How to tidy your garden and protect the planet

FIGHTING climate change entails protecting our planet by reducing fossil fuel emissions and the resulting damage to biodiversity. How we put the garden to bed just now can even strike a blow. Over the next two weeks, I’ll look at the general tidy-up and how to manage meadow areas in the garden.

Left to its own devices the garden would become a tangly mess and you do need to remove annuals and cut back most spring and early summer perennials, but not all at once. Last autumn I saw an elephant hawkmoth caterpillar lurking in a weedy patch behind a gooseberry bush and was delighted to see the beautiful adult this spring.

Our methods greatly affect the balance between carbon release and carbon storage. Fortunately, burning garden rubbish, thereby emitting carbon into the atmosphere, is generally banned nowadays. And there are much better disposal methods anyway.

Composting green waste is best. Material gradually breaks down and much of the carbon is then incorporated into the soil. It stays there unless the ground is dug over.

Woodier waste rots down much more slowly, possibly taking years, but shredding speeds up the process. The resulting woodchip can either be composted, adding brown material in the compost bin to balance green, sappier stuff. Alternatively, use this woodchip for mulching and, again, the carbon is gradually absorbed by the soil.

As well as helping to store carbon, composting and shredding protect and preserve the garden’s biodiversity. Just as garden hedges help mitigate some of the worst effects of climate change, composting and shredding autumn waste help reduce the terrifying decline in the planet’s biodiversity.

Visit askorganic.co. uk. Follow Dave on Twitter @boddave

Garden rubbish and cuttings should be composted where possible. This incorporates any carbon into the soil