Let JLife lead you down the garden path with some helpful accessories and guides to transform your patch…
The spring months are a time of renewal for a reason, and the annual spring clean can apply to your garden too. Whether you are a seasoned pro or a little green when it comes to gardening, it’s never too late to have a go at creating or tidying up your outdoor space. Check out these ideal gardening accessories as well as some helpful gardening tips for newly green-fingered fiends…
A New Leaf
Take a leaf out of Tom and Barbara Good’s book by reading Growing Self-Sufficiency by Sally Nex, a practical and inspirational guide for beginner and experienced gardeners to help realise the dream of producing your own fruit, vegetables, eggs and meat.
Readers will enjoy the satisfaction and pride of providing food for themselves and their family, whether they choose to grow their vegetables on a small balcony or in a back yard, a garden, a homestead or a smallholding.
Sally has been feeding her family with home-grown produce for the last 20 years and writes about vegetable-growing and self-sufficiency for BBC Gardeners’ World, RHS The Garden, Grow Your Own and The Guardian. With her realistic and grounded advice anyone can go out and start growing for themselves.
£17.99
Greenbooks.co.uk
No Diggity
No-dig gardening is a method that aims for minimal disturbance of the soil, so that the natural processes can be preserved. This allows the natural organisms to thrive, increasing the soil’s overall health and therefore that of your plants. This trend has taken the growing industry by storm and a sure sign that it could well be here to stay was when No Dig Organic Home & Garden won Practical Book of the Year 2017 at the ‘gardening Oscars’, the Garden Media Guild Awards.
The book’s premise is simple: no dig organic gardening purports to save time and work. Co-authors Charles Dowding and Stephanie Hafferty draw on decades of experience to explain the skills you need for growing great vegetables in less time and illustrate delicious ways to eat them, and other things you can do with garden plants. They describe how to make compost and enrich soil, teach skills you need to sow and grow annual and perennial veg, harvest and prepare food all year and how to make natural cosmetics and cleaning products.
Charles’ advice is distilled from 35 years of growing vegetables intensively and efficiently; he is the acknowledged no dig guru and salad expert both in the UK and internationally. Stephanie, a kitchen gardener, grows in her small, productive home garden and allotment, and creates no dig gardens for restaurants and private estates.
£19.95
Waterstones.com
Complete Tool
What better way to embark on a project in the garden than to make sure you have all the right tools for the job? The Gardena Hand Tools Starter Kit is perfect for anyone who wants to get into gardening and contains a hand trowel, weeding trowel, classic secateurs and a pair of planting gloves.
Available from family-run garden shop and site, Internet Gardener, this collection of implements is all you need to help get your garden into shape for the beautiful bloom of spring and the tranquil setting of summer.
£19.93
Internetgardener.co.uk
These Boots Are Made for…Gardenin’
The National Trust and Hunter Field have released a joint footwear collection exclusively designed to celebrate our shared commitment to the outdoors, and we’ve chosen this women’s Norris field boot.
The boot features the National Trust iconic acorn and Hunter logo on an oak leaf print and is handcrafted using a soft rubber compound which maintains strength and allows ease of movement. Perfect for working in the garden, it has a neoprene lining that works as an insulating barrier to protect from the elements, while the robust sole with a zig zag thread is specially designed for grip and mud release.
£110
Shop.nationaltrust.org.uk
Garden Step
Transform your garden room, conservatory, patio or terrace with this charming Aldsworth pot ladder from The Garden Trading Company. Crafted from spruce and stained with a grey water stain, not chemically treated, it boasts three shelves at varying heights ready for you to display pots or vases full of home-grown blooms straight from the garden.
Here’s another idea – why not use it as a quirky drinks tray inside or out? Suitable for both indoor and outdoor use, it is a versatile shelving unit with bags of rustic charm, just waiting to be useful.
£90
Gardentrading.co.uk
Plant Plot
For those who don’t have much space outdoors, succulents are a great way to keep the greenery of the outdoors inside. They are great choice for a first house plant as they can be left, but ensure they’re in a sunny spot, in well-drained soil and keep them warm.
Succulents are available from most garden centres, but we’ve chosen online retailer Scandiscapes, a website destination for all things Scandi and biophilic – sustainable designs that aim to reconnect people with the natural environment. This mini succulent in cactus soil is an inexpensive way to bring the outdoors in all year-round.
£3
Scandiscapes.com