The Organic Garden
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Allan Shepherd. The Organic Garden
The Organic Garden. Green gardening for a healthy planet. Allan Shepherd
Table of Contents
Introduction
Ten principles of organic gardening
One: create space
Two: soil is everything
Three: grow a little food
Four: don’t garden alone
Five: grow for ornament
Six: value lies in the land
Seven: plant for biodiversity
Eight: make a social space
Nine: go local
Ten: what we do in our gardens matters
Making ethical decisions
Before you buy…DIY
Buying new products
Understanding ethical symbols
Reading between the symbols
Where to go for independent information and advice
Buying tools – used or new?
When to buy new
Basic garden tool kit
Chapter one My space: planning your garden
Take a gap year
Plant editing
Pulling shapes: landscaping and other materials
Soft landscaping vs. hard landscaping
Fencing, hedges and walls
Fencing options
Hedges
Ethical choice: natural finishes
Making a wall
Seating areas and paths
Other garden essentials
The Bench
Ethical choice: turf benches
Making furniture with green wood
Ethical choice: living willow
Buying garden furniture
What is the FSC?
The rainforest in our gardens
Shed’s dead
Why ‘shed’s dead’?
Ethical choice: materials to avoid
So what’s the alternative? The ecological shed
Shed cred – welcome to the treehouse
Ethical choice: the benefits of green oak
Planting the roof
Ethical choice: straw bales and other natural building materials
Other ecological considerations
Shed’s atomic dustbin
Non-permanent structures
Butts and bins
And .nally…a garden loo
Chapter two Garden micro-climate and soil care
Observing and changing your micro-climate
Sunlight
Temperature
Changing the angle of your soil
Reducing the flow of cold air
Trapping heat
Rainfall
Ethical choice: reusing grey water
Water and soil
The importance of spacing and drainage
Environment Agency advice for coping with floods
Ethical choice: thirsty plants?
The low-water garden
When to water
Wind
Shelter options
The benefits of a hedge
Choosing a hedge
Planning and planting a hedge
Hedge maintenance
Frost
Beware exploding plants
Frost pockets
Understanding your soil
Acid, alkaline or neutral?
Adjusting the soil’s pH
Clay soil
Silty soil
Sandy soil
Chalk soil
Peat soil
Nutrient deficiencies
How to spot nutrient deficiencies
Poor soils
Enriching your soil
Composting
‘Feed-and-forget’ composting
Collecting cardboard
What sort of compost bin?
Hot composting
Composting meat
Dealing with woody waste
Composting leaves
Composting tips
What to compost
What not to compost
Compost critters
Meet the worms
Tunnels of love
Food for the worms
Keeping worms in a wormery
Caring for your worms
Making your own wormery
Increasing fertility using plants
Comfrey: the compost plant
How to grow comfrey
Making comfrey liquid feed
Other liquid feeds
Green manures
Nitrogen fixers
Planting, growing and harvesting green manures
Soil care: a conclusion
Chapter three Choosing and growing your plant stock
A healthy plant is a happy plant
Essential plant questions: what is meant by a short-day plant or a long-day plant?
Essential plant questions: which plants are harmful?
Match your plant stock to your garden conditions
Plants for poor soil
Plants for clay soil
Plants for silty soil
Plants for sandy soil
Chalk-loving plants
Acid-loving plants for peat
Planting ideas for drought tolerance
Essential plant questions: will my plant survive frost?
Plants that will cope with occasional flooding
Planting ideas for ponds
Floating plants include
Shallow water plants include
Certain imported pond plants are damaging to wildlife
Plants that do the job
Easy annuals to get you started
Evening- and night-scented plants
Evening- and night-scented climbing plants
Flowers that open in the evening or night
Essential plant questions: is my plant sun loving or shade tolerant?
Plants with early season flowers
Flowers for hoverflies and other beneficial insects
Flowers for adult butterflies: common annuals and biennials
Plants with late season flowers
Flowers for adult butterflies: perennials
Plants with mid-season flowers
Shrubs with flowers attractive to insects
Lawn flowers for bees
Wildflowers
Flowers for bumble bees
Flowers for honey bees
Trees and shrubs for bees
DIY plants: the joy of seeds
Buying or swapping seeds
Seed swaps and the Heritage Seed Library
Growing seeds in pots
Ethical choice: what pot?
Choosing an ethical compost
The problem with peat
Peat on trial
Ethical choice: buying compost
Buying plants
Nursery vs. garden centre
Chapter four Gardening for food
The ornamental kitchen garden
Beautiful is best
Planning your plot
Crop rotation
Creating your own style
Ornamental kitchen garden must grows
The container kitchen garden
Gardening in pots
Container kitchen garden must grows
The edible forest garden
So what actually is a forest garden?
Get the design right first
Edible forest garden must grows
Magic mushrooms (no, not that kind)
Food from rotting wood
The fruit-lover’s garden
How much space?
Fruit planting, pruning and protecting
Fruit-lover’s must grows
The salad-lover’s garden
Year-round salads
Salads in pots and jars
Perennials and edible flowers
Salad-lover’s must grows
The herb-lover’s garden
Herb types
Herb-lover’s must grows
This garden may contain nuts
Nut-lover’s must grows
Chapter five Gardening for wildlife, ornament and fun
A garden for wildlife
Pests, predators and pesticides
Pollinators and composters
Wildlife essentials: the compost heap
Wildlife essentials: make a mess
Nests, shelters and feeders
Wildlife essentials: make a pond
Making a pond
Tales of pond life
Wildlife essentials: plant a tree (or two)
Elder: the perfect garden tree
Collecting tree seeds
Wildlife essentials: plant a variety of flowers
Choosing plants for wildlife
A garden for cutting and decoration
A garden for children and fairies
Child’s play
Kid-friendly organics
A garden for the night
Lighting choices
Moth watching
Flowers for the night
Chapter six Weeds, pests, diseases and disorders
Dealing with weeds
What’s in a weed?
What’s so bad about weeds, then?
But then again weeds do have their redeeming features
Weed types
Weeding
Weeding scenarios
The neglected plot
Rooting around
Ethical choice: disposing of weeds. The top growth
The roots
Getting rid of weeds by mulching
Japanese knotweed: a horror story
The worst weeds
The cleared plot
Ground cover plants: eco-mulch
Off to work we hoe…
Tricky weeding scenarios
Lawns
Paths
Walls
Ponds
Pests, diseases and disorders
Pests
The nation’s most hated pests
The invertebrates
The main predators
Invertebrate pest control
Organic vs. chemical controls
CAT’s Bug-the-Slug campaign
The vertebrates
Rabbits, badgers, deer and sheep
Mice, moles, squirrels, foxes and cats
The birds
Diseases and disorders
Permitted pesticides and fungicides
Chapter seven Gardening beyond the garden
Get organised
Diggers and dreamers: a short history of radical gardening in Britain
Allotments
Community gardens and city farms
Conservation volunteers
Volunteer gardening
Holiday gardening
WWOOFING
Julie meets Little Fuwa and Wara, the most gorgeous apple-dumpling pixie ever
Courses
Enjoy the hard work of fellow gardeners
Chapter eight Climate change and gardening: the elephant in the room
Why climate matters
Why climate changes
Britain’s climate
But why are temperatures going up now?
What does climate change mean for gardeners?
What can we do about it?
How climate change will mark the end of evolution as we know it
Eating and heating
What should I cook on the barbecue?
Ethical choice: the case for charcoal
Doing your bit for climate change beyond the garden
Ethical choice: carbon offsetting
Further reading. Published by Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) Publications. By the author
Other titles
General gardening
Food and flowers
Wildlife
Forest Gardening
Gardening for children and the night
Growing from seed
Soil and composting
Weeds, pests and diseases
Sheds, DIY and woodcraft
Ecology and plant science
Environment
Essential magazines
Directory. Featured organisations
Gardening organisations
Organic organisations
Environmental organisations
Conservation and wildlife organisations
Trees and woodland
Eco-sheds
Children
Accreditation organisations
Climate organisations
Fencing
Seed and plant suppliers
Organic food suppliers
Index
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
Y
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Publisher
Отрывок из книги
Cover Page
Title Page
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You’re going to need to be equipped to start living organically, so I thought it would be helpful to list the thought processes that go through my mind when I’m making an ethical decision. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m a puritan and never buy anything brand new. It’s just that I like to think carefully before I buy anything.
This sounds like a laborious process but actually after a while you can make these decisions quite quickly. It’s just another skill to learn.
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