Category Archives: packaging

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

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 | Leave a comment

Forget FITs – Roll Out Some Gardening GITs!

High-tech sunshine harvesting is all very well if you can afford it, but there’s an easier and more earth-friendly way to turn sunlight into energy that’s right outside your back door. By John Walker. Published on the Hartley Botanic website, … Continue reading

Posted in allotments, carbon emissions, carbon footprint, climate change & global warming, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, ecological footprints, energy use, environment, food & kitchen gardening, food miles, fossil fuels, gardening footprint, green gardening, organic gardening, packaging, peak oil, published articles, renewable gardening, resilience, transition | 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

Posted in climate- & earth-friendly gardening, eco gardening, energy use, food & kitchen gardening, garden centres & gardening industry, gardening footprint, mail order, nature & the natural world, overconsumption, packaging, pollution, published articles, tv gardening & celebrities | Leave a comment

Global Greenhouse

A new greenhouse can unleash your plot’s growing potential, but the altered climate it brings has plenty to teach us about caring for a far larger, shared greenhouse. By John Walker. Published in Kitchen Garden, August 2009. It’s just topped … Continue reading

Posted in carbon emissions, carbon footprint, climate change & global warming, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, eco gardening, energy use, food & kitchen gardening, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, packaging, pesticides in the garden, published articles | Leave a comment

Dead Zone

The environmental case for banishing bedding plants from our gardens has never been stronger. It’s high time we ditched these resource-guzzling, horticultural misfits. By John Walker. Published in Organic Garden & Home, December 2008. If you’re a lover of the … Continue reading

Posted in carbon emissions, carbon footprint, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, container gardening, ecological sustainability, energy use, environment, garden centres & gardening industry, greenwash, mail order, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, packaging, published articles, water & 'water footprints' | Leave a comment

Carbon Positive

Calculating the ‘carbon footprint’ of individual products is becoming all the rage. In search of a carbon-neutral garden, what about applying the concept to our plants? By John Walker. Published in Organic Gardening, December 2007. Is your garden costing the … Continue reading

Posted in carbon emissions, carbon footprint, climate change & global warming, energy use, environment, gardening footprint, organic gardening, packaging, published articles | Leave a comment

I Don’t Need a Bag…

Amid a media frenzy over excess packaging, garden centres seem oblivious to putting the stops on plastic – and they’re giving us their own waste to dispose of too. By John Walker. Published in Organic Gardening, July 2007.  It was … Continue reading

Posted in climate change & global warming, energy use, environment, garden centres & gardening industry, nature & the natural world, overconsumption, packaging, plastic, pollution, published articles | Leave a comment

Relative Merits

As organic gardeners, we need to challenge attempts to use the growing criticism of organic farming to tarnish our impeccable credentials.  By John Walker. Published in Organic Gardening, May 2007. Organic gardening has a problem, and it’s called organic farming. … Continue reading

Posted in climate- & earth-friendly gardening, energy use, environment, food & kitchen gardening, food miles, fossil fuels, green gardening, media, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, packaging, pesticides in the garden, plastic, published articles | Leave a comment

Dear President…

In an open letter to the president of the Royal Horticultural Society, I ask if 2007 will be the year that Britain’s leading gardening organisation finally wakes up to the realities of global warming. By John Walker. Published in Organic … 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 compost & composting, gardening footprint, green gardening, greenwash, media, organic gardening, overconsumption, packaging, pollution, published articles | Leave a comment