BUY MY BOOKS
NEW! THE VEGAN GARDENER: Using Vegan-Organic Techniques for a Planet-Friendly, Wildlife-Abundant, Beautiful and Productive Garden
‘I found this book interesting, enlightening, honest, practical and sensible.’
‘Comprehensive, beautifully illustrated, down-to-earth, useful and inspiring.’
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
- 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
- andy 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
- shae on Check That Your Mousetraps Are ‘Bird-friendly’ This Spring
- Tree Surgeon East Sussex on Surprise Sale of Ryton Organic Gardens: A Revealing Email Sent to Garden Organic Volunteers on 1 February 2018
Archives
Categories
- allotments (34)
- bees & other insects (6)
- blight-resistant 'sárpo' potatoes (5)
- blog (32)
- carbon emissions (43)
- carbon footprint (44)
- climate change & global warming (46)
- climate- & earth-friendly gardening (91)
- container gardening (7)
- earth-friendly books (8)
- easy gardening (3)
- eco gardening (49)
- ecological footprints (18)
- ecological sustainability (43)
- energy use (48)
- environment (96)
- ethics (37)
- food & kitchen gardening (50)
- food miles (23)
- fossil fuels (34)
- freegardening (4)
- garden centres & gardening industry (49)
- garden compost (13)
- garden compost & composting (36)
- gardening footprint (27)
- genetically modified (GM) crops (4)
- glyphosate (8)
- good life (6)
- green gardening (56)
- greenwash (29)
- leaf mould (3)
- mail order (6)
- media (35)
- nature & the natural world (67)
- neonicotinoids or 'neonics' (2)
- no-dig gardening (3)
- open gardens (6)
- organic gardening (102)
- overconsumption (21)
- packaging (10)
- peak oil (5)
- peat & peat-free compost (42)
- permaculture (1)
- pesticides in the garden (26)
- plastic (7)
- politics (14)
- pollution (24)
- published articles (100)
- rainwater harvesting (7)
- recycling (7)
- renewable gardening (35)
- resilience (15)
- retail monoculture (4)
- soil (18)
- transition (7)
- tv gardening & celebrities (23)
- vegan-organic gardening (4)
- water & 'water footprints' (8)
- weedkiller residues (4)
- weeds (10)
- wildlife gardening (3)
- wildlife pond (1)
- woodchips (1)
- © John Walker 2011- 2022
an ethical internet website
Category Archives: greenwash
Surprise Sale of Ryton Organic Gardens: A Revealing Email Sent to Garden Organic Volunteers on 1 February 2018
The organic gardening charity Garden Organic/GO (formerly the Henry Doubleday Research Association/HDRA) recently put the entire Garden Organic site, including its long-established public demonstration gardens, at Ryton-on-Dunsmore in Warwickshire, up for sale. This move has come as a shock to many … Continue reading
Posted in blog, greenwash, media
2 Comments
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
‘Keep quiet and grow on’ simply isn’t tenable any longer. What we do in our gardens does make a difference to the chaos of climate change – for better or for worse. By John Walker. Originally published on the Hartley Botanic website as … Continue reading
Posted in allotments, carbon emissions, climate change & global warming, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, earth-friendly books, energy use, environment, ethics, garden centres & gardening industry, green gardening, greenwash, media, organic gardening, overconsumption, published articles, renewable gardening, tv gardening & celebrities
Tagged allotment, carbon, climate breakdown, climate change, environment, garden, gardening, global warming, horticulture, nature
Leave a comment
Is Gardening Really ‘Green’?
Exploring the reality behind gardening’s widely touted but increasingly unconvincing claim that ‘gardening is green!’ By John Walker. First published in The Garden, magazine of the Royal Horticultural Society, December 2015 Writing about gardening is a solitary game. But using the pen to place gardening … Continue reading
Forget Black Friday – Green is the New Black for Gardeners Who Want to Escape the Hype of Mass Consumerism and Make Every Day in Their Garden a Green, Earth-friendly One
Mortified by the annual spectacle of pushing and shoving that celebrates overconsumption on ‘Black Friday’, I headed home in search of a more sedate and decidedly green gardening Friday… By John Walker. Originally published on the Hartley Botanic website as ‘Green days’, 14th … Continue reading
Sustainable Sowing
Instead of giving any more time to the myths about sowing in peat-free composts, put them to the test. You’ll find they do the job as well as peat – without the ecological price-tag. By John Walker. Published on the Hartley … Continue reading
Posted in carbon emissions, carbon footprint, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, eco gardening, ecological sustainability, environment, ethics, garden centres & gardening industry, garden compost, green gardening, greenwash, media, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, peat & peat-free compost, published articles, renewable gardening
Leave a comment
Snowball Effect
Some of the drivers behind the peat-free roll-out are surprising and not all are admirable – but that doesn’t detract from the benefits to the gardener and the natural world. By John Walker. Published on the Hartley Botanic website, 7th October 2013 There’s a … Continue reading
Posted in allotments, carbon footprint, climate change & global warming, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, eco gardening, environment, ethics, fossil fuels, garden centres & gardening industry, garden compost, green gardening, greenwash, media, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, peat & peat-free compost, published articles, renewable gardening
Leave a comment
Weedkiller’s Winning Ways: My Article on Clopyralid Compost Pollution Bags Garden Media Guild Environmental Award 2012
Last week I was chuffed and humbled to win – for the third time – the British Garden Media Guild’s Environmental Award for my article ‘Gardening’s own goal’, which was published by Hartley Botanic in August 2012. This is a real … Continue reading
Choosing Delusion
We’re told that whether or not to use garden chemicals is a personal choice. That may be so, but it needs to be an informed choice – and we’re not being told the whole story. By John Walker. Published on … Continue reading
Posted in carbon footprint, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, eco gardening, energy use, environment, ethics, garden centres & gardening industry, gardening footprint, green gardening, greenwash, media, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, packaging, pesticides in the garden, politics, pollution, published articles, renewable gardening
2 Comments
Reporting on Garden Weedkiller Pollution is as Damaging as the Pollution Itself
Recent reporting on the threat of pollution by the weedkiller clopyralid leaves gardeners without the full facts about both peat-based and peat-free composts. By John Walker. Published on the Guardian‘s website, 27th September 2012 Twisted, buckled and puckered leaves, bulging … 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
Leave a comment