Can You Help Keep Earth-friendly Gardener Growing?

IMG_9116_2When I sowed the seeds of earth-friendly gardener three years ago, one of my guiding tenets was that it should never be covered in advertising of any sort. Indeed, as a journalist and writer, my work shouldn’t be influenced, swayed or coloured by advertising, sponsorship or ‘reader offers’ of any kind. This means that, unlike many other websites, it doesn’t earn anything toward its upkeep (or indeed mine). And because I wanted my collection of writing about a more nature- and earth-friendly approach to gardening to be freely available to all – to inform, inspire and occasionally prod your grey matter – there is no charge to read any of the posts (including some award-winning pieces) found here. I would love to keep it that way and I hope you will too. So, I’d like to ask a favour.

IMG_9407_2I’ve been lucky to receive welcome donations from a small number of visitors to the site in the last two years, and every penny has been forked back into making it a better place to visit, and in keeping it’s content free-to-read. There are now 101 posts on the site, covering a variety of gardening subjects, all eyed through a nature-friendly, environmentally-tinted lens. There’s also information about and reviews of my latest book How to Create an Eco Garden: The Practical Guide to Greener, Planet-friendly Gardening, and a section dedicated to busting the myths around using modern peat-free composts. IMG_9671.JPG

So to help keep earth-friendly gardener going and growing, I’m launching a modest crowdfunding appeal to raise £300.00 toward the site’s support and curation for the next two years (that’s just 30 donations of £10.00, or 60 of you earth-aware gardeners chipping in a fiver each … you get the idea). If you feel more (or less) generous, please don’t hold back; any amount raised will be used to keep the site maintained, and its archive expanding. Not least, it will buy me precious time to upload fresh material to the site.

You can make a safe and secure one-off donation via PayPal here (tick PayPal’s ‘make this recurring’ box if you would like to offer ongoing support) or hit the ‘donate’ button on any page. If you have any questions or observations, please either leave a comment below, email john@earthfriendlygardener.net, or tweet me @earthFgardener. My crowdfunder will run until 31st January 2015 (GMT). I’ll let you know how it went, and thank everyone who kindly makes a donation (please tell me if you prefer anonymity).

Thank you very much. Here’s to a beautiful, bountiful and mindful gardening year ahead.

John Walker

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We did it! – Update, 1st February 2015

The official crowd-funding period has now ended. Thanks to donations ranging from £2 to £25, the total amount raised is £233.95, which will help keep the site fed and watered for the next few growing seasons. I’m grateful for all the retweets and mentions elsewhere, and to the following for chipping in financially:

Susannah Batstone, Diane Gilpin, Philippa Green, Heidi Herrmann, John Kingdon, Cherry Lavell, Darren Lerigo, John Maughan, Steve Mercer, Ellis Pritchard, Mark Reed, Hannah Roberts, Meg Roper, Brenda Smith, Debbie Spencer, Brigit Strawbridge, Pauline Subenko, Natasha Sykes, Alison Tindale (and several others).

The generosity I’ve received during the crowd-funding month has been incredibly heartening; it shows there’s strong support for writing covering a much more down-to-earth, greener and thoughtful approach to how (and why) we garden.

Although the official crowd-funding is ended, the donation button will remain on the site for anyone to chip in should they wish.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this a success.

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2 Responses to Can You Help Keep Earth-friendly Gardener Growing?

  1. As both a gardener and a respecter of great writing, I am glad to help. I will spread the word around. Please keep up the site and the good work.

    • John Walker says:

      Chris, thanks for your kind comments. I’ve received just over £100.00 in donations so far (thank you everyone who’s contributed), so that’s hugely encouraging. Thanks for spreading the word.

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