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Garden Shopping with Nature in Mind

The Wildlife Trusts' guide to wildlife gardening is here. It has lots of inspiring and positive actions to show you how to give a home to nature in your garden, and truly 'go wild'. There are projects for both large and small gardens, including instructions on how to ...

• create a wildlife garden from scratch
• build a pond
• make a hedehog hole and and hedgehog home
• create a container garden for wildlife
• build a bird box
• clean bird nestboxes and feeders, including a swift box
• provide water for wildlife
• grow a wild patch, or mini meadow
• make a gravel garden for wildlife
• make a hedge for wildlife
• attract bumble bees to your garden
• attract butterflies to your garden
• make a woodland edge garden for wildlife

Being in the Garden

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Growing Mediums for the Nature Friendly Garden

For many years, peat has been a component of growing mediums. It is great at holding water and is naturally weed-free. However, bogs are natural carbon sinks, and extracting peat releases harmful greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, helping accelerate climate change.

Recently the government announced that the sale of peat compost to gardeners will be banned by 2024 and money will be set aside to restore 35,000 hectares (about 1%) of British peatland.

Most garden centres sell a range of peat free composts now, however, it is worth checking with the shop unless the bag you pick up is specifically labelled as peat-free.

Coir

Available alternatives to peat include coir, composted pine bark, and biochar.

Coir is light, spongy, roughly pH neutral, and hold lots of water. It is made from the husks of coconuts, a byproduct from the industry.

Pine Bark

Other peat-free mixes use composted pine bark in place of peat, which is also a byproduct of forestry and sawmills. It doesn't hold quite as much water, but is good for seed starting, seedlings and bedding plants.

Biochar

Biochar is new in the mix. It is made by gasifying wood to make a product like charcoal. It is very porous, giving beneficial microrganisms a home, and storing water so that there potentially a more even supply of moisture to the plants.

Peat Free Plant Nurseries

Also, see if you can make your purchase from a peat free nursery. They are harder to find, but the number is growing. Remember that unless peat free is specifically stated, you can probably assume they are not peat free - at least until 2024.

Reusable Compost Bags

Some garden centres have started using reusable compost bags. You buy your reusable bag and fill it with scoops of compost, and when used, return and refill your bag.

Make your own growing medium - it starts with compost

Leaf Mould

It might not sound nice, but leaf mould is not mouldy in the way you might think! Making leaf mould is the process where you collect autumn leaves and put them in a pile with plenty of air, and allow them to compost down into soil without adding any other items in with them. This usually takes about 18 months. Leaf mould makes a good, weed free compost.

Kitchen Compost

Why not make your own compost from your kitchen fruit and vegetable waste with added paper and cardboard. You do need to learn a bit about composting to be successful. Home composting and commercial composting when it is carried out in an open system, releases methane.

Hot Composting

If you are good at making compost it will get hot in the middle, which is ideal. The bacteria that do the work of breaking down your scrap and turning them into compost are the most active at temperatures of between 40-60°C, but stop working at 75°C.

There is now a convenient way to do hot composting at home in a small space - even on a patio, using a Hotbin. A Hotbin is an insulated composter with a tight fitting lid which will compost your scraps in 30-90 days. A standard compost heap can take 12-24 months.

The HOTBIN is made from 100% recyclable product, expanded polypropelene (EPP, a kind of plastic) bubbled with air so that 98% of the box is air, and only 2% is actually EPP. We are waiting to hear from Powys County Council whether a Hotbin at the end of its life will be accepted for recycling by Powys County Council.

Mole Hills in your Garden?

Before you rush out and buy a humane mole trap, or ultrasonic repellent, read about why you are most likely to get molehills, at what time of year you are likely to get them, and what to do about them. The headline is that you will get less trouble if you leave them alone, but do go here to find out why, and what to do if this solution is not the one for you.

 

 

Page last modified: 04 Dec 2022, 17:27