest logging is not as sustainable as the loggers would have you believe. Still, it’s better than illegally sourced wood, so always go for products containing wood that is 100% approved by forestry stewardship schemes. The FSC is the best of these, but see the Forests & Woodland section in The Bigger Picture for more details.

What to do

Go organic, use as many hand tools as possible, buy reused or recycled where reasonable, source new wooden products that are FSC or failing that SFI, CSA or PEFC accredited and make things last.

Let the wildlife flourish and enjoy!

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