You may be asking yourself the question: "Why do I need an eco-friendly garden?"
By maintaining an eco-friendly garden, you'll be contributing in a very real way to improving the environment and reducing the damage caused by modern living. Simple changes on a small level can result in marked differences to the health of the planet, slowing down 'The Greenhouse Effect' and improving the environment for future generations.
An eco-friendly garden employs a few simple solutions to make a real impact on our individual carbon footprint. Here are 5 relatively simple home solutions you can put in place right now.
1. Create a compost heap
Recycled garden and kitchen waste is the perfect recipe for creating your own compost heap! Simply start a pile in a sunny or semi-shaded area of your garden. Over the course of the year, nature will have created the ingredients for some rich compost ready to use as fertilizer across your garden or allotment. This is a great way to save money and help the environment. Furthermore, it will provide great satisfaction knowing you're taking part in the natural recycling process of your garden!
2. Install solar lighting
It's not as expensive as you think to use solar light to power your garden technology.
Of course the first use for solar power that springs to mind is using it for lighting. As the sun goes down, what could be prettier than looking around the garden and seeing soft lighting across your landscape, provided for free and without damage to the environment? Solar lights are simple and cheap and they have enough power to illuminate trees, plants, rocks or pathways.
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Saturday 28 May 2011
Sunday 22 May 2011
Chelsea Flower Show 2011 preview
With 17 show gardens, the highest number for years, and the warm spring forcing designers to revise their planting plans, competition at next week’s flower show has seldom been more fierce.
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Saturday 21 May 2011
Biodiversity Events in Gwynedd
A wide range of events and opportunities to take part in local biodiversity activities are available in Gwynedd.
From evening talks to guided walks to surveys, not to mention rockpool safaris, sand sculpting competitions, fungi foray and guided bat walks, there’s lots happening in Gwynedd where you can find out more about local biodiversity.
Gardens can really be a haven for wildlife and have the potential to be informal nature reserves literally on your doorstep! Whatever the shape or size of your garden, the planting of nectar rich plants, creation of log piles, and other initiatives can play a significant role in supporting and enhancing local biodiversity.
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From evening talks to guided walks to surveys, not to mention rockpool safaris, sand sculpting competitions, fungi foray and guided bat walks, there’s lots happening in Gwynedd where you can find out more about local biodiversity.
Gardens can really be a haven for wildlife and have the potential to be informal nature reserves literally on your doorstep! Whatever the shape or size of your garden, the planting of nectar rich plants, creation of log piles, and other initiatives can play a significant role in supporting and enhancing local biodiversity.
Read more
Wednesday 18 May 2011
Growing dwarf French beans
Posted in Grow & Eat by Pippa Greenwood.
A few months back I mentioned that I was sowing some dwarf French beans, for an early crop in spring. I adore these juicy, tender beans and would much rather tuck in to a home-grown crop, than imported varieties shipped all the way from Egypt or Kenya.
I sowed the delicious variety ‘Purple Tee-Pee’ 15cm apart in large, 60cm pots, filled with recycled compost from earlier sowings and the dregs of various bags that were lying around. The pot was situated on the path of my greenhouse, and the compost kept moist. Our resident mouse massacred a couple of the seedlings and the aphids inevitably moved in to attack, so I blitzed them with soft soap solution. The plants looked rather miserable for a while, their leaves still curling from the toxin injected by the feeding aphids.
It seemed that my efforts at an early sowing of beans were doomed, but eventually the plants sprang into life. They were admittedly rather lax, after their ‘soft life’ in the greenhouse, but that didn’t adversely affect the quality of the beans. I’m happy to report that we recently enjoyed our first batch, and the flavour was wonderful. We’ll be having more for supper tonight. The yield isn’t huge, but enough for us to enjoy.
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A few months back I mentioned that I was sowing some dwarf French beans, for an early crop in spring. I adore these juicy, tender beans and would much rather tuck in to a home-grown crop, than imported varieties shipped all the way from Egypt or Kenya.
I sowed the delicious variety ‘Purple Tee-Pee’ 15cm apart in large, 60cm pots, filled with recycled compost from earlier sowings and the dregs of various bags that were lying around. The pot was situated on the path of my greenhouse, and the compost kept moist. Our resident mouse massacred a couple of the seedlings and the aphids inevitably moved in to attack, so I blitzed them with soft soap solution. The plants looked rather miserable for a while, their leaves still curling from the toxin injected by the feeding aphids.
It seemed that my efforts at an early sowing of beans were doomed, but eventually the plants sprang into life. They were admittedly rather lax, after their ‘soft life’ in the greenhouse, but that didn’t adversely affect the quality of the beans. I’m happy to report that we recently enjoyed our first batch, and the flavour was wonderful. We’ll be having more for supper tonight. The yield isn’t huge, but enough for us to enjoy.
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Saturday 14 May 2011
Sharp Garden Tools Work Better
One of the important things I learned from my father is to always keep a sharp edge on shovels, hoes, and other garden tools used for cutting. Indeed, working with a dull hoe amounts to pounding weeds rather than slicing through them, and a blunt spade will stop at roots and other obstructions, whereas a sharp one will cut right through them. Every gardener needs to know how to restore sharp edges, a procedure I repeat often during the peak weeding season of late spring.
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Wednesday 11 May 2011
RHS Diary: Top tips for May
May is relentlessly busy in the garden. Be prepared to protect tender plants and vegetables such as courgettes and beans from low night-time temperatures or even late frosts.
Shade your greenhouse by using external roller blinds, or liquid products sprayed or painted on. Plastic mesh and woven or knitted fabrics are also suitable and available off the roll at garden centres.
If daffodil flowering has declined, divide bulbs while you can still see the remains of foliage. Separate out the larger ones for replanting. Pot up smaller ones and place in the cold frame, or plant in a spare patch of ground to develop.
Winter moth damage appears in May with bound and eaten leaves. If you use garden insecticides, go for those that are systemic and longer lasting (Bug Clear or Ultimate Bug Killer), and use them at dusk, when beneficial insects are not around.
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Shade your greenhouse by using external roller blinds, or liquid products sprayed or painted on. Plastic mesh and woven or knitted fabrics are also suitable and available off the roll at garden centres.
If daffodil flowering has declined, divide bulbs while you can still see the remains of foliage. Separate out the larger ones for replanting. Pot up smaller ones and place in the cold frame, or plant in a spare patch of ground to develop.
Winter moth damage appears in May with bound and eaten leaves. If you use garden insecticides, go for those that are systemic and longer lasting (Bug Clear or Ultimate Bug Killer), and use them at dusk, when beneficial insects are not around.
Read More
Tuesday 10 May 2011
How to Grow Potatoes by Kevin Lee Jacobs
Potatoes are generous plants. Give them full sun, loose, fertile soil, and an inch of water per week, and believe me, they will accept almost any planting situation you offer them. You can grow potatoes in a plastic bucket, a plastic trash can, or special “grow bag.” But in my experience, containers like these require constant attention to watering, and yield only tiny harvests. A better plan is to grow your crop in a raised bed.
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Sunday 8 May 2011
Money-saving tips for gardeners
You can create a wonderful garden, whatever your budget. TV presenter Alys Fowler gives her top tips on how to do it.
You don't need a lot of money to be a gardener. The thread running through all good gardens is love. Someone, somewhere, cares about them dearly because the best gardens have hours of effort poured into them. Money can buy you short cuts, expensive garden furniture, fountains or a designer, but not necessarily taste.
Which is a godsend, because, unlike to so many other parts of our society, the garden is a leveller. We can all have a wonderful space on whatever budget we have to hand. Like any other shopping experience, impulse is a sure way to strip your purse bare. Garden centres know this, which is why there are always lovely pots of colour by the entrance, or two sizes of the same plants, so that the smaller one instantly looks inferior. Go knowing what you want, and stick to it – and make sure you actually have space for all those plants.
It's not rocket science: you pay for the grower's time, so the bigger the plant, the more it will cost. Plants in flower are more complicated to transport, so you pay for that, too.
Read more
You don't need a lot of money to be a gardener. The thread running through all good gardens is love. Someone, somewhere, cares about them dearly because the best gardens have hours of effort poured into them. Money can buy you short cuts, expensive garden furniture, fountains or a designer, but not necessarily taste.
Which is a godsend, because, unlike to so many other parts of our society, the garden is a leveller. We can all have a wonderful space on whatever budget we have to hand. Like any other shopping experience, impulse is a sure way to strip your purse bare. Garden centres know this, which is why there are always lovely pots of colour by the entrance, or two sizes of the same plants, so that the smaller one instantly looks inferior. Go knowing what you want, and stick to it – and make sure you actually have space for all those plants.
It's not rocket science: you pay for the grower's time, so the bigger the plant, the more it will cost. Plants in flower are more complicated to transport, so you pay for that, too.
Read more
Sunday 1 May 2011
The May Checklist: Dan Pearson on Gardens
Suddenly the garden is off, with growth in every direction. Plan now for a well-paced run throughout the summer…
Cut paths into long grass to define areas. Don't cut bulbs in grass until six weeks after they have flowered.
SEEDLINGS
Avoid planting out summer bedding and tender vegetables such as tomato and courgette unless you live in the microclimate of a city. The third week of the month is usually frost-free. Be kind to tender plants by placing them in a well-ventilated frame or keeping them sheltered until they acclimatise. Late-spring frosts can catch new growth, so have a roll of fleece ready to protect newly emerging potato tops.
THINNING
Seedlings should be thinned in the vegetable garden. You can eat the thinnings of beetroot, spinach and beet as baby salad. Continue to sow salads, rocket, dill and coriander in rotation to keep a succession of plants coming. Sow short rows every fortnight to three weeks, and use the space between the tripods of beans for fast-growing crops like mustard greens. When the beans are up you will have already used the space once.
SELF-SOWING ANNUALS
It isn't too late to sow calendula, nigella and Fairy Wings poppies to cover any gaps that might have opened up through losses in the winter. Direct-sow over newly turned ground and rake in lightly. Sow more thinly than you might think, and thin seedlings that are on top of each other.
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Cut paths into long grass to define areas. Don't cut bulbs in grass until six weeks after they have flowered.
SEEDLINGS
Avoid planting out summer bedding and tender vegetables such as tomato and courgette unless you live in the microclimate of a city. The third week of the month is usually frost-free. Be kind to tender plants by placing them in a well-ventilated frame or keeping them sheltered until they acclimatise. Late-spring frosts can catch new growth, so have a roll of fleece ready to protect newly emerging potato tops.
THINNING
Seedlings should be thinned in the vegetable garden. You can eat the thinnings of beetroot, spinach and beet as baby salad. Continue to sow salads, rocket, dill and coriander in rotation to keep a succession of plants coming. Sow short rows every fortnight to three weeks, and use the space between the tripods of beans for fast-growing crops like mustard greens. When the beans are up you will have already used the space once.
SELF-SOWING ANNUALS
It isn't too late to sow calendula, nigella and Fairy Wings poppies to cover any gaps that might have opened up through losses in the winter. Direct-sow over newly turned ground and rake in lightly. Sow more thinly than you might think, and thin seedlings that are on top of each other.
Read more
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