Caption: Kim Stoddart
Caption: Home made seed and seed packets
Kim’s climate change savvy tips for December
Connection and collaboration with the natural world and others around us is absolutely key for the future. We are living through such stressful times and many people are struggling, so the more we can reach out locally, the better we will feel and the stronger we will be.
So this December as we nudge that bit closer to Christmas, I urge some little acts of homemade giving and kindness in your local community with items that many of us gardeners will most likely already have to hand. Be it friends, family, neighbours or complete strangers, the cost will be near priceless with a feel good factor guaranteed.
Becoming a climate change savvy gardener is as much about personal and community resilience as on-the-ground solutions.
?? If you’ve saved flower or produce seed this year why not package some up to pass on as a gift.
?? Delicious herby vinegars can easily be made with red or white wine vinegar displayed in sterilised bottles and laden with luscious herbs from the garden
?? It’s easy to grow many pick and come again edibles indoors over winter such as lettuce, micro greens and pea shoots so why not germinate some and give the gift of windowsill growing this Christmas.
??Take cuttings from soft fruit bushes and pot them up, root mint cuttings in water to create indoor plants, or pot up spider plant runners as presents
?? Reach out with little acts of kindness where you can; a warm hello, a compliment to someone who is looking sad… it offers hope for a more resilient future for us all, together.
Happy climate change savvy growing
Kim x
Kim is an award winning environmental journalist and the new editor of the re-launched Amateur Gardening magazine.
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Kim’s climate change savvy gardening tips for November
Natural pest control is truly a climate change savvy gardener’s ally in so many ways and nature’s finest predators can be encouraged in with gusto in relatively simple ways for free. To turn your outside space into a more balanced eat and be eaten ecosystem means it is then harder for one potential plant muncher to proliferate. When you consider that greater risk of pest and disease is unfortunately one of the biggest challenges with our changing climate it has become more important than ever to encourage and protect biodiversity close to home.
Here’s how to help protect our precious wildlife over winter:
- Piles of leaf litter are used by a wider array of insects (including fantastic predators such as ground beetles, spiders and earwigs). Birds will also love pecking through the leaves for food. Leafmould makes a fantastic soil improver for the garden.
- Seed heads left in situ will also provide food for birds - the more the merrier. Birds also further benefit from feeding and the provision of water over winter.
- Many weeds can also provide a valuable habitat and ground cover for predators so wilder areas really help. I even grow a little patch of stinging nettles in my polytunnels for ladybirds and lacewings.
- A mini wildlife pond can be created out of an upcycled basin buried into the ground with stones placed in and around. You may attract amphibians, and many wildlife will also benefit from a water source of this kind.
Happy climate change savvy growing
Kim x
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Kim’s climate change savvy gardening tips for October
What a year it has been! Extreme weather is stressful ….for gardens and gardeners alike. Yet growing some lovingly home-nurtured, organic food is a positive action in the face of climate change. Helping to boost biodiversity in our outside spaces and enabling us, even for a time, to switch off from the horrible things happening in the world.
The natural world and connection with our food offers nurturing and hope for the future.
So, know that over winter there’s actually rather a lot of produce you can grow under cover, or on a windowsill inside a home. For money saving, for winter wellbeing, for the sheer joy of having an excuse to watch as more seed springs dutifully, magically into life, this is feel-good climate change savvy gardening for person, plate and planet.
Here are just some of the delicious pick and come again edibles you can bring to your home and heart this winter:
- Pick and and come again salad leaves such as salad bowl lettuce and rocket
- Coriander - a delicious, zesty taste of summer
- More herby joy with mint, fennel, parsley and thyme….
- Micro greens - chard, beetroot leaves, spinach.. all work well for pick and come again loveliness
- Pea shoots - what a treat and also easy to grow
Magic!
Happy climate change savvy growing
Kim x
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Kim’s climate change savvy gardening tips for August
With increasingly topsy turvy weather to contend with; come extreme rain, drought, cold, heat… it’s no longer seasons or gardening as usual. Therefore it’s really important to learn to think on your feet and problem solve around the challenge at hand. Doing so involves the building of resilience in yourself as much as your garden. Here’s how to get started:
- Create a calm space to stop, switch off from the stressful world, watch some wildlife, breathe and let the free thinking flow on in.
- Try and ditch the power tools and gloves. Get properly connected with your garden by hand as much as you can. It helps you see so much more and understand how everything is interconnected.
- Turning even some waste items into useful resources for the garden saves money and helps reduce our reliance on buying everything in. Be it compost making, seed saving, mulch making, it is all part of the low cost, self-empowering solution.
- Playing with soil and compost also releases mood-boosting serotonin into your brain… just saying.
Happy climate change savvy growing
Kim x
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Kim’s climate change savvy gardening tips for July
The indicators are we are in for further droughts and dry spells this year with El Niño. To help protect plants and reduce the amount of watering you need to do, healthy soil is absolutely key. My private water supply keeps running extremely dry each summer so my plants in the ground have at times made do with no watering at all for weeks, here’s how to build resilience from the ground up:
??. Water early in the morning or later in the evening and water deeply so the moisture can permeate further into the ground. Water the soil not the plant foliage.
?? A mulch around the outside of water hungry plants can keep moisture in for longer. A thin sprinkling of compost, comfrey, grass clippings, woodchip, sheep wool or leafmould works well
?? Try and avoid bare soil - fill gaps with further plants like lettuce
??No dig, well composted soil is much better able to hold and retain moisture for longer
Happy climate change savvy growing
Kim x
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Kim’s climate change savvy tips for June
Many existing varieties of crop may struggle in the future with climate change so see what others are growing well in your area. Reach out to local gardening groups, share ideas and swap seeds.
Crystal lemon cucumber is super resilient and easy to grow outside, Romanesco has less exacting watering requirements than cauliflower. Pick and come again varieties of lettuce and leaf provide harvests for longer. Perennial planting is always more resilient and some climate change savvy vegetable garden heroes for edible soil protecting cover include nasturtium, rocket, amaranth and orach.
Happy climate change savvy growing
Kim x
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Kim’s climate change savvy tips for June
This Peat Free April, award-winning, environmental journalist and co-author of The Climate Change Garden book, Kim Stoddart gets excited about some of the tips and topics she will be sharing with us over the months ahead:
We are living through such stressful times but nature-friendly, peat-free growing offers so many solutions. For greater resilience against extremes of weather, for natural pest control, for money saving, for the sheer joy and feel good factor that comes from working in a rich, biodiverse, productive, wildlife haven of a plot.
It is no longer gardening as usual but there are lots of solutions to be found from the natural world and there is plenty of hope. I will be sharing tips every month here on everything to do with building and boosting soil health, natural pest control, seed saving, water and money saving and much more besides.
I’d also love to hear your ideas on topics you’d like me to cover. Comment below.
Happy climate change savvy growing.
Kim x
Kim Stoddart is an award winning environmental journalist, editor and educator who has been writing about climate change and resilience for publications such as The Guardian since 2013. She is the co-author of The Climate Change Garden book.