An Introduction to Gardening for Nature

Transcript of Nature Chain talk with Melanie Everard

Melanie is a Frome based, Kew Gardens trained organic gardener with over 40 years’ experience of making gardens more nature friendly. Here is an extract from her talk via Zoom in April 2021:

‘’I trained in general gardening and worked in all departments but ended up working with native orchids (which I still have a bursary for to this day). I went on to private gardening at a restoration on a private estate. I’ve gardened around this area for many years, having started my business in 2005 and have gardened around Frome, including Freshford, since then.

As I’ve got older I’ve realised that gardening can get easier. Leaving things and not being so tidy is definitely the best way for nature. Nature needs us to be kinder, slower and more gentle and us gardeners have a large part to play in that. We’ve almost been a bully, pushing things into how we want them. We need to be a lot more gentle and take a backwards step. I’m glad to say a lot of the toxic chemicals that were used a lot of the time when I first started have now been banned and the organic way is slowly beginning to come forward.

We need to throw out all the gardening myths from the Victorians. The Victorians have a lot to answer for. They’ve given us a lot of practice we take to be good but is in fact destroying the habitat. Things like digging and weeding incessantly and the tidy idea of the garden, none of which is beneficial to nature. We need to look at our gardens with new eyes, stand back and look at them a different way and garden in a 21st century way. 

That’s why I’m excited by this group. I’ve been talking about organic gardening for years and years and a lot of people thought I was slightly odd but in fact people are beginning to come around now. We do need to encourage wildlife and we can have a beautiful garden and wildlife hand in hand. 

I think that the basis of all gardens is compost. When I start a new garden the very first thing I want to do is build compost bins. The soil is the underpinning of any garden. When you’re gardening (in the old way) it can actually feel like quite a negative thing because you spend so much time taking away, weeding and pruning. Building compost bins is actually a positive step to give back to the garden.  

You can put all soft green waste into your compost. If you’re new to compost making I’d say don’t put ground elder and bindweed in there but once you get used to composting you realise that actually you can put it all in there because you’ve improved the soil to such a degree that these weeds don’t infest, they don’t get a hold on this newly enriched soil. So all your clippings out of the garden can go in and will start this process going. Include grass clippings, although don’t put too much in as it will make a pad but you can use it in between your weeds.

 The real thing with composting is to use cardboard which is an amazing resource and is actually dropping through our doors all the time now with Amazon doing their best to send everything to us. I went to the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) which sadly is not open to the public anymore but is a fabulous place. They were doing a lot of experiments on compost and found that you could add up to 70% of cardboard to compost bins and it would improve it. What you want to put in are things like egg boxes but don’t squash them up as you’re trying to trap air in the depths of the compost because trapping air makes it an aerobic activity. Aerobic composting is a decomposition of organic matter using microorganisms that require oxygen, which sounds like a real mouthful but these microbes that are responsible for composting are naturally occurring and live in the moisture surrounding organic matter. The oxygen allows the composting to happen and if it becomes anaerobic, that’s decay, which is rotting and when it begins to smell absolutely shocking. So add lots of cardboard in there and it will make it sweet. If we were face to face at this point, I’d get a bucket to show you all, you can open a compost bin and see a million worms in front of your eyes, which is quite amazing.

Talking about cardboard a bit more, if you’ve got difficult bits in your garden you can use it as a mulch. You can lay it down and then on top of it you can put anything to hold the compost down. I used it in my allotment which was terrible when I got it and the weeds I dug up I just threw on top and the soil underneath became friable and easy to work after quite a short time. It also reduces water loss which again is another problem where we need to be able to reduce our use of water, especially on the garden. 

If you turn your compost it all will happen a lot quicker. Some places where I work, I do turn the compost and some places I don’t. The speed is about twice as fast if you turn the compost but if you don’t turn it, it is not the end of the world as down the bottom there will be this beautiful friable compost you can use. If it gets very dry you need to water the compost bin, which is something I think a lot of people don’t think about.

Which sort of bins should you use? If you’ve got a large garden then I’d say build wooden bins with 3 bays. If you’ve only got a small garden, as I have, you can use those plastic daleks which you can pick up for almost no money and work really well. There are also hot bins, which I’d encourage anyone to get.  They’re made of a thick polystyrene which get to a hotter temperature and you can put food waste in there including meats and things which you wouldn’t normally put in the compost. 

A compost bin shouldn’t really be at the back of the garden and forgotten about, which is a mistake a lot of people make. You rarely get rats in compost if you’ve got active compost bins and keep things moving around. The minute you put in a compost bin you’ll see a jenny wren hopping along because of all the flies, so straight away you’re improving the diversity of your garden. 

I think the soil has been forgotten about really. It’s a bit like the skin, we don’t think that it’s a major organism and an important one. Think about the soil like you’re skin and you’ll start to give it the respect it deserves and treat it with care. 

If you’re vegetable gardener you can do a no dig method where you literally don’t put your spade in the ground, which is left over from the Victorians who thought you need to double dig your soil. I won’t say never as things like potatoes are hard to plant without digging a hole. Although Charles Dowding, who you may have heard of, doesn’t even dig to plant potatoes. I’ve successfully grown vegetables with the no-dig method for about 10 years and it’s definitely easier and produces results without the hard work of digging.

One thing that can bring nature into the garden, other than improving the soil for good crops so you don’t have to use chemicals, is a pond. Water is one of the largest ways of attracting wildlife to your garden. It’s a very simple way, you can make a pond in a washing up bowl, and if you just leave it, nature will come. I never think that fish are very good in ponds because they tend to eat everything. If you want fish then you should let your pond settle down for quite some time before introducing them but if you can bear to be without them then I think it is much better. Around this area there are a lot of great crested newts so if you leave it, they come quite quickly.

The other thing I am beginning to notice is quite an easy way to add nature to your garden is to stop pruning roses. You put the roses under stress by pruning and they do very well but nothing really lives in there. Whereas if you leave them, birds are feeding their young on insects this time of year and they do quite well. So stop pruning your roses, or at least cut back on how much pruning you do. 

Hedges are probably one of the best resources within a garden and where most wildlife lives. They’re a habitat for birds, insects and invertebrates and if we all put a hedge around our garden it will make an enormous difference. 

You need to think about all the things in your garden, you need to think of them as resources. You need to be able to reuse all these different things and embrace the pests. Instead of trying to eradicate things, embrace them and bear with them. 

Questions

Q. Talking about pests, what would you do about something like a badger?

A. Badgers often come in for the apples, that sweet smell. The only way to stop a badger coming into the garden is to hedge the garden so they can’t get in. We need to stop having such tidy gardens and leave room for them. It’s a give and take with pests.  Some gardens are a magnet for rabbits and I think you need to have bigger weed patches so there is more for them to eat. Often they come after borders full of gorgeous plants whereas if you have larger areas for them to rampage away, you can protect your favourites.

Q. Can you recommend any particular hot composters?

A. Yes, it’s called the Hot Bin and they are rather expensive (about £190). They’re quite tall and made of something like polystyrene. You use woodchips as a medium like you’d use grass clippings in a normal compost bin. You start them by filling a bottle with boiling water (I use a plastic milk bottle), filling with wood chip, vegetables and weeds and more wood chip which acts as an accelerator. When they’re low temperature you can only put vegetables in but once they get to 40 degrees, which they do very quickly, you can put all food waste in. You do need to be slightly dedicated and a bit nerdy about them to have a hot bin. You don’t get worms in there as its too hot for worms and it can come out quite raw or liquid but I just put it on the soil and the air finishes off the process. 

Q. Can you put tea leaves or chicken poo on the compost?

A. Yes you can. The thing is to never put too much of one thing. Like a lasagne, a layer of this and a layer of green and a layer of something else. Tea leaves are quite acidic, so they’re quite good for around the base of camelias which struggle in this area. Coffee grounds are even better. Of course, tea is camelia so that’s quite a nice cycle. Tea bags are not good because they’re often plastic but we are moving away from that now.

Q. Can you put any type of cardboard on the compost?

A. There was a time I’d say no but now most printer inks are made from soya products so I’d say yes, you can put anything on there. Obviously brown carboard looks a bit better for layering, and things like washing boxes take quite a while to go because of the colours. There’s no need to shred the cardboard, because what you’re trying to do is add some air. If it starts to smell rotten you need to mix it up and add a few egg boxes… 

Q. How long do you wait before using your normal compost?

A. Once a bin fills to the top, I’ll finish it with grass clippings and leave it 3 or 4 weeks. If you turn them over about every 2 months, you should have plenty to use.

Q. Would you add worms to a rotating compost bin?

A. No actually, you’ll find the worms find their way to it quite quickly. When you first get your compost bin you might think they’ll never come but the worms soon lay their eggs in every crack and crevice so you’ll soon find you have plenty.

Q. Do you have any favourite plant for wildlife?

A. I’d have to say apple trees. Fruit trees bring a lot to the garden. They’re full of aphids this time of year which blue tits feast away on and feeding their chicks on them. Their blossom is rather gorgeous and then you get the apples later in the year. 

Q. Which plants are best for bird’s nests?

A. Yes, native hedging – you can’t beat it! It doesn’t take long, three years after you plant a hedge and you’ll have birds nesting in there. Bay trees as well because birds love evergreens. I don’t like to say conifers because people think of leylandii but the birds do love them, and holly as well.’’