1. Grow your own food and reduce food miles. By growing some of your own food you will be reducing the amount of fossil fuel that has been used to transport your food to ZERO.
2. Collect all the water from your gutters and roof areas into a rain butt. This will mean that you are making efficient use of rain water in the garden, washing the car and reducing your water bills too!
3. Make a compost heap or invest in a compost bin for all your green waste and kitchen scraps. If you don’t have enough space then find out where you can take your green waste so that it will be composted by the local council contractor.
4. Think about where any growing substrate, sphagnum moss, peat, compost comes from, is it a sustainable source? If you are making your own compost even better!
5. Think before you use pesticides in the garden. Are they necessary and is their any biological alternative? Many farmers and gardeners are now using predatory insects instead of chemicals, so why not find out if you can do the same.
6. Are you putting wooden furniture, sheds, greenhouses, decking into your garden? Do you know where the wood comes from? Is it sustainable, where does the charcoal come from that you are using on the barbeque?
7. What do you do with garden waste, plastic, pots, paper sacks – can you recycle the material so that it doesn’t go into land-fill – if you are not sure check with your local council Environment department.
8. Leave some tree prunings, tree stump or dead wood material in a corner because this will provide a habitat for beetles and a whole range of creepy-crawlies.
9. Create habitats for wildlife in your garden. Insects are attracted by insect pollinated flowers that provide pollen and nectar for bees, butterflies and other insects throughout the year. These plants include buddleia, Michaelmas daisy and lavender.
10. Don’t turn on your patio heater unless you really need it, put on another sweater first.