The Organic Garden. Allan Shepherd

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СКАЧАТЬ chippings are available from these sites: www.derbyshireaggregates.com, www.decogem.com and www.rbgc.co.uk. Also try www.stevemassam.co.uk for crushed brick from factory rejects, and www.salvo.co.uk and www.reuze.co.uk.

      Woodchip is a low-impact material and will need replacing as it rots. Hard landscaping materials such as timber decking and concrete paving slabs last longer. Both of these can be destructive to the environment: source FSC-approved timber decking or reclaimed materials from salvage yards. Try Ashwell’s Recycled Timber Products, and Wideserve and BPI Recycled Products for recycled decking. A wide range of long-lasting ‘chipped’ hard landscaping materials – shells, glass, crushed brick – are available. Again these should be laid on top of a permeable membrane to prevent weed growth.

      Other garden essentials

      The word organic doesn’t just refer to plants, it means all the materials you use to make garden essentials such as sheds and benches. Here are some ideas to get you started.

      The Bench

      Now that you’ve decided on the basic structure of your garden, the next thing you need is a bench. Some people may argue for shed, tools, seeds, but I reckon bench. Of course, under the bench heading I’d include hammock, chair swing, stool, recliner, deck chair, turf chair, chaise longue or anything upon which one may park one’s bottom – or, even better, lie down. Somewhere from which to survey the garden, dream dreams, make plans and entertain guests. I’ve shaped a whole area of my garden around a bench and postponed planting the beds around it until I know it works as a good place to sit. That’s how important this bench thing is to me, and my benches are organic.

      The natural materials to use in my garden are slate and wood. These are the two materials that lie beneath and around me in huge quantities. So it’s quite in keeping with the garden to use waste slate and wood materials wherever I can. The previous owner left copious quantities of both when he left and I’ve been cursing him ever since I moved in. But when I got round to making my bench I said a little prayer for him instead.

      You have to know that my garden is made up of a set of flat and sloping steep terraces, a large, slightly messy pond and a variety of slate walls, all facing north-east. The sun shines in the morning on all parts of the garden but only on one part from the afternoon on (the small plot I have given over to those sunlight-hungry families of plants we call vegetables). My bench sits snugly into the sloping earth overlooking the pond. It gets the morning sunlight beautifully (apart from about one half hour or so when the sun passes behind an enormous conifer planted by my neighbour as a 30cm-high sapling thirty years ago). When the day is at its hottest, the bench is only dappled by sunlight and becomes a fantastically cool place to retreat to when working the garden is no longer a pleasure. Before I cleared the area it was a mass of old building timber, chicken wire and felled conifer hedge – a combination of the previous owner’s waste and my own garden trimmings. Clearing it has been a monumental task and it would have been easier to have put my bench somewhere else, but nowhere else would do. From here I am close enough to my pond to see my frogs blink and far away enough from my neighbour’s titanic decking (which haunts my garden like a hovering buzzard) to avoid the hot fat that I feel sure will rain down upon me if they ever have a barbecue when I’m lying on my lawn.

       Ethical choice: turf benches

      My bench is quite a rudimentary affair, in that it just sits on the earth. My eco-builder friends Jenny and Medhi have created many similar benches for their festival gardens, including a long turf bench shaped as a snake, with individual seats carved along the snake’s back. Using a natural material like earth is convenient if you happen to be digging a pond or a sunken area and need to do something with the earth you’ve dug from the hole. You can even buy cardboard cutouts to help you shape the earth like a grass armchair (www.purves.co.uk). There’s also a plan for a turf sofa at www.readymademag.com, an excellent American website with lots of DIY projects.

      Making furniture with green wood

      Most carpentry work is done using wood that has been seasoned, which means it has been left until the moisture has completely gone (which takes a couple of years). The wooden benches you get in your average high-street store are made from seasoned wood. They are also usually treated with a preservative, which may contain toxic materials harmful to the environment. Green wood, as the name suggests, is wood that has been freshly cut and not left to dry out. The tools and the techniques for using green wood are quite different than for standard carpentry but are actually very good for the average gardener prepared to spend a bit of time learning the tricks of the trade. This is mainly because most of the materials you need can come from your own garden, as long as you’ve got a few trees or a hedgerow. Or ask your local park, woodland or local authority if they have any hedge trimmings or unwanted felled wood you could use.

      The simplest form of green woodworking is stick furniture. This is literally furniture made from sticks harvested from hedgerows and coppiced woodlands. Stick furniture doesn’t last for ever but then it doesn’t matter if your mood changes and you want to replace it with something else. Just use the old chair for kindling. I’ve seen the same principle applied to an office made out of cardboard. The whole thing takes very little energy to make and is completely recyclable once the client has tired of it. Stick furniture is a lovely addition to any garden and you can book yourself on a day course for not much money (www.bodgers.org.uk, or locally to me Sylvantutch +44 (0) 1654 761614). For slightly more advanced homemade benches you could consider investing in a pole lathe (a footoperated device for turning wood), a set of lathe tools and a book such as Ray Tabor’s Green Woodworking Pattern Book. This contains more than 300 projects, ranging from stick furniture to tool making to gates, fences, hanging baskets, bird tables, compost bins, arbours and trellis. For most of the projects you just need access to a handful of basic hand tools (no power tools are used) and some coppiced wood from a hedgerow or local woodland. If you just fancy having a go at green woodworking, check out local green fairs, festivals or country shows. There’s usually an opportunity to make something simple with a wood lathe. If you live in London get yourself down to the Woodland Wonders Fair at Kew Gardens held every May Bank Holiday, see www.rbgkew.org.uk/events.

       Ethical choice: living willow

      If you need a throne for your kingdom, how about a living willow chair? Better for the environment because you don’t have to use materials that have been shipped over great distances and processed using machinery powered by fossil fuels. Majestic and alive, like something out of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, living willow chairs carry on growing, providing fresh growth every year for you to trim and use for other willow projects such as basket making. Be careful where you plant it, though. Willow roots are notoriously aggressive and willows drink a lot of water. They’re fast growing and are good for helping to reduce the moisture content in wet soils. They will compete with vegetables so don’t plant too close to your crops. You can also make living willow hedges and arbours. Jon Warnes’s book Living Willow Sculpture is an excellent place to start, as is www.thewillowbank. com. The Willow Bank is run by Steve Pickup, one of the country’s most experienced willow growers and weavers (see below). You can pick up a bundle of willow cuttings ready for planting, a set of instructions to make your own dome and an extra DVD if you need a little bit of visual stimulation.

      Buying garden furniture

      Buying stuff can be fun too and there are so many nice pieces of beautifully made, sustainable and ethical furniture out there, it’s a shame not to support the suppliers if you’ve СКАЧАТЬ