Growing your own fruit and vegetables will
help you save money, get some light exercise and reduce food miles. Food miles are a way of
attempting to measure the environmental impact of food. Many of the foods we
buy at the supermarket such as strawberries, tomatoes and potatoes have been
transported hundreds of miles. Growing your own saves the environmental impact
of transporting and packaging that particular food. It’s also a brilliant way
for children to learn where their food comes from. If you’ve always liked the
idea of growing your own fruit and vegetables, here are a few tips to help you
do it in an eco-friendly way.
1. Try to garden organically.
Avoid using pesticides and slug pellets that kill natural predators like
hedgehogs and can also poison birds. Instead try:
- Organic controls such as beer
traps to control slugs. Simply insert a glass jar or smooth plastic container
in the soil and half fill it with beer. Always keep the rim raised 2-3cm above
ground level to prevent other beneficial creatures such as ground beetles from
toppling in too.
- Putting up an insect house to
encourage natural predators such as ladybirds and lacewings which will help to
control aphids. There are all sorts available to buy but why not consider making
your own.
- Try companion planting to ward
off pests. For example, if you grow leeks and carrots together, the smell of
leeks deters carrot root fly and the smell of carrots also helps deter leek
moth. Click here
for more tips.
2. Avoid artificial fertilisers.
- Make your own organic fertiliser
– nitrogen fixing plants such as comfrey are a brilliant way to enrich your
soil organically. Simply “chop & drop” the leaves onto the surface of the
soil or mix the leaves with water, leave for a few days until the water has
discoloured and there you have it- liquid fertiliser!
- Make your own compost. Or if
you decided to buy it, be sure to purchase a peat-free variety. The extraction
of peat for compost is unsustainable; it contributes to greenhouse gas
emissions and damages rare habitats and archaeology.
3. Reuse, reuse, reuse - Lots of unwanted household items can be reused
in the garden. Here are a few ideas:
- Make weird and wonderful
planters – an old car tyre, a butler’s sink or even old welly boots. Whatever
you choose to use just remember to make holes in the bottom for drainage.
- Rather than buying pots try
using old yoghurt pots to grow plants from seed. Toilet roll tubes can also be
used to grow seedling and they can be planted directly into the ground.
- If birds are becoming a
nuisance, try hanging up old CDs to scare them away.
- Unwanted bamboo canes cut to
size and tied together in a bundle make a perfect nesting site for solitary
bees and other insects. Click here
for more information.
- If
you’re feeling ambitious why not try constructing your own greenhouse out of old
plastic bottles!