Join the battle against plastic in the garden
Our garden centres are awash with plastic products, from large items like wheelbarrows and trugs to the ubiquitous black or terracotta coloured plastic pots. Pots come with plastic labels, compost comes in plastic sacks and some seed packets are coated with a thin layer of plastic.
I’ve just read Fiona Thackeray’s new book Plastic-free Gardening. Thackeray is head of operations at Trellis, the therapeutic gardening charity in Scotland. She writes with insight and passion, borne of years of experience supporting cashstrapped groups making the most of scarce resources. I know it comes as second nature to her to re-use what we have available and avoid introducing more single use plastic into our gardening lives. In the book she begs us to question claims of products labelled as biodegradable, natural or plant-based. It seems that dangers to the environment lie not only in some manufacturing processes but in the products’ afterlife. We should ask what is happening to those plastic pots returned to some big garden centres for recycling. It’s good if they’re going to be re-used by community groups but not good if they are being shipped overseas for incineration.
Thackeray goes far beyond examining current use of plastic in the garden and suggests some easy alternatives to our gardening practices bringing about significant environmental benefits. I commend this immensely readable and thought-provoking book. It’s not only about what we do in the garden. There are chapters about garden furniture, clothing, tools and equipment aimed at helping us make eco-savvy choices. As a finale, she lists some of her plastic-free heroes and reckons we should be encouraged by what the horticultural trade is already doing to reduce our reliance on plastic.
About this time every year I start collecting cardboard toilet roll tubes which are a free and acceptable alternative to plastic hinged root trainers for starting off broad bean, pea and sweet pea seeds. These seedlings have long roots and it can be a bit tricky to avoid damaging them when planting them in their final
She begs us to question claims of products labelled as biodegradable
positions on the allotment. When that time comes the seedlings can be planted out without removing the cardboard and with no risk of harm to the roots.
Choosing to grow your own vegetables and hardy flowers from seed is cheaper than buying plug plants and more fun. Liquid fertilisers can be made from comfrey or nettles, avoiding buying plastic bottles of commercial preparations. ■
Plastic-free Gardening by Fiona Thackeray is published by Trellis Books, £11.99, trellisscotland.org.uk