How do I use a wormery?
Setting up and running a wormery for kitchen waste in a small garden or on a balcony, and diagnosing the four things that usually go wrong.
beginner30 min3 min read
Soil & Compost
The part of gardening that decides everything else.
87 guides in Garden
Should I use a rotavator on my garden?
What a rotavator is genuinely good for, the three things it does that you cannot undo, and why one pass on couch grass turns one weed into two hundred.
intermediate2 hr4 min readWhat are perlite and vermiculite actually for?
Two white things in bags that look interchangeable and do opposite jobs — one adds air, the other holds water.
beginner10 min3 min readAre wood ashes good for the garden?
A useful free source of potassium that is also a fast-acting lime — which is why it belongs on the fruit and the brassicas and nowhere near the blueberries.
beginner15 min5 min readCan you put too much compost on a garden?
Yes — and the way it goes wrong is not what people expect. Nutrient imbalance, phosphorus build-up and a bed that is no longer soil.
intermediate15 min4 min readWhy does my soil go hard and crusty after rain?
Capping is raindrops smashing weak aggregates apart on bare soil — why it stops seedlings emerging, and the three changes that end it.
beginner20 min3 min readIs seaweed good for the garden, and can I collect it from the beach?
Fresh, dried, meal and extract are four different products with three different jobs — plus the law on collecting it, which is not what most people assume.
beginner25 min4 min readOrganic or synthetic fertiliser — does it matter to the plant?
To the root, a nitrate ion is a nitrate ion. To the soil, to the timing and to how easily you can get it wrong, the difference is real — and it is not the one most people argue about.
intermediate15 min3 min readHow do I store opened compost and fertiliser?
Compost degrades in the bag and fertiliser does not — the storage that keeps each of them usable, and the realistic shelf life of both.
beginner15 min4 min readIs spent mushroom compost any good?
Cheap, bulky and genuinely useful — but it is alkaline, and that single fact decides where it belongs and where it does real damage.
beginner15 min4 min readWhat is green manure, and is it worth sowing?
What a cover crop actually does for bare soil over winter, which one to sow when, and the case where it is more trouble than it is worth.
beginner45 min4 min readIs double digging worth doing?
The four situations where it earns its enormous effort, the reasons it fell out of favour, and the far cheaper alternative that gets most of the benefit.
advanced8 hr4 min readWhat is foliar feeding and when does it actually work?
A genuine technique for correcting trace element deficiencies fast — and a poor substitute for feeding the roots, which is how it is usually sold.
intermediate15 min4 min readIs biochar worth using in a garden?
What biochar genuinely does, why raw biochar makes a garden worse for a season, and an honest reading of where the evidence is strong and where it is not.
advanced20 min4 min readWhy is there a white crust on my pots and compost?
Fertiliser salts and hard-water minerals accumulate in containers — how to tell the harmful deposit from the harmless one, and how to flush a pot properly.
beginner12 min4 min read