Our environment needs all the help it can get to thrive, and an excellent place to make a big difference is in our own gardens.
Being a sustainable gardener isn’t as difficult as it might seem. Many of the practices, like reusing plastic plant pots and labels are often common sense. Try some or all of these suggestions to transform your gardening.
Peat-free growing
Peat is a fragile resource responsible for capturing massive amounts of carbon – but its use in horticulture means it’s disappearing at an alarming rate. Choosing peat-free compost reduces the demand on the damaging alternative, and gives you just as good a growing-medium.
How do you know you’re buying peat-free compost? It’ll say so on the label. ‘Reduced peat’ can still containt 70% peat or more, so be careful. If the bag doesn’t say ‘peat-free’, it isn’t.
If you’re switching to peat-free compost, you might need to change your watering routine. When used in pots, the top of the pot can be dry, while the compost underneath is still wet enough. Overwatering kills more plants than under-watering. Check the soil by sticking your finger into the compost to the second knuckle – if it’s bone dry all the way down, it needs watering; if not, wait a bit longer before you give it a drink.
Save water
Saving water is a key aspect of being a sustainable gardener. Try these techniques in your garden to save what you can:
- Mulch – this means covering the soil in borders or pots. Mulching can be done with woodchip, gravel, bark, shredded paper, leaf mould, pressed wool or cardboard. It conserves moisture and protects plant roots from getting too hot. It also adds organic matter to the soil or compost as it rots, protects low-lying fruit like strawberries, and helps keep weed seeds from germinating.
- Use a water butt – or leave out a bucket when rain’s forecast. Collecting rainwater is a brilliant way to keep on top of watering the garden or topping up a pond without excessive water use.
- Never use sprinklers – instead, water directly at the base of plants with a watering can.
Be wildlife-friendly
Making your garden a safe space for wildlife to make their own habitats doesn’t only recognise we’re all part of nature, it contributes to biodiversity conservation.
- Create a log pile or bug hotel – or keep a pile of leaves or smaller sticks at the back of a border for small creatures to hide and hibernate in. Grass snakes, toads and frogs love them, and they eat a lot of slugs and other so-called garden pests.
- Avoid pesticides and herbicides – they’re harmful to wildlife and kill a lot of the good stuff too.
- Plant beneficial flowers – some plants encourage beneficial insects like ladybirds, which eat aphids.
- Grow wildlife-friendly perennials and/or shrubs – choose them over bedding plants, which use far more resources and are usually of little value to wildlife
Grow the right plant in the right compost
Get to know the different types of growing medium so you’re using the right thing for the right plants. Using the wrong mix could cost you a lot of money replacing plants in the long run.
Many gardeners have been using their own mixes of soil, leaf mould, grit or garden compost, in different proportions, and people still mix their own growing media, often including bought-in composts.
‘John Innes compost’ refers to a recipe rather than a brand, using a mixture of peat, soil and other materials in set proportions. Most versions still contain peat, so make sure it says ‘peat-free’ on the label. The numbers refer to the plants they’re useful for – John Innes No. 1 for sowing seeds and seedling, No. 2 for growing plants on, and No. 3 for mature plants in containers.
Adopt a no-dig approach
Don’t work the soil more than you need to. When you turn a spadeful or trowel of soil over, you destroy its structure and harm the teeming microorganisms that help get nutrients to plants. You’re also releasing more carbon dioxide into the air. Spread your mulch on top and let the worms do the work for you by pulling it into the soil.