Eco Friendly House And Garden

All around me I see baby trees that are never going to become beautiful oaks or great maples!

In lawns, grass verges, church yards and driveways, I see little trees that have spent all winter putting all their effort into growing – only to be guaranteed to last only a short time more.

With the closing in of the lawn mower season – many of these little survivors will have their tops cut off and live no more!  Yet more can be found growing in ridiculous spots – like a crack in the concrete or up against your home – and will never be allowed to grow to full size!

But, you can help them!  You could give a tree a helping hand – in the same way that we need them to clean our air and feed and protect our wildlife in return.  And it won’t cost you a penny – nature has given you them for free!

So why not move them to a better place while why they are still only tiny, and give them a better chance at growing up!

But How Do I know What A Baby Tree Looks Like?
Luckily for you, spotting a baby tree is so very easy as they nearly all look virtually identical at the moment – growing about an inch or two high out of the grass – see the picture below:

All baby trees grow these same 2 leaves as their first leaves so once you have seen one you will know what they all look like!

It’s only the following set of leaves that are the same shape as their adult leaves – so in a way it is sometimes a little surprise to find out what it is exactly that you have saved!

It could be a mighty oak, a quivering willow or a festive holly tree – but either way – it is a tree that now stands a much better chance of survival if you move it to a flower border, by your hedge or wherever.  As long as it’s not on the lawn!

Watch Them Grow:
Now don’t worry about there being too many trees in your garden if you save them all, as these little babies take years before they will affect your garden – and many of them will become lunch for bunnies and deer or die naturally.

And it will take something like an oak about 30/40 years before it’s big enough for you to climb!  However, they could make a great hedge to make your garden more secluded.

Some of these trees will be smaller trees anyway, like holly, and so will actually look great as they grow up - as well as feeding the winter wildlife!

Maybe take photos of them growing over the years to see your work being rewarded.  And pictures of their first leaves can help you to identify them – and maybe help you decide where the best spot to move them to is.  

I mean, you wouldn’t want a great pine tree right next to the house, and a holly bush close to a path or garden bench could be quite uncomfortable! But an elderberry tree could be great near the kitchen to make some great summer drinks!

Have fun saving your free trees – and our environment!

Bad vegetable planning results in more food that you will want to eat!

I’ve seen it over and over again when people start growing their own food – they grow too much.  There is a fear that there may not be enough of something – so over-planting is widespread.  Please don’t make that mistake yourself.

Even on my tiny allotment, I wanted to sow in rows like all the other people were doing, and this resulted in far too many radishes to harvest!  What a waste of the earth resources!  I was using up all it’s vitamins and other nutrients in my soil to grow a crop I just couldn’t face even eating! 

There was also the continuous begging of other people on nearby allotments for me to take some of their courgettes/seedlings/rhubarb/cuttings or runner-beans!  They just had too many too!

I totally agree that it is great of others to share their bumper crops rather than let them go to waste – but why spend your time, effort and resources growing food you have to give away?

Wouldn’t it be better to control your growing and have a better variety than before?

Surely it is better to run out of courgettes but have had some squash and pumpkins too!
Wouldn’t you rather tend smaller areas of crops than have row after row to weed and harvest?

There are many reasons why it is better to start small and learn from last year than to plunge straight in – and here are a few of them:

1) I can’t eat another courgette!
Most important to someone new to growing vegetables is that they need to find it fun.  They need to enjoy preparing, tending and then eating their crops.  And that can’t happen if you take on too much.

There is no need to grow loads and loads of the same things because it’s easy to grow, like potatoes, or because you got loads of seeds or seedlings.  Crops need energy and water to grow successfully – the earth in your vegetable plot on raised beds isn’t self regenerating – it gets used by everything you grow on it – so grow with care.

Also, if you find yourself harvesting a bumper crop of courgettes, it will be fun at first and you will try new dishes with them and tell your friends how yummy they are – then it will become apparent that you have been eating courgettes for dinner nearly every day for the past 2 weeks – yet there are still more in the fridge and even more ripening in your garden.

Soon, you will actually try to avoid eating courgettes at all because you are sick of the site of them and will no doubt end up throwing a few away as you picked them before you needed them and they have ‘gone off’.

Then you will run out of people to give your spare one’s too.  You will have asked the neighbors and friends at work or down the local club, and they will love it at first but then you might get embarrassed to turn up with a carrier bag of yet more courgettes to be palmed off to whoever will take them, or you might just get fed up with trying to find homes for them….

Basically, if you grow too much of something – it’s not fun anymore!

So, join me in a few days for Part 2 of this article for some more reasons to start small – if that wasn’t reason enough!