Gardening with children
It's very rewarding for a gardener to pass on his or her experience, knowledge, skills and love of gardening to the next generation. Even very small children can enjoy having a little patch to tend. Older ones will soon develop their own ideas for what to grow in their piece of garden territory. Here are some ideas for good things to grow with children, and how to plan a safe and child-friendly garden.
Do It Yourself >

Save the peat bogs!
Peat has been used for many years as a soil improver and it is a major ingredient in many commercially produced composts. Peat comes from peat bogs, which have a unique ecosystem and support their own wildlife species. They help to control drought and flooding by stabilising groundwater. Yet, largely because of the ignorance of gardeners everywhere, 94% of UK lowland peat bogs have been damaged or destroyed. We are, quite literally, using them up, with damaging environmental consequences.

You don’t have to use peat in your garden. Making your own compost is easy and free, using only your kitchen fruit and vegetable waste. This is commonsense: save the last peat bogs, cut down on landfill waste, and have a ready source of soil improver for your garden. If you do have to buy compost, choose a peat-free alternative. These are widely available and labelled as such.

Vegetable gardening tips
You don't need a big garden or allotment in order to grow your own food. A greenhouse or cold frame helps, but even that is not essential. Once started, though, you are likely to want to continue growing your own, so that you can experience the delicious freshness of recently-picked produce. Shop-bought food just can't compare. And, what's more, you will know exactly how the food has been grown and what substances it has come into contact with. Here's a gardening forum for the exchange of ideas, plus detailed advice on the specifics of growing all kinds of vegetables.
Vegetable Gardening Club >

Growing vegetables from seed
Go to Vegetable Seeds UK for instructions for growing vegetables from seed, including tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, cabbage, corn, melon, squash and rhubarb.
Seedfest >

Green gardening
Your garden, however small, provides you with a chance to take some control over part of your immediate environment. Here are some ideas for how you can make environmentally friendly choices, so that you protect and enrich your patch of the Earth’s surface.

Organic gardening is now in the mainstream. It means gardening without chemicals, using natural methods of fertilization and pest control. Organic gardening is regarded as healthier in the long term, both for the ecological balance of your garden, and for you. There are many sources of advice on organic gardening, both in book form and on the web.

Make your own compost instead of buying expensive, non-organic fertilizers. Compost improves the structure and drainage of the soil, and recycles nutrients. It’s a great way to use your fruit and vegetable kitchen waste. Many district councils provide information, incentives and help with starting up a compost heap, because it is an excellent means of domestic recycling.

Protect native bird and butterfly species by attracting them into your garden. Buy a bird table and nesting boxes, or introduce plants and shrubs which provide the food garden birds need or which produce nectar for bees and butterflies to feed on. Birds like plants which produce seeds and berries. Butterflies love lavender, buddleia, aubretia and golden rod.

Grow food to eat! Even if your space is very limited, you can get miniature fruit trees and bushes that will fit on a patio or small lawn.

If you don’t need your whole lawn area to consist of short, manicured grass, a patch of meadow or a wildflower lawn can be a lovely alternative. You could integrate patches of wildflower lawn into your standard lawn for added interest. Buy a packet of meadow or wildflower seeds, sow them in patches and then just mow around them. Cut once, in late summer, after the flowers and grasses have seeded.

Conserve water by collecting rainwater in a water butt. This will help your garden through periods of hosepipe ban! And many plants prefer rainwater, anyway.

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