Living Green: Growing Your Own Vegetables

We all know how tasty fresh vegetables are in meals and salads. However, no matter how well you seem to time your visits to the grocery store, finding the freshest of produce is mostly by sheer luck. Growing your own vegetables gives you a break from grocery store trips while ensuring that you enjoy the freshest of veggies grown organically all year around.

Besides that, gardening is a rewarding task that brings a lot of good to your life. Being around greenery calms the mind, which alleviates signs of stress and anxiety. Additionally, gardening provides a perfect escape from the daily hustles of life, which allows you the break necessary to keep yourself balanced. While it can feel daunting at first, growing your own vegetables isn’t that hard. Here are some tips to get you started.

Mixed vegetable box

©Shutterstock – There’s nothing like the flavour of your own home-grown vegetables!

1.      Find the best location

Getting a good harvest from your vegetable garden depends on how well you provided the right conditions for healthy growth. And, providing the right conditions starts with picking the right location for your garden. Here are some guidelines for you:

Sunny area

Light is a necessity for the growth of any plant, and most vegetables do well when exposed to about 6 to 8 hours of direct sunlight. You need to pick a place in your garden that receives sun for the most part of the day. However, this is not to say that you can’t start a vegetable garden if you don’t have a backyard. You can grow some vegetables and culinary herbs indoors or in a window box, and still enjoy a good harvest. If you have a southern or western-facing window, that should be the location of your garden as such windows let in a considerable amount of sunlight.

However, if your house is limited in terms of light, you can grow your plants under grow lights. LED grow lights mimic the sun through technology to ensure that your plants get the full spectrum of the light.

A spot that drains well

When plants sit in soggy soil for too long, they end up having root rot and eventually die. In this case, you need a place that drains well and is not prone to floods. You also want it levelled well to avoid soil erosion.

If you don’t have such a space in your garden, consider planting your vegetables in raised soil beds. If you are growing them indoors, go for the potting mix that drains well and pots that have holes at the bottom.

raised vegetable beds

©Shutterstock – Where soils are poor, a raised bed can overcome this problem.

2.      Decide on the vegetables to grow

When you think about how much money you spend on vegetables, you can easily be enticed to grow every vegetable that you see in the grocery store. However, it is good to start with a few and continue adding more as you perfect your gardening skills. But before you get to decide which vegetables to grow, you need to consider the weather in your area first. If you live in a place that is mostly hot, vegetables that prefer a cooler climate might not do too well. Make sure that you do your research thoroughly.

A good guide on the vegetables that you can start with is in your meals timetable. Consider growing the vegetables that you spend the most money on. It would be a waste of time and resources growing vegetables that are rarely used in your kitchen unless you are doing it as a business.

3.      Have the necessities ready

Before you start growing your vegetables, you need to ensure that you have everything that you need throughout the process. For starters, you need the right tools to prepare the soil for planting. Such tools include a trowel, shovel, and garden rake. You also need a watering can, hose or sprinkler for watering your plants.

If you are growing them on the windowsill indoors, you need to have pots, potting mix, and trays to place the pots on. You also need a small watering can as well.

Whether you are growing your vegetables indoors or outside, you need high-quality seeds or seedlings. Be sure to get them from a reliable supplier.  

Patio tomato plant

©Thompson and Morgan / Derek St Romaine – Make sure that you have all of the tools you’ll need to grow the best crops.

4.      Start planting

Most seed packets come with instructions on how to prepare the soil for planting and how you should plant them. Otherwise, ensure that you dig down your soil to loosen it. Next, remove all the weeds and apply fertilizer. Next, make small troughs in the soil to put in the seeds. If you have an indoor garden, you can use your hand to make troughs. In addition, ensure that you are using a rich soil mixture.

However, you need to make a few considerations when planning your garden. For instance, if you are growing tall vegetables such as sweet corn and pole or runner beans, you need to put them in the farthest part of the garden to avoid shading the shorter plants.

Likewise, plants that don’t like a lot of sun should take the shadier part of the garden. You should also consider staggering plantings by a few weeks if you want a constant supply. This way, you have another lot coming up after every harvest.

vegetable garden

©Thompson and Morgan – Plan your vegetable patch before you start planting to get the best results.

Conclusion

Vegetables require regular care. If you are to grow your vegetables successfully, you must be prepared to put in the work in taking care of your plants. Ensure that you are weeding, pruning, and watering your veggies as required – but with proper care and attention you can enjoy the flavour of your own home grown crops.

Perfect gardens: tips for growing veg

freshly-harvested-carrots-veg-growing-top-tips

Growing your own fresh fruit and veg is hugely rewarding
Image: Wollertz

Decided to try to grow your own? Growing veg in your garden takes less effort than you might think and is a cost-effective way to enjoy delicious herbs, fruit and vegetables. 

To help you take your first steps, some of our favourite gardening bloggers have kindly shared their top tips, perfected over many years of trial and error. Here are our handy hints…

Where’s the best place to grow vegetables?

raised-veg-beds-veg-tips-article

Raised beds will solve the problem of poor soil
Image: Derek Harris Photography

Where are you thinking of growing your veg? An old flower bed, new raised beds, containers or maybe a window box? Wherever you decide to plant your produce, the location should satisfy three basic criteria: good soil, some sunshine, and stable growing conditions.

The best soil is a rich loam – it’s fertile and holds moisture without becoming waterlogged. If that doesn’t sound like the soil in your back garden, don’t despair – adding plenty of organic material helps to improve poor soils, and if your soil is prone to waterlogging – build raised beds.

South-facing plots make good veg gardens because they get the best of the sunshine throughout the day. But just because your garden lacks the perfect orientation doesn’t mean it can’t be productive – some veg, like salad leaves and brassicas, prefer slightly shadier conditions. Avoid planting fruit and veg in areas that suffer from extreme conditions – choose somewhere sheltered away from cold winds and pelting rain.

How to choose vegetables for a small garden

Swiss-chard-closeup-veg-growing-tips

Showy veg like chard look pretty in flower beds
Image: Kelly’s Kitchen Garden

You don’t need a big garden to grow lots of tasty veg, but if you’re short on space, it’s important to plant smartly. Mark Willis of the perennially informative blog Mark’s Veg Plot uses a scientific planting scheme he learned from garden writer Joy Larkcom – the Value for Space Rating. VSR takes into account things like crop yield per square metre, growing time, availability of the crop and its quality relative to supermarket purchases. So what’s the best thing to grow if space is at a premium? Mark says:

The best examples of VSR are in the herb department. Herbs don’t take up much space, and they are usually expensive to buy (and never available when you want them).

Richard, producer of ever-popular The Veg Grower Podcast, adopts a similarly scientific approach. Under his scoring system, top marks go to asparagus, tomatoes and garlic, which is great because he likes all three!

In a small garden, Caro Shrives at The Urban Veg Patch goes for small plants that work hard. She says: “Plants that keep on cropping are a good choice; compact courgette plants look good, have vibrant flowers and provide a decent amount of small courgettes without overwhelm.”

If you’re really short of square footage, Youtube presenter Kelly, of Kelly’s Kitchen Garden, suggests vertical growing: “Growing crops like beans, cucumbers and some types of squash up trellis, supports and cane wigwams can save a lot of space.”

And if you have no garden at all? Kelly says that as long as you have a balcony or somewhere to stand a few pots, you can still grow fresh produce in containers or window boxes: “I’ve had fantastic success growing lettuce in containers. By picking individual leaves to increase yield, I harvested 5.5lbs (2.5kg) from a container measuring no more than two square feet.”

Grow what you like to eat

Tomato-Tumbling-Tom-Red-Thompson-Morgan-veg-growing-tips

These tumbling tomatoes are perfect for patio containers or hanging baskets
Image: Tomato ‘Tumbling Tom Red’ from Thompson & Morgan

If you’re lucky enough to have room to grow whatever you like, how do you narrow down the choice? We asked our favourite bloggers that very question – the consensus – though growing expensive or rare veg is a fun and tasty sideline – concentrate on growing what you enjoy eating.

There’s little point cultivating exotic veg if you won’t eat it reckons Pete Polanyk of Weeds up to me Knees. Pete, whose blog offers a wealth of encouragement for beginner gardeners recommends bog standard spuds, tomatoes, runner beans, peas, carrots, beetroots, onions, garlic and herbs. Simple fare maybe, but “they’re a lot more tasty, fresh from the garden.”

Jackie Gulland of Reclaiming Paradise agrees, saying that you’ll be surprised by the flavour of freshly picked produce from your own garden. Although she has an allotment, she explains why she still grows some of her favourites at home:

The garden [is ideal] for picking herbs to throw in your cooking or a handful of soft fruit for your breakfast and for keeping on top of beans and peas which can grow too fast to eat sometimes. It’s great to go out after work and see what there is that you can have for an evening meal, rather than planning further in advance.

Whether you go for the VSR method or simply plant what you think you’ll enjoy, it’s important to feed your soil and rotate your crops. Avoid planting the same thing in the same place each year to help keep your ground fertile and free of pests.

Start small

Small-garden-patch-veg-growing-tips

Just a small patch of soil and a few pots are enough to get started
Image: Joanne Dale

A well-planted plot of about 12’ x 10’ is the ideal size to supply most of a family of four’s summer and autumn veg needs (with a little left over for freezing). If you start small, you won’t get overwhelmed with veg you can’t eat.

If you’re just testing the water to see if you like growing veg, why not follow Pete’s lead? He planted tomatoes in his flower beds next to his dahlias, pointing out that there’s nothing wrong with a bit of gardening anarchy.

Other options for the first-timer might include planting a few containers. Richards a great fan of growing new potatoes this way:

They’re easy to look after and, if grown in pots, can be moved around if needed. They don’t take much care – plenty of water and food as they are hungry and thirsty plants, and that’s about it. The flavour of homegrown new potatoes far exceeds anything you can buy too.

You might also consider building a raised bed which doesn’t need to take up much space and can easily produce a significant quantity of your favourite veg. Use good quality seeds and plug plants, avoid planting your veg too close together, water well and reap the rewards.

Growing alone? Caro does too. She says: ”It’s tempting to give up when things don’t work out. Joining a local horticultural society, visiting kitchen gardens and attending courses and talks gave me more confidence. Growing food should be fun!”

5 top tips from our brilliant bloggers

Garden-peas-radish-veg-growing-tips

Kelly recommends cost-effective crops like fresh peas and vibrant radish
Image: Kelly’s Kitchen Garden

  1. “The most cost-effective crops are the ones that are expensive to buy [in a shop] and don’t keep well – such as Purple Sprouting Broccoli and salads…[but] my favourites are still tomatoes and chillies.”  Mark – Mark’s Veg Plot
  2. “Growing your own is a good way to try unusual veg, especially if you have children. I grow yellow beans, oca, spaghetti squash, sweet red gooseberries – none of which is available in the shops – and physalis (Cape Gooseberries) that taste much nicer freshly picked.”  Caro Shrives – The Urban Veg Patch
  3. We have rosemary, thyme and bay in the garden that we planted years ago. They’re easy to grow, you just bung them in and voila, you’ve got fresh herbs when you need them.” Pete Polanyk – Weeds up to me knees
  4. I try and practise successional (staggered) sowing with salad leaves. This gives our household plenty of delicious salad leaves all year round saving us having to buy those expensive bags from the supermarket.” Richard – The Veg Grower Podcast
  5. “Things like peas, radishes, salad/spring onions and deliciously sweet turnips are on my budget list – great for the beginner gardener and take up very little space.” KellyKelly’s Kitchen Garden

If you’re thinking about growing your own vegetables we hope our gardening bloggers and YouTubers have provided the inspiration and advice you need to get started. As Kelly says: “Just give it a go and have fun!”

Garden design tricks that make a big statement

Garden at night with lighting to illuminate

Garden lighting can transform an ordinary garden into something extraordinary
Image: welcomia

If you’re dreaming up big plans for your garden in the New Year and you’re looking for clever ways to create dramatic impact, we can help.

We asked our favourite British garden designers for their top tips on how to make a big statement in your outside space. Here’s what they said…

Choose strong architectural plants

Acanthus mollis from Thompson & Morgan

Acanthus mollis brings dramatic impact to a garden
Image: Acanthus mollis from Thompson & Morgan

Let’s start with planting. Whether you prefer cottage garden style or something more contemporary, professional gardeners understand the power of repetition. Russell Page, a hugely successful twentieth-century landscape designer said: “the most striking and satisfying visual pleasure comes from the repetition or the massing of one simple element.”

Jason of Hornby Garden Designs agrees, and likes to use these architecturally dramatic plants in his schemes:

  • Acanthus mollis with jagged leaves and majestic white flowers that bloom from May to August. 
  • Phormium ‘Maori Queen’ (or New Zealand Flax) with strappy pink and green leaves throughout the year.
  • Anemanthele lessoniana (or Pheasant’s Tail Grass) lending green yellow and orange hues to the garden together with sensory movement.
  • Fatsia japonica (or Japanese aralia) with its large glossy palmate leaves makes a perfect specimen feature plant.

Geoff Stonebanks has some wonderful plants in his award-winning Driftwood Garden, but his favourite is also the acanthus: “Centre stage is taken by a large and imposing acanthus, which has incredible towering flower heads throughout the open garden season. Some years it can produce over 20 heads from the one plant.”

“If you’re looking for architectural impact, it has to be all about the foliage,” says Sarah Wilson of Roots and All:

Large-leaved plants such as cannas, begonias, phormiums, ferns, bergenias and palms all look dramatic. Light them to bring out their best features such as attractive leaf undersides, leaf texture or for the shadows the leaves cast on a background surface.

Add height

Topiary in a garden

Topiary brings vertical interest to your garden
Image: Rachel Benn

Clever garden designers create a sense of privacy, refuge or sanctuary within a larger outdoor space through the use of vertical planting and height. This doesn’t necessarily mean fencing the garden in, but applying 3-D design rules to make use of an entire space rather than just planting patches of ground.

Sarah Wilson recommends trying to create a variety of different ‘levels’ of interest in your garden: “Use a trailing plant on top of a wall to add interest where a planting scheme would otherwise be all on one level. A climbing plant can be used to create a green screen or wall. Evergreen climbers are the best – you can clothe an entire wall or trellis panel with a climber such as ivy, to give you a dramatic backdrop year-round.”

Alexandra of The Middle Sized Garden likes to use topiary to add height and architectural impact to her own garden:

It can be expensive, but you can also grow your own and learn how to topiarise. We have two holm oaks that we bought as £50 young ‘whips’. It took about five years before they were bulky enough to make a good topiary shape but they are now really distinctive.

Plant containers for instant drama

Geof Stonebanks terracotta pots in Driftwood Garden

Geoff Stonebanks has hundreds of terracotta planters in his Driftwood Garden
Image: Geoff Stonebanks

Long term design schemes can take time to fully mature. While you’re waiting why not fill gaps and add instant colour with container plants, advises Sarah Wilson:

If your garden’s going through a tatty spell or you need to create instant drama for an outdoor party, draft in some help from containers. Placing a couple of well-thought out and freshly-planted containers in key places around the garden, such as either side of doorways or in front of borders, will draw the eye and they’ll become the flashy focal points.

Sarah recommends packing your containers full of plants and focussing on colour harmonies and foliage contrasts. And be bold with your pot sizes. Try using a few large containers rather than lots of small ones to create impact.

Geoff Stonebanks also recommends the use of container plants for dramatic effect, although he continually moves his around throughout the season:

“My garden contains over 300 different terracotta planters, filled with anything from bulbs, small shrubs, annuals, palms and grasses. The trick to using them is to ensure they contain plants and shrubs that ‘peak’ at different times of the year. That wow factor can easily be achieved by moving a fabulous-looking pot from its regular home to pride-of-place in the garden, just as it starts to look its best!” 

Plan for winter

Winter garden scene from Cheryl Cummings

Ornamental grasses lend an air of Narnia to your winter garden
Image: Cheryl Cummings

One of the things that separates professional from amateur garden design is the ability to plan for year-round interest. Even when the leaves have fallen and plants have died back, a garden with ‘great bones’ will have enough structural interest to carry it through the coldest months in style.

Cheryl Cummings uses ornamental grasses to create wonderful winter structure in her gardens:

In the depths of winter the best and longest lasting ornamental grasses are elevated from supporting artists into stars. In a hard frost their fine lines and elegant shapes are emphasised by a dusting of ice crystals. Left standing with the uncut remains of herbaceous foliage until the very end of the season, they provide essential shelter and sustenance for wildlife. And on sparkling cold days they reward us for our restraint with the stunning appearance of Narnia.

Here are four of her favourite grasses to recreate the magic in your own garden:

Add a focal point

Sculpture in Driftwood Garden from Geoff Stonebanks

Use pieces of sculpture to create focal points in your garden
Image: Geoff Stonebanks

Finally, successful garden design is about more than just plants. It’s about using the space to maximum effect and giving your scheme a bit of personality. Here are three tips from our garden designers that will help deliver a professional punch to any garden:

  • Get creative with coloured paint: 

“A pot of paint adds instant wow factor. Give your garden a signature colour and use it on outdoor furniture, fencing, sheds, trellis and pots. It pulls mismatched styles together and can be easily changed when you want something different… Chalk paints can be used on any surface – plastic, metal and wood.” – Alexandra of The Middle Sized Garden

  • Invest in a garden sculpture:

“Instant wow factor can be achieved by carefully placing a stunning piece of sculpture in the garden. I have many, in both wood and metal, and the eye is immediately drawn to them.” – Geoff Stonebanks

“Personal pieces of sculpture hold relevance and give pleasure no matter the price tag. They add focus, meaning and charm whatever the weather.” – Cheryl Cummings

  • Add feature lighting:

“Cross lighting is one of my favourite lighting methods. Place two lamps at different angles to the front of a feature tree or plant to create a natural and three-dimensional effect.” – Jon Gower

We’d like to thank all of these fantastic garden designers for sharing their top tips with us. We hope you’ve found some ideas to inspire your own garden plans for the coming year. Want more expert gardening advice on how to incorporate ornamental grasses into your planting scheme? Then visit our helpful grasses hub page for growing and care advice.

 

Growing with kids: Mr Men and Little Miss seeds

Photo of Thompson & Morgan range of Mr. Happy's 'Tomato Sweet Apéritif' Seed Range

Tomatoes are one of the easiest things to grow with children
Image source: dogwooddays

Children love watching plants grow – from that miraculous moment when a tiny seed’s first leaves emerge from the ground – to enjoying the flowers and fruits that appear later in the season.

Professional garden designer Nic Wilson of dogwooddays thinks it’s a great idea to get kids involved with gardening at an early age. Here’s what she and her kids made of Thompson & Morgan’s Mr Men and Little Miss seeds when they tried them out at home.

Encouraging kids to sow and grow

Hand holding three packs of the Mr Men/Little Miss Seed Range from Thompson & Morgan - photo by dogwooddays

The seeds Nic’s children decided to start with
Image source: dogwooddays

Last year, Thompson & Morgan partnered with Mr Men and Little Miss to produce a selection of seeds and gardening products to encourage kids to grow their own. The range was launched in the fabulously colourful Mr Men themed garden at Hampton Court Flower Show – a hugely successful space loved by adults and kids alike.

The seeds include easy to grow flowers, fruit and vegetables such as Little Miss Sunshine’s Sunflower ‘Helios Flame’, Mr Sneeze’s Pepper ‘Boneta’, Mr Strong’s Broccoli ‘Bell Star’ (which Mr Strong suggests should be eaten with cheesy scrambled eggs for a fortifying meal) and Mr Tickle’s ‘Extra Curled’ Cress – simple enough for even the smallest growers to handle.

Best fruit and veg seeds for kids

Action shot of child making lollipop markets for seed pots

Making markers for seed pots is part of the fun
Image source: dogwooddays

My kids decided to start with Mr Happy’s Tomato ‘Sweet Apéritif’ – because tomatoes are one of our favourite summer snacks. We sowed the seeds in peat-free compost in newspaper pots that we’d made ourselves, and then popped them into the windowsill propagator.

Each day the kids checked the pots, and there was great excitement on the morning that the first leaves unfurled. Indoor germination makes it easy for children to get involved in watering the plants each day and watching the seedlings develop.

This week we’ll be pricking the seedlings out and the children will be growing them on in their bedrooms. We’re planning to plant them out after the first frosts and hoping for big bowlfuls of cherry tomatoes later in the summer! We’ve also sown Little Miss Giggles’ Cucumber ‘Diva’ which should give us plenty of small fruits for picnics and lunchboxes.

Best flower seeds for kids

Mr Small’s Nasturtium Whirlybird Mixed from Thompson & Morgan

Stunning cherry, rose, gold, orange, scarlet, tangerine and cream Nasturtium flowers
Image source: Mr Small’s Nasturtium Whirlybird Mixed from T&M

For a shot of colour, we decided to sow Mr Small’s Nasturtium Whirlybird Mixed. Nasturtiums are one of the best flowers to grow with young children as they have such cheerful flowers. Kids love the fact that they have edible peppery leaves and they also enjoy harvesting the petals to add to pretty summer salads.

Another flower with brightly coloured, edible petals is Mr Clever’s Calendula ‘Fruit Twist’. Calendula readily self-seeds in the garden, so in subsequent years it’s fun to see what new colours emerge as the seedlings mature.

Gardening skills for life

Child standing amongst tomato plants - photo from dogwooddays

There’s nothing quite like harvesting your own snacks as a child!
Image source: dogwooddays

Growing these easy crops and flowers teaches children how to sow seeds, prick-out seedlings and look after plants once they’re outside in the garden or greenhouse. The sense of achievement when they pick their first tomato or create a posy with their own flowers is enormous.

Even better, it has encouraged my kids to enjoy fruit and vegetables that they would have otherwise refused to try. And with 25% of each packet sold going to the Children With Cancer UK charity, growing these seeds is sure to bring a smile to everyone’s faces – not just Mr Happy’s!

If you’ve been inspired to get your kids or grandkids out into the garden this year, the Mr Men and Little Miss seed range includes:

 

Five tips for planting for pollinators

peacock butterfly against a green background

Important pollinators like bees, butterflies and moths are in decline
Image: Marek Mierzejewski

Bees, butterflies and other pollinators are under threat, so there’s never been a better time for gardeners to help by adding a few plants to support them. Here, Mandy Bradshaw from The Chatty Gardener shares five simple tips to help make your garden a refuge for pollinators.

1. Be part of the solution

bumblebee on a yellow foxglove

Residential gardens and allotments are an important lifeline for pollinators
Image: Paul Stout

I love watching the bees in my garden squeezing into a foxglove flower, noisily feasting on opium poppies in the veg plot or enjoying the winter honeysuckle.

Gardening without chemicals and trying to choose nectar-rich flowers means bees and other pollinators are often buzzing around my plot – good to watch and helping my flowers and veg set fruit or seed.

Increasingly, our gardens are becoming an important lifeline for these beneficial insects and go some way to counter the effects of natural habitat loss and the use of pesticides.

A recent study found that urban allotments and gardens are vital sources of food for pollinators – especially when they have native plants such as brambles and dandelions, and traditional favourites like lavender and marigolds.

So, to hear the sound of bees in your garden, make the decision to actively support our pollinators – it’s the first important step.

2. Choose the right plants

bench in the middle of a wildflower garden in England

A quiet corner of this walled garden has been dedicated to wildflowers
Image: Shutterstock

The very best plants for pollinators are ‘species’, as modern cultivars can be sterile or have low nectar and pollen levels. If you grow vegetables, try to include some heritage varieties among the modern cultivars.

When it comes to the flower garden, plants with open, single blooms are better than double flowers where the nectar can be difficult to reach.

Incorporate some wildflowers in your garden, or even leave a corner where you allow weeds such as nettles and dandelions to thrive. Let your grass wait a little longer before you get the lawnmower out, to allow the clover to flower. Allowing ivy to flower will also provide important food for bees.

Think about adding a few flowers to your vegetable patch to help pollinate your crops. I edge my beds with the common marigold (Calendula officinalis). It looks pretty and draws in those helpful insects.

3. Give a good mix

Mahonia x media collection from Thompson & Morgan - available now

The mahonia’s large yellow flower spikes bloom from November through to March
Image: John Glover

Different insects like different plants, so make sure you have a range of flower shapes to ensure your garden helps them all. Some bees, for example, have long tongues to cope with plants such as aconitum.

Grow a mix of perennials and annuals and don’t forget trees and shrubs. Both can be excellent sources of nectar for bees and butterflies.

Think about planting to cover the seasons. Like the gardener, pollinators need food all-year-round, so it’s important to plant for more than just the summer! Early spring and autumn are the seasons when nectar can be particularly short in supply, but adding just a few of the right plants can make all the difference. Good spring plants are crocus and hellebores, while a winter feast can be provided by snowdrops, mahonia or sarcococca.

Take a look at Thompson & Morgan’s Perfect for Pollinators range which includes a selection of seed and plant varieties known to attract bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects.

4. Ditch the pesticides

Achillea millefolium 'Summer Pastels' (Yarrow) from Thompson & Morgan - available now

Yarrow attracts ladybirds and hoverflies
Image: Achillea millefolium ‘Summer Pastels’ (Yarrow) from Thompson & Morgan

Try to garden without using pesticide sprays as they often kill beneficial insects alongside the pests.

Instead, encourage birds, ladybirds and other gardeners’ friends in to deal with any problems. For instance, the larvae of hoverflies voraciously consume aphids. Similarly, when they hatch, ladybird larvae can eat up to 5,000 aphids as well as attacking red spider mites.

To attract these helpful insects plant things like marigolds, alyssum, cosmos, dill, yarrow, penstemon and fennel.

5. Give them a home

Garden Life Wooden Insect Hotel from Thompson & Morgan - available now

Insect hotels are beautiful and functional
Image: Garden Life Wooden Insect Hotel from Thompson & Morgan

Make or buy an insect house to give solitary bees and others somewhere to nest. Something as simple as an old terracotta plant pot filled with lengths of bamboo can be used as a bee hotel.

I hope this has given you plenty of food for thought. Just a few simple changes can turn your garden into a wildlife sanctuary that provides vital food and shelter for our precious pollinators. For more advice and pollinator-specific recommendations, visit our hub page.

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