Author Archives: John Walker

Make Your Own Easy, Cost-free Biodiversity-Boosting ‘Insect Hotels’ For Your Garden or Allotment and Encourage Wild Solitary Bees and Pest-eating Wasps to Live and Nest There

Posted on May 16, 2017 by John Walker

Media buzz about bee conservation can have a real and positive effect, but virtual wildlife gardening only goes so far. I wanted a more immediate way of boosting wild bee (and wasp) populations on my own, real-life patch, so I … Continue reading →

Posted in allotments, bees & other insects, eco gardening, food & kitchen gardening, green gardening, nature & the natural world, neonicotinoids or 'neonics', pesticides in the garden, published articles, wildlife gardening | Leave a comment

Gardening in England is Set to be Completely Peat-free by 2020 – Where is The Persuasive, Compelling & Inspiring Green-fingered Roadmap That’s Going to Get Us There?

Posted on March 30, 2017 by John Walker

Meeting the UK government target of turning gardening peat-free by 2020 will bring a dark, nature-damaging side of gardening to an end. But it will only be achieved with determined effort – including a campaign to educate all those non-gardening folk buying a ‘bag of dirt’.  … Continue reading →

Posted in climate- & earth-friendly gardening, container gardening, eco gardening, environment, garden centres & gardening industry, garden compost & composting, media, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, peat & peat-free compost, published articles, renewable gardening, tv gardening & celebrities | Leave a comment

Here’s Some Real Gardening News: Peat-free Composts – Fertile Fibre and SylvaGrow – Bag Two Out of Three Which? Gardening Best Buy 2017 Awards for Container Growing

Posted on March 30, 2017 by John Walker

The April 2017 issue of Which? Gardening magazine brings good news for gardeners, and for our natural world: two out of three of its Best Buy awards for container compost have gone to modern and reliable peat-free compost brands (the other went to … Continue reading →

Posted in blog, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, eco gardening, environment, garden compost, garden compost & composting, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, peat & peat-free compost, renewable gardening, vegan-organic gardening | 3 Comments

Falling Assets: How to Turn Your Free and Renewable Autumn Leaves Into Rich, Life-giving Leaf Mould to Improve Soil and to Make Your Own Peat-free Potting Compost

Posted on November 17, 2016 by John Walker

Canny gardeners don’t leave any leaves lying – this beautiful and noisy autumn windfall matures into gardening gold that’s free for the raking, and is infinitely renewable year after year after year… By John Walker. Originally published on the Hartley Botanic website as … Continue reading →

Posted in climate- & earth-friendly gardening, easy gardening, eco gardening, ecological sustainability, freegardening, garden compost, garden compost & composting, leaf mould, organic gardening, peat & peat-free compost, published articles, renewable gardening, soil | Leave a comment

How Free and Plentiful Woodchips can Help Your Organic, Earth-friendly – and Peat-free – Garden Grow

Posted on November 14, 2016 by John Walker

Mounds of woodchips are everywhere nowadays, they’re free for the taking – and they can help you go peat-free. Inspired by a pioneering vegan-organic vegetable grower, I’m now coveting every fresh mound of chips I find. By John Walker. Published in The … Continue reading →

Posted in climate- & earth-friendly gardening, ecological sustainability, environment, freegardening, garden compost, garden compost & composting, green gardening, organic gardening, peat & peat-free compost, published articles, soil, woodchips | 5 Comments

Pre-order Digging Deep in the Garden Books Three and Four, Get Your Name Printed in Them – and Save up to £4

Posted on October 15, 2016 by John Walker

* PRE-ORDERS ARE NOW CLOSED. YOU CAN BUY Book Three HERE AND Book Four HERE  * • Pre-ordered copies of Book Three and Book Four will be posted during early to mid December 2016. I am over the moon to announce that the third and fourth books in my series Digging Deep in the Garden, my … Continue reading →

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My New Organic, Weedkiller-free Gardening Book Helps You Identify 60 Garden Weeds and Shows How Easy, Difficult or Urgent Dealing with Each One Is

Posted on July 29, 2016 by John Walker

  AT A TIME WHEN garden weedkillers such as glyphosate (Roundup) are under increasing scrutiny over their environmental safety (its residues are found regularly in our pee and in our bread), and as we learn that less tended, scruffy and … Continue reading →

Posted in blog, weeds | 2 Comments

Read The Foreword to The New & Updated Edition of My Book Weeds: An Organic, Earth-friendly Guide to Their Identification, Use and Control

Posted on July 20, 2016 by John Walker

WE LIVE IN A MEDIA-DRIVEN AGE in which we’re increasingly led to believe that fast is good, that hectic is to be applauded and that we ‘don’t have time’ for all those small things in life. Our gardening, too, has been … Continue reading →

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WEEDS is Go! New and Updated, my Organic, Earth-friendly Book All About Chemical-free Garden and Allotment Weed Control is Available Now

Posted on July 11, 2016 by John Walker

Weeds: An Organic, Earth-friendly Guide to Their Identification, Use and Control from Earth-friendly Books, is now available in paperback direct from the author. At a time when garden weedkillers such as glyphosate are under increasing scrutiny (its residues are now … Continue reading →

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How Gardeners and a Top Compost-maker are Teaming up to Bring Professional-quality SylvaGrow Peat-free Compost Into More Garden Centres, Plant Nurseries, Shops and Other Horticultural Suppliers

Posted on April 4, 2016 by John Walker

Why didn’t we think of it sooner? The makers of SylvaGrow professional-quality peat-free compost – which has bagged no less than three Which? Gardening Best Buy awards, and carries the endorsement of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) – have just … Continue reading →

Posted in blog, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, ecological sustainability, environment, ethics, garden centres & gardening industry, garden compost, garden compost & composting, media, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, peat & peat-free compost, tv gardening & celebrities | Leave a comment