Permaculture diary

Hedge in need of a trim

RHS qualified local gardener available for work around Crofton Park,

Honor Oak Park and surrounds.

Please  click here to visit  my updated site

 

Trimmed to look natural

Please call Ruth Robinson on 07766 596600 or email:

ethicalgardener@gmail.com

 

Reasonable charges – £20 to £25 er hour.

Concessionary rates available too.  Please ring to discuss.

 

What is Ethical Gardening?

Well, it is gardening that is gentle,  non-polluting and benefits you as well as the environment as a whole.

Slug pellets

I don’t use them.  The poison enters into our food chain and harms wildlife, not to mention your pets!  I try and find other ways to defend plants against slugs, such as: slug resistant varieties, slug barriers, sawdust, coffee grinds, grit deterants, planting hardened off seedlings, aromatic flowers and herbs nearby such as sage, sacrificial crops, the list of things to try is quite long…

Pesticides

I won’t use them either.  I prefer natural methods of controlling pests, for example: companion planting, removal of undesirable pests and locating somewhere less harmful, encouraging beneficial insects that predate on our ‘pests’ and natural barriers.  Using polyculture (mixed planting) as opposed to our widely used monoculture helps to build robust gardens that owe their strength to diversity.

Herbicides – you can probably guess that I don’t use them either!

Herbicides destroy helpful organisms in the soil and again, get into our food chain.  The effects of herbicides are not always known, as research into this is not publicized as not in the interests of the producer to do so!

Weeds can be very useful.  Comfrey, nettles, dandelion and dock, to name a few, give us minerals that they have extracted deep from the soil. It would be a waste to kill them off or throw them away!  I put them on a compost heap or use them to feed the soil, as a mulch – avoiding spreading the seeds around in the case of dandelions, of course.

Vinegar has been used as a weedkiller though will reduce soil fertility in the short term.

Hand-weeding is a thorough and good way to get acquainted with your garden.  Once it is done, I ensure that bare soil is prevented from resurgence of weeds by sowing green manure or covering with mulch.

For larger areas, a sheet mulch is quick and effective way to start a section of garden from scratch – see The Permaculture Way by Graham Bell, page 151.

Caring for your soil

Without healthy soil, you will find plants struggle to grow or get weakened by drought and disease very easily.  So I focus on improving my clients’ soil and building up as much organic content as I can – using plant waste, compost and other resources that I find that are freely available.  (I aim to harness the natural surpluses in your garden or nearby or from other clients’ gardens).

Economical

It won’t cost you a fortune to have your garden worked and your soil repaired because I’m using surpluses.  I aim to give clients a low-budget garden wherever possible.  This might include food growing – as once you have a healthy vegetable or fruit garden, you will save money, in the long run!

In order for me to fashion a productive garden, it may take a year to 18 months of fortnightly or weekly visits of 2 to 3 hours per week.  This way I can improve the soil, get to know how your garden behaves over the year and also figure how to deal with predators (cats, squirrels, slugs etc).  This also gives me time to work out a suitable design to suggest to you for creating a low-maintenance, sustainable garden.

Community building

If clients have surpluses of produce, I encourage them to share with neighbours, freecycle or swap with other clients.  As part of my service I can organize a suitable outlet for your surpluses, which means it is likely that you will benefit from somebody else’s at a later date!  This puts your garden into a wider context, making it more meaningful than a lawn and some pretty flowers (if that’s what you want of course!)

You can contact other gardeners and growers yourself on :

http://lewishamgardens.webs.com/