Help your garden grow

Composting can:

• Save you money by replacing shop-bought compost.
• Help your garden by improving the fertility of your soil.
• Save water by helping the soil hold moisture.
• Benefit the environment by recycling valuable organic resources.

Visit Get Composting to find a variety of reduced home composting equipment.

Visit our How to Compost page for information about how to compost effectively.

Grow your own

Switch from mowing to growing so you need less shopping trips. Think about saving an area of the garden to grow fruit and veg. It can be therapeutic to be in the garden and think of the money and packaging you will save in the long run.

Be creative

Instead of throwing them away, many everyday items can find a new use in the garden.

• All sorts of items make great planters for the garden, so think about this when you are clearing out sinks, furniture and even toilets!
• Dry and reuse crushed eggshells around seedlings to protect them from slugs and snails (these will need replacing after it has rained). Coffee grounds are a good deterrent too.
• Use loo roll tubes, yoghurt pots or old fruit trays as containers for seedlings.
• Use plastic bottles as home-made bird feeders or bird scarers.
• Reuse broken crockery, such as mugs, in the bottom of pots as crocks to help with drainage.
• Source or donate unwanted garden tools through websites such as Freecycle or Freegle.
• If you are cutting back trees and bushes, use the branches as supports for other plants.