Compost links

• Free Green Cone & Food Waste Digester Workshops: Leicestershire Waste Partnership are offering residents the chance to find out just how useful food waste digesters are. The free workshops are a great opportunity to see what units are on offer and get advice on which type would suit you best. A local workshop will be held on Sat 25th July at Loughborough Town Hall, from 10:00am - 12noon.
• If you can't make a workshop then read about Food Waste Digesters and take the opportunity to buy a digesters at up to 60% off the RRP.
• Wiggly Wigglers sells plenty of worms. However, the site, set up more than 10 years ago, also has more than 2,000 gardening goodies to help create an environmentally friendly Eden in your backyard.

Grow a garden from matchsticks?

Planning on starting a credit crunch garden but don't know where to start? Maybe you need a matchstick garden... What appears to be a book of matches is actually 10 strips of card, bearing seeds. You just tear off a strip, stick in a plant pot, and watch your greens grow in front of your very eyes. You don't need a big garden, a swanky greenhouse or fancy gardening skills to get started! Available in Mixed Greens and Italian Garden varieties.

Credit crunch tips from Chelsea

The Chelsea Flower Show opens this week and, in light of the recession, it is turning its attention to credit crunch-busting measures for the garden, featuring ideas from growing plants to make perfume to recycling.

Related posts:
- Get your hands dirty!
- How to be a thrifty gardener
- How green is your garden?

Get your hands dirty!

Spring is here and the time is right to start growing your own herb and veg - here are some links on self-sufficiency from the Guardian:

• Get your hands dirty! (spring gardening advice for beginners)
• Jane Perrone's 10 tips for growing your own
• The four veg everyone should grow

How to be a thrifty gardener

The Guardian has published a useful two part series on credit crunch gardening:

• How to be a thrifty gardener
• The propagation game

These are extracts from The Thrifty Gardener: how to create a stylish garden for next to nothing by Alys Fowler. It says "Gardening has never been more fashionable - or more expensive. And yet you don't have to spend a fortune. Nothing could be easier or more satisfying than making your own planters, compost or even weedkiller".

Messy gardens better for wildlife

As well as cleaning my boots, I cut the grass today. We have a patch at the top of the garden that we call the "wildlife garden", which started one week when I couldn't be bothered to get out the extension lead to cut the grass at the very top and which we subsequently decided to let grow. I felt vindicated today as I read a Guardian article, Messy gardens are a bee's best friend, that quotes research proving wild beasts and birds appreciate gardens that have been allowed to go to seed, in a manner of speaking. The article also mention the launch of a Wildlife gardening manifesto last week by Natural England. And the photo? That's one of the appreciative hedgehogs from our messy garden!

How green is your garden?

How green is your garden? asks an article in The Guardian today, in the context of this year's Chelsea Flower Show theme: climate change. The article is interesting as it suggests that many gardeners are still not thinking green, despite the fact that some major gardening retailers are trying to clean up their act in response to consumer pressure.

The RHS website has a very useful section on Conservation and the Environment, with links to factsheets and a wide range of online articles. For Leicestershire residents, low-cost compost bins and advice can be obtained from RecycleNow.