Going green in July - some gardening ideas

• Compost or use a worm farm instead of throwing organic waste into the rubbish bins and landfill.
• Offer to rake your neighbours' leaves, and add these to your garden beds or compost - excellent mulch.
• Collect fallen bark and tree fern fronds and use these as mulch to protect moisture in the soil.
• Clean out your gutters and add the soil, leaf and branch litter to the compost pile.
• Create home-made potting and seed raising mixtures by mixing sand and heat-treated garden soil with a little compost and coir.
• Create newspaper, toilet roll, egg carton, or cardboard seedling pots - reduces transplant shock. Cut the bottom of the 'pots' open for root growth.
• Create soil blocks for starting seeds, using a home-made soil blocker.
• Recycle normal containers for growing seedlings.
• Instead of placing thick prunings or logs from cut-down trees out for rubbish collection, use them to edge garden beds, or as a pot stand.
• Use newspaper and unwaxed cardboard as weed matting or under a no-dig garden.
• Sew, tack or tie together small bags out of fabric that lets some light and air through, but not moisture or birds. Perhaps pantyhose? Use these little bags to collect seeds to start next season's veggie garden.
• Reuse broken broom handles (or other cleaning equipment), as garden stakes.
• Look for free garden supplies on freecycle. Many freecycle groups have a 'chat' group that encourages plant or seed swaps.
• Grow comfrey, lucerne or smart clover as a green manure crop, to reduce or eliminate adding fertiliser and large amounts of compost to the soil.
• Use lawn trimmings on the garden, or in the compost, rather than giving them to the local council in a green rubbish collection.
• Collect cuttings from plants around the neighbourhood (best to ask for permission first). Take a lot of cuttings and the strong plants will survive. Perhaps ask schools or libraries for their permission to take cuttings from plants on their grounds - the plants are usually very hardy!
• Set up a produce/plant/seed swap with friends / family. Each gardener has his specialties and weak points - swap the produce/plants/seeds that you are good at growing, for ones that you struggle with.
• If you don't have garden space, offer to maintain a friend's or family member's garden, perhaps swap for tutoring, house cleaning, sewing, cooking, or other services?
• Spend time actively maintaining your garden - free exercise. Rope in exercise buddies for extra help and company in the garden.
• Reclaim your lawn - turn it into a food garden (unless you need it for your family or pets).
• Grow flowering shrubs of various types to encourage small to medium sized birds - they eat garden pests.
• Use left over or flat beer to drown happy snails (in a special snail drowning container with a lid), or sugar water with yeast. This only works for small areas though.
• Make a bug spray using garlic and chilli in water. Add a few drops of pyrethrum oil or soap.
• Preserve surplus produce so it is not wasted - make it your specialty!
  
  • freeze it
  • dry it (in an oven or a dehydrator)
  • cook it! (many cooked dishes freeze well)
  • make home made fruit jams and cordials
  • eat it!
• Buy local ripe produce in bulk (or at reduced prices), and preserve it.
• Buy good quality gardening tools - they may cost more initially, but they (normally) last much longer.

Each month I am posting a 'Going green' tip for a year long electronic swap.