Achieving a Sustainable Garden

Timeline - Achieving a Sustainable Garden
Sustainable gardens are a great way to get around the rising cost of food prices whilst also doing your bit to reduce your carbon footprint. The simple explanation of a ‘sustainable’ garden is that you don't use up resources faster than they can be replaced – so it works in harmony with nature. You don’t have to be green-fingered to make effective changes to your garden and you can do it on what ever scale you want to: you could install a simple water butt to catch rainwater or you could transform every inch of your garden into a ‘Kitchen Garden’ or mini-ecosystem.

If you start to enjoy the ‘Good Life’ and decide you want to take it a bit further than just plants and veggies, consider installing solar panels in your garden or build a chicken coop complete with a few pet chickens.

Here are five steps towards achieving a sustainable garden:

Stage One – Composting Bins
Every gardener manages to produce plenty of waste from pruning, lawn mowing and other garden activities. Composting is a great way to reduce the volume of waste – saving landfill space – and recycle essential nutrients back into the soil. Compost holds moisture like a sponge and releases nutrients slowly into the soil creating a better plant root environment.

Choose a composting site carefully and pick a spot that is not highly visible and won’t interfere with garden activities. Structures around the compost heap are not essential but can prove to be a good idea as they will stop the wind and animals carrying the compost across your garden.

To make a compost heap, alternate different types of shredded plant materials in 6- to 8-inch layers. However, be careful when adding fine garden waste such as grass clippings that will mat and prevent water moving through the heap. Add water to the composting every few layers. Livestock manure can also be added for ornamental planting but is not recommended for use on food products as it may contain new strains of E. coli and other bacteria that cause human illness. Plants lose up to 75 per cent of their volume in composting so a lot of materials can be processed effectively and in a very compact space.

Composting can be effective on most garden waste such as leaves, plants and straw, and a limited amount of woody prunings, grass clippings and weeds. If a plant is diseased it is best not to add it to the compost heap. Similarly try and avoid adding plants that have been treated with weed killers. Many people also decompose household waste, including egg shells and vegetables. Sunday roast left-overs however, such as meat or bones, plus whole eggs and dairy products, may cause an unpleasant odour and attract rodents, so this is not recommended.

After about six months the bottom two thirds should be rich compost and ready to use on your flower beds and vegetable plot.

Stage Two – A ‘Kitchen Garden’
Making a partially edible garden will not only create a beautiful place to sit and relax but is also one of the most productive uses of an outdoor space. Growing fruit, salad, vegetables and herbs alongside ornamental plants makes a very attractive and colourful space. Whether you’re an organic fanatic or you’re just worried about the rising cost of everyday foods, many of you are taking to your gardens – as sales of vegetable seeds overtook those of flowers during 2007.

Produce can be grown all year round as long as you do your research on the different seasonal fruits and vegetables. However, spending hours on end digging around in the freezing cold isn't everyone’s idea of fun, so consider investing in a greenhouse. A minimum of 7-8°C is sufficient to grow many plants over winter, which means that you can continue growing your own food without worrying about the threat of ground frost – or catching a cold!

A greenhouse and workshop combined means that you won’t have to use up valuable space in your greenhouse for tools, pots and compost bags – as these can take up a lot of space. One of the most important things to plan for, however, is head space – countless gardeners across the UK bare the scars of deceptively low doorways!

Stage Three – Water Butts and Rain Barrels
If you’re going to house a lot of plants and vegetables in your greenhouse or garden then you’re going to need a good source of water. Hosepipe bans are now common in the UK; however it is also renowned for its temperamental weather conditions as it can be hot for weeks on end and then turn into 24 hours of endless rain – so take advantage. The average house roof in the UK sheds some 45,000 litres of water per year, which means that nearly 25 per cent of the water we currently use could be harvested, free of charge, from our roofs.

Capturing rainwater can be done very simply and cost-effectively. Diverters can be attached to your downpipes to feed the water into a number of water butts or barrels. Check to see if your water company offers a financial discount on water butts as an incentive to make you more economical. You can use either manufactured systems or reclaimed oak barrels, if you want to retain the natural look in your garden.

The only downfall to the use of water butts is that to harvest just five per cent of the runoff of water from your roof you would need an average of 18 barrels!
So what are your other options? Well, if you’re serious about doing your bit for the environment a better, but more expensive, solution is the storage of rainwater in an underground tank.

This enables the rainwater to be pumped directly from the tank and used to flush toilets, feed the washing machine and irrigate the garden. Surprisingly, only five per cent of the water we use needs to be drinking water so it is a very useful – and cost-effective – solution. In the coming years, if water rates continue to rise and the changing climate continues to make rainfall more unreliable, then water harvesting will become more of a necessity and less of a luxury.

Stage Four – Solar Panel Lighting
Solar panels soak up and store sun ready to produce anything between six and twelve hours of light during the night-time. So whether you use them to do a spot of late night pruning in your greenhouse or to light up a patio area, solar panels mean no emissions, no running costs and no expensive installation.

Stage Five – Animals
Keeping chickens has become a popular hobby as the scare stories about battery farmed hens do the rounds. Other than those who choose to keep chickens as pets, most do so for their eggs or meat – if you’re doing it for the latter reason though, it’s probably best if you don’t give them names!

There are three basic types of chicken house – ark, coop or igloo. If you don’t buy a house with a run then consider letting them run free in a sectioned off area of your garden. Sawdust, straw or wood chippings are the three main types of bedding used and all three can be dumped on the compost heap when you clean them out. If you’re planning to make the chicken run yourself from reclaimed materials then you can do it for around £150, bearing in mind that chicken homes should house one bird per square foot.

Growing you own vegetables is in many instances better for you than buying from the supermarket – chances are whatever you would purchase will have travelled twice as far as you have in the last week alone, just to reach the supermarket shelf! There’s always the organic produce option but prices remain unattractive. You don’t need a big garden either to cultivate your own fruit and vegetables or even look after a few chickens. Start off with a simple tomato plant or some runner beans and after the first time you eat your own produce it won’t be long before you start getting green fingers!