Kay Mills introduces us to the great advantages of an organic approach to even the humblest back garden.
Organic Gardening for Wildlife |
Kay Mills introduces us to the great advantages of an organic approach to even the humblest back garden. |
| Creating a healthy organic garden by working in harmony with nature, rather than using chemical sprays and fertilisers, can be one of the most satisfying and productive uses of your garden. Far from the stereotype of old tyres, carpets and black plastic, an organic garden can be a beautiful space, brimming with colour and perfume for much of the year. The organic method of gardening uses a huge diversity of plants to limit the amount of damage pests can cause, and to attract beneficial wildlife to the garden, ensuring a sustainable natural balance is achieved. |
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There are many useful books available on all aspects of organic gardening, from companion planting to growing your own food, but whatever the level of time, effort and resources you can put into your garden there are a few basic principles to follow: |
Work with nature, not against it. |
| Make sure the plants you grow are suitable to your soil type and climate of your garden. The use of native plants will also increase the diversity of insects and birds visiting your garden. |
Encourage wildlife into your garden. |
| Garden pests can be a real problem but natural predators can redress the balance. There's nothing like a family of hedgehogs or a pond full of frogs for tackling a slug problem. Not only that, these visitors will add an interesting new dimension to the life of your garden. |
Feed your soil. |
| Maintaining a fertile, well conditioned soil will allow all plants to flourish and encourage the ecosystem beneath the soil. An increase in worm activity will improve drainage and provide extra tasty morsels for a number of garden birds and small mammals. |
Avoid draining the soil of nutrients. |
| If you're growing produce, rotate the crops so the soil isn't starved. If you
increase the diversity of the crops you grow it will attract a greater variety of wildlife
as well as allowing you to experiment with your culinary skills!
Even a modest change in your approach to gardening can have a wonderful effect on wildlife. When you find a patch of nettles in a flower border what do you really see? An annoying weed that needs killing off or, the raw materials for a nitrogen and potassium liquid feed and a wonderful plant for a variety of butterflies? Devoting a small amount of growing space to wildlife can literally bring your garden to life. The odd log pile made up of prunings too big for the compost heap provides a great habitat for many insects, allows fungi to flourish and could encourage hedgehogs and amphibians to hibernate in your garden. Putting in bird and bat boxes and a pond will also encourage welcome visitors to stay. When you're starting out gardening organically a lot of what you do is trial and error, but the main thing is to have a go. If things don't go to plan, or work as well as expected, you can always change them or do it differently next time, that's the beauty of gardening. If things do work well you'll be rewarded with a garden bursting with colour, fragrance and natural sound. You will also be happy in the knowledge that you've worked with, rather than against, your environment. Starting from scratch in developing and constructing a garden means that labour saving techniques and organic methods must dictate the way the garden is designed. The Wybourn Garden uses a raised bed system in the vegetable garden to allow for more economical watering, weeding and feeding. A system of raised beds also reminds you not to walk on the growing area, which can destroy the soil structure. In an organic garden the soil condition is extremely important; healthy soil is more likely to produce healthy plants. Compost and leaf mould bins have been placed around the site, a wildlife pond has been dug to attract welcome predators and the hedge lines and orchard have been planted through a tough water permeable membrane and heavily mulched with wood-chip to reduce the need for weeding and watering. |
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