Category Archives: garden centres & gardening industry

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

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Peat-Free Compost: A Buyer’s guide

Having tested more peat-free composts than I could shake a beanpole at, in this article, republished courtesy of Kitchen Garden magazine (June 2012), I recommend my top six peat-frees for the 2012 sowing and growing season. You can read the original 3-page … Continue reading

Posted in environment, garden centres & gardening industry, garden compost, garden compost & composting, organic gardening, peat & peat-free compost, published articles | Leave a comment

Time to Turn Off The Tap

With hosepipe bans now in place in many areas, gardeners everywhere need to start tapping into a more joined-up kind of gardening. By John Walker. Published on the Hartley Botanic website, 16th April 2012. Greenhouse gardeners are especially adept at … Continue reading

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Peat-Free Compost: A User’s Guide

In this article, republished courtesy of Kitchen Garden magazine (May 2012), I reflect on lessons learned from my 2011 gardening trial of some good, bad and ugly peat-free composts, and offer advice for anyone setting out on the peatless path. … Continue reading

Posted in environment, garden centres & gardening industry, garden compost, garden compost & composting, organic gardening, peat & peat-free compost, published articles | 1 Comment

The Peat ‘Debate’ Does Us All Harm

The belief that by using peat compost we can benefit nature keeps us disconnected from the natural world. By John Walker. Published in Garden News, 14th June 2011. Of all the harebrained excuses I’ve seen bandied around for the continued … Continue reading

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Always Ask Questions

To turn gardening greener, we all need to start joining up the dots. Let’s make a start by getting dumbfounded manufacturers falling off their seats. By John Walker. Published in Kitchen Garden, December 2010. Although I don’t normally make a … Continue reading

Posted in climate- & earth-friendly gardening, eco gardening, ecological sustainability, environment, garden centres & gardening industry, organic gardening, plastic, published articles, recycling | Leave a comment

Compost Crisis

Climate-friendly peat-free composts aren’t taking their place at the heart of more eco-savvy gardening because we’re not yet paying enough for them. By John Walker. Published in Kitchen Garden, November 2010. When well-known gardening pundits start proclaiming just how ‘awful’ … Continue reading

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Drought of Good Sense

Are gardeners really the ‘victims’ when hosepipe bans are announced – or are we just the unwitting pawns of a gardening industry running dry on ecological consciousness? By John Walker. Published in Kitchen Garden, September 2010. Victimised, threatened and dealt … Continue reading

Posted in climate change & global warming, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, container gardening, ecological sustainability, energy use, environment, food & kitchen gardening, garden centres & gardening industry, garden compost & composting, greenwash, organic gardening, published articles, rainwater harvesting, soil, water & 'water footprints' | Leave a comment

Gardening on the Road

Our growing mania for having ‘one click’ gardens delivered in boxes is adding to the mounting pressures on the increasingly fragile world around us. By John Walker. Published in Kitchen Garden, July 2010. There’s quite a singalong going on outside … Continue reading

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The Peat Delusion

As gardening spin urges us to keep buying peat compost, science is telling us that the safest place for peat is in the ground. By John Walker. Published in Kitchen Garden, June 2010. “If you are concerned about green issues, … Continue reading

Posted in carbon emissions, climate change & global warming, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, environment, ethics, fossil fuels, garden centres & gardening industry, garden compost & composting, greenwash, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, peat & peat-free compost, published articles | Leave a comment