WELCOME TO EARTH-FRIENDLY GARDENER

An online resource for experienced, beginner and non-gardeners everywhere – and for anyone curious to explore and understand how what we do out in our gardens and allotments affects the living world around us.


NEW!

THE VEGAN GARDENER

Using Vegan-Organic Techniques for a Planet-Friendly, Wildlife-Abundant, Beautiful and Productive Garden

“This book is so awesome. I’ve been gardening for years and have tons of books, but this is a firm favourite straight away. Full of information and common sense. Everyone who gardens should have it.”

Amazon.co.uk 5* review, September 2022

Find out more and buy a *signed copy*.


Earth-friendly gardener is cultivated by me, John Walker, a British gardening and environment writer, book author and blogger. You can find out more about me, my gardening philosophy and the gentle ambition for this site on the about page.

Turning a 'hot' garden compost heap built from 'greens' and 'browns' to allow in more air and keep temperatures high.

At the heart of earth-friendly gardener is a growing collection of my published magazine articles, columns and blogposts, covering a diversity of topics: from tackling climate change to exposing gardening industry ‘greenwash’, growing using the best peat-free compost to buying less gardening ‘stuff’. I hope you enjoy reading my work, that it challenges your grey matter and, hopefully, gets you thinking differently about what you’re doing in your own garden or allotment, whatever its size.

To ensure its independence, earth-friendly gardener doesn’t carry any advertising or sponsorship.

There’s information about all of my books, including my latest, The Vegan Gardener: Using Vegan-Organic Techniques for a Planet-friendly, Wildlife-Abundant, Beautiful and Productive Garden; the new edition of Weeds: An Organic, Earth-friendly Guide to Their Identification, Use and Control, and Digging Deep in the Garden my four-book series of thought-provoking, cage-rattling essays.

How to Create an Eco Garden: A Practical Guide to Greener and Sustainable Gardening is published by Lorenz Books and is available from all bookshops and online booksellers.

Bright yellow flower of dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) which is a useful insect attractant in spring.I make my living from writing, so if you’re a magazine or website editor, book publisher, media producer, or an organisation looking for some fresh, thought-cultivating content, and you’re interested in exploring ideas that chime with mine, get in touch via writer for hire.

If you enjoy and value your visits here, a donation helps me to meet the costs of feeding and watering the site and helps fund future, more searching articles (which you’re unlikely to read in mainstream gardening magazines).

Praise for ‘Gardening’s own goal’  

“The judges were looking for a journalist who demonstrated a clear understanding of ecological issues, but who was able to communicate that with a spark. John Walker is an exemplar in both these respects, questioning industry assumptions and marketing, and driving his arguments forward with rigour. The judges felt that gardeners who read the piece would be influenced by John’s voice for months and years to come.”

Judges’ commendation for Gardening’s own goal’, which won the Garden Media Guild Environmental Award 2012. The article warns of the growing threat of environmental, plant-harming pollution in our gardens from the lawn weedkiller clopyralid.