RSPB needs all your bestest tips!

[Birdie Wife]

... for Sustainable Gardening

You may or may not know I work for the RSPB, and I've been asked by a friend I know in the Conservation Advisory section for some advice on sustainable gardening, as he wants to put out an advisory leaflet. I couldn't think of a more knowledgable and experienced bunch of people to ask than you lot! We already have the basics covered, eg making compost, saving rain water, companion planting and peat-free, so I'd like to see if there's any tips out there that may not be in the books, original thinking and maybe something that no-one's thought of before. It would cover ornamental gardens as well as veggie plots.

Photos are in short supply, and good pics of sustainable gardening that people have achieved in thier own gardens would be most welcome. If you wouldn't mind your photo being included in the leaflet, and you have a high res version of it, please post a low-res version here too.

So come on you guys and gals, I know you won't let me down!!

[Flummery]

One of the most sustsainable things we can do (apart from all that compost of course!) is save our own seeds. We need to be sure that they are open pollinated varieties, not F1 hybrids. I already save seeds of my favourite heritage tomato (green zebra), yin yang beans and carnival squash. When I finally decide on my favourtie climbing french bean I'll start to save that too - but there are so many to try!

[Birdie Wife]

Thanks for getting the ball rolling Flummery, that's just the sort of thing we need. Letting a small proportion of the veg we grow run to seed also has benefits for the wildlife - eg. I've heard that parsnip flowers are excellent for attracting bees and look spectacular too. Now does anyone have a photo...

[Earthbabe]

I can get a photo BW as I have one going to seed as we speak but the challenge for me is getting it uploaded.

[Earthbabe]

However on the tips front, I never strip all the seed or fruit off plants and try not to squish bugs etc that crop up when I dig, just kind of leave them somewhere obvious for birds to spot and hopefully deal with in a bird type of way.

[Peter]

Create a hay meadow.

This can be done with any area up from a two seat sofa in size.
Mow as a lawn for a year or two, then leave unmown until July, strim down and mow regularly till end of autumn, at two inch height setting on mower. Always remove the mower cuttings, but leave the strimmings in the sun to dry into hay and whack it about a bit when you do remove it.
Add plant plugs from a reputable source of native hay meadow plants.
Beneficial insects increase, giving bird food.
Give them winter hides, either ready-made, or study the catalogue then make your own.

[Moglets]

I've put the bird feeder down in the bottom corner and just left the area to go wild - all the seeds end up sprouting anyway so I thought it would be good not to have to spend the summer weeding the area. I did seed some wild flowers too, the patch is about 6' x 6' and the insect, birds and cats love it. (The birds know when the cats are active and avoid it then)

[Sue]

Hi
I'm about the only one on our allotment who grows flowers other than the odd rose bush and a few tulips and growing douglas limanthi and borage has bought in bees and hover flies in great abundance, wonderful to see great clouds of them. Also letting the odd thing go to seed, which I discovered by mistake, couldn't uproot my gone to seed psb for days as it was so popular.
I started with my bird feeders at the bottom of the allotment but moved them to the top so that the birds would have to fly over my allotment and hopefully spot a few "little treats" on the way.
Providing dried worms means that the robins and blackbirds are queing up in the morning waiting for me to arrive, it's costing me about £7 a week at the moment!
Dot flowers that bees and insects love all through the veg so that it spreads out their attentions.
I keep the area between my compost bins and hedge wild and overgrown to provide cover.
Also for overwintering insects a tip I found in an allotment book, drive canes into the ground about three feet apart, in two rows, say 4 canes long and in between lay all your woody prunings till you have a big pile, kept in place by the canes. You can grow ivy up the outside. This provides some good overwintering places and the frogs live in it too. Just remember to put cane tops on the canes to prevent eye injury. learned that the hard way.

Provide a pond if you can, I have a dustbin lid upturned with some pebbles and broken pots in to provide a little beach, lots of birds queing up for drinks and washing. They then hop on my arch to preen and I get lots of bird droppings falling on my blackberry which I hope helps with fertilizer....

Sue

[Flummery]

Bird boxes help to provide nesting sites for our friendly aphid eaters!

[yoanbob]

recycling loo rolls as biodegradable seed pots, just plant streight out.
re use plastic bottles as waterers, cut off bottoms and place upside down fill with water.

[Birdie Wife]

We can't recycle plastic in our area so I try to look at ways of using things in the garden instead - the clear plastic boxes that croissants come in are handy mini-propagators, milk cartons get chopped up to make labels.

[SarzWix]

As mentioned by Sue, I think having any kind/size of pond is almost essential - we have an old tin bath as a pond, with a few marginal plants in baskets. The top of one basket comes to about an inch below the surface of the water - perfect for the birds to bathe in, they queue up to perch on the edge to drink, and the robin has claimed the handle as 'his' spot. I have a patch of longer grass next to it, which quite often harbours a frog.
Also, if you can bear to, I think allowing some plants to have 'bugs' without to much effort to eradicate them (organically or otherwise), can bring benefits. I haven't done anything more than occasionally blast my roses with a water spray this year, and the aphids on them have served as a food source for a family of blue-tits, and are now covered in lace-wings. Incidentally, they have never looked so healthy either, flowering their socks off at the moment!

[vertangie]

We let the edge of the lawn grow high and got to seed, creates a nice barrier for wildlife I understand. We have a strip of conifers along one side of the garden that small mammals like to run under and this brings the owls in, we know they're out there are we find the occasional pellet and hear them early in the morning (1 to 2 am).

We try not to cut things back too heavily at this time of year in case we disturb any nests.

Several birds seem to really like sitting in our holly bushes and we do put fat snacks out for them in early spring which led to queues along the washing line when the unexpected snow came in march.

We have a dog and a cat and the cat only watches birds, has no instinct to hunt them at all but does see of other cats that do have the instinct so there's a lot to be said for pets that see off bird predators.

A friend says her biological snail control is to crush them and feed them to the ducks who apparently go nuts for them.

Living in Cumbria we have dry stone walls around the garden which are covered in wild flowers and a haven for bees and other insects, I can't say enough for holes in walls I personally wouldn't have any other kind of wall around a garden now.

We have lots of woodland around here which seems to keep the buzzard population happy, so if I had the land and wasn't already surrounded by woodland I'd plant one. But I guess you'd need a pretty large garden for that

My partner's a photographer and can do nice hi res pics. What kinds of pics are you looking for, anything I've mentioned fit the bill.

Dry stone wall with pretty flowers?
Strip of conifers?

Must put out a water source for them although the neighbour has a bird bath and not much else so I'd feel bad if I had all of the birds.

Angie

[Birdie Wife]

Hi Angie, I'm so jealous you get owls in your garden - what a brilliant bird. I love having poultry as part of the garden, ducks and hens can do a great job of hoovering up slugs and snails, and it means the bonus of not having to kill them in horrible ways or throw them over the fence for the neighbour, plus eggs, I think it's a bit of the good life that anyone with a garden could manage.

The Welsh clouthe (sp?) is an excellent way of drystone walling which encourages all sorts of flowers, it's basically a steep earth bank faced with stone - quicker than a true dry stone wall and plants can grow in between the soil. It seems to last a long time too. And as you say, excellent for bees and bugs - often overlooked in the garden but vital for a thriving ecosystem.

I'll ask my colleague in Advisory if there's any particular photos he's after, many thanks for the offer!

[madderbat]

Hi, we leave a patch of grass to go to seed, plant sunflowers for the birds and since I saw a flock of goldfinch on the lottie, don't mind one or two flowering thistles. Resident Mummy blackbird follows the hoe and collects bugs and of course, we have a pond (old sandpit from Freecycle) for the frogs, water snails and hopefuly birds. two brick in it provide perches.
Loads of raspberry canes also provide some fruit, and the nettles and blackberries along our fence do their bit to. Lumps of rotten wood and old sticks make a fine winter refuge and the muck heap has ants and loads of worms in it.

Hope that helps