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Recent Posts
- How to Make Seed-filled Bombs That Bloom Into Flowers for Bees, Insects and Other Wildlife
- It’s Time For Gardeners to Break Their Silence on Climate Breakdown. What we Do in Our Gardens and Allotments Does Affect the World Around us
- Add Water, Add Life: How to Make a Simple DIY Wildlife-attracting Pond in Your Garden, Allotment, Greenhouse or Polytunnel Using Free and Found Materials
- 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
- 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
Recent Comments
- hairtypes????? on How Free and Plentiful Woodchips can Help Your Organic, Earth-friendly – and Peat-free – Garden Grow
- Brian Bennett on Peat-free Compost on Trial: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
- Julieta Soun on Climate Changes Everything
- John Walker on 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
- Cooker on Check That Your Mousetraps Are ‘Bird-friendly’ This Spring
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Author Archives: John Walker
Who Needs Peat?
Peat-free composts can grow plants just as well as peat-based, but with an added feel-good factor. In this 4-page article republished courtesy of Grow It! magazine (September 2012), I give tips and advice gleaned from my 2012 garden trial of … Continue reading
Posted in carbon emissions, climate change & global warming, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, ecological sustainability, environment, ethics, food & kitchen gardening, garden compost & composting, green gardening, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, peat & peat-free compost, published articles
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Find Out About Garden Food Growing With Frodsham Transition Initiative on Saturday 8th September 2012
On Saturday 8th September 2012, I’ll be offering advice and ideas on how to grow more food in your garden as part of Frodsham Transition Initiative’s free ‘drop-in’ event which is being held at Frodsham Community Centre, from 1-5pm. This … Continue reading
Keep Calm and… Put Up a Greenhouse
It’s time to take cover: after another grey, sodden summer, the future for serious garden food growers looks a lot brighter under glass or plastic. By John Walker. Published on the Hartley Botanic website, 26th July 2012 Pale, drawn and … Continue reading
Posted in climate- & earth-friendly gardening, ecological sustainability, energy use, environment, ethics, food & kitchen gardening, food miles, garden compost & composting, organic gardening, peat & peat-free compost, published articles, rainwater harvesting, renewable gardening, vegan-organic gardening
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Friday 3rd August 2012: All Welcome at Sarvari Research Trust Open Day – Breeders of The Blight-Resistant Sárpo Potatoes
This year is proving to be ideal for the spread of ‘late blight’ (Phytophthora infestans) on both potatoes and tomatoes. Come and hear how the Sárvári Research Trust is collaborating with Bangor University and Pro-Veg Seeds Ltd to combat this disease. Morning … Continue reading
It’s Time To Have Your Peat-Free Say On ‘Towards Sustainable Growing Media’
The chair of the government’s Sustainable Growing Media Task Force (SGMTF), Dr Alan Knight, has now published his chair’s report and draft ‘road map’, Towards Sustainable Growing Media. You might well be wondering why we actually need a map, when a … Continue reading
Flogging Faith in Nature
There’s no need to buy solutions to pest problems that nature can solve for us. The only real problem is how to sell this idea. By John Walker. Published on the Hartley Botanic website, 21st June 2012 Minuscule spiders a … Continue reading
Posted in ecological sustainability, energy use, environment, fossil fuels, garden centres & gardening industry, green gardening, media, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, pesticides in the garden, pollution, published articles, renewable gardening, tv gardening & celebrities
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Farewell Peat
We should salute peat’s service to gardening, but we no longer need it to grow a beautiful, productive plot. Let’s bid peat adieu and gets its greener successors under our fingernails. By John Walker. Published in Guardian Weekend, 16th June … Continue reading
Greening Up Your Gardening
Rethinking the way you tend your garden will reap great environmental benefits and help to strengthen your relationship with the natural world. By John Walker. Published in Kew magazine, Summer 2012. When it comes to more eco-friendly living, insulating your … Continue reading
Posted in carbon emissions, carbon footprint, climate change & global warming, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, eco gardening, ecological footprints, ecological sustainability, energy use, environment, food miles, fossil fuels, garden centres & gardening industry, garden compost & composting, green gardening, greenwash, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, overconsumption, peat & peat-free compost, pesticides in the garden, published articles, rainwater harvesting, renewable gardening, soil
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Join me for a live online eco gardening Q&A session on The Guardian’s gardening blog, Thursday 31 May at 1pm
I’ll be live online for an hour or so from 1300 BST/0800 EDT on Thursday 31 May 2012, to try and answer questions, large and small, about any aspect of greener, more ecologically sound and planet-friendly gardening. This is your … Continue reading
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Austerity Gardening
Make do and mend, learn to do without, pull your socks up and get stuck in: it’s time to cultivate some old-fashioned values in the garden. By John Walker. Published on the Hartley Botanic website, 15th May 2012. Have you … Continue reading
Posted in carbon emissions, carbon footprint, climate change & global warming, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, ecological footprints, energy use, environment, food & kitchen gardening, fossil fuels, garden centres & gardening industry, gardening footprint, glyphosate, mail order, media, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, overconsumption, packaging, published articles, renewable gardening, resilience
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