Garden And Gardener

Everything for the Gardener and their Garden

Archive for the 'Free stuff' Category

City Cottage – free magazine

Tuesday, February 26th, 2013

Read City Cottage free – it’s a free online magazine about self Sufficiency, keeping hens, bees, growing vegetables, fruit, cooking and making food. How to make bacon and sausages, how to bake bread and cheese. All these things in the city – You don’t need land to live the Good Life.

You can meet Paul at the Edible Garden show – Stoneleigh Park from March 15th-17th 2013. – Open 9:30am – 4:30pm daily.

Free compost!

Monday, February 25th, 2013

Lucky Swansea residents can go and collect some free compost!

Free garden compost is now available to all Swansea residents from the Tir John Community Recycling Site.
Free compost is available on a first come first served basis, and is subject to availability. Compost should be available throughout the summer.

Anyone wishing to make use of this service is advised to bring their own shovel and container.

Make loo roll plant pots

Monday, January 21st, 2013



And another technique here where you cut and fold up flaps like closing a box

Free plant pots!

Free entry to Kew gardens

Monday, December 17th, 2012

FREE Kew Gardens entry (usually £16)
99,000 available
What: Free entry to Kew Gardens Get by: Before 99,000 go
How: From Mon 17 Dec 2012, book online at Kew Gardens for free entry between Sat 22 Dec 2012 and Fri 4 Jan 2013.

You can book up to 10 tickets per transaction and there are no booking or transaction fees. Just print your ticket at home and take it with you on the day you visit.

What do I get? Free entry to Kew Gardens between Sat 22 Dec 2012 and Fri 4 Jan 2013. Tickets usually cost £16 each, though children under 16 go free anyway.

The ticket includes access to all glasshouses, gardens and the David Nash at Kew exhibition and is valid every day. Check opening hours before you visit.

The detail: 9,000 free tickets available for each day the gardens are open, though you can book in advance for any date in the date range.

Vegetable growing cards from Garden Organic

Friday, October 5th, 2012

Download some free vegetable growing cards from Garden Organic (right click file save as)

Find out more on their site here:
Handy, quick-reference Growing Instruction Cards – all the information you need to start growing your own veg, fruit, herbs, edible flowers and green manures.
Download them FREE
How to use the cards PDF 243Kb
Glossary of growing terms PDF 2.2Mb
Full set of vegetable growing cards PDF 16Mb
A-Z of individual growing cards

RHS free Friday

Thursday, October 4th, 2012

FREE Day Friday tomorrow! Explore the four RHS Gardens for free, Fri 5 October.

Just seen this on twitter!

Free mushroom compost mulch

Friday, May 25th, 2012

Free compost mushroom mulch – HURRAY!
But it’s in America! Ah well!

The mulch comes from a compost made at the farm. It includes straw from the stables at the Del Mar Race Track. Added to the straw is a recipe of items including peat moss, cotton seed meal and grape pumice.

Source: Free Mushroom Mulch Growing San Diego Fans | NBC San Diego

Free ebook

Sunday, April 29th, 2012

The Farmers’ Handbook is a free permaculture eBook created by Chris Evans (UK) and Jakob Jespersen (Denmark), who have spent considerable time in Nepal, helping to develop locally appropriate methods and technologies that can help the people of Nepal live better lives, and sustainably so.

This free eBook volume covers how to reuse waste water, dealing with sweeping, building a pit latrine, making compost, mulching and double digging in the garden, seed saving, Integrated Pest Management, using liquid manure safely, as well as keeping bees and livestock. It also includes a fascinating description of how to build a non-cement-based water system.
The book covers composting, mulching, pit latrines, and much more! A great afternoon read!

It looks like you have to register to download it though.

Here are the original downloads – it’s split up into chapters
It is really interesting – the photos are of Nepal I assume – and whilst some of the techniques aren’t quite relevent to the UK it’s fascinating.

One thing they recommend is burying a big pole in the compost heap. You use it to wriggle about to get air to the bottom of the heap and if you put it out you can tell from the state of the poll whether the compost is too wet or dry.?

Free pest control book

Thursday, April 26th, 2012

Want to find out more about pest control? You cna get a free pest control book from Harrod Horticultural – you can download one so you can read it straight away.

It covers all the pests you might encounter and they sell products to deal with the pests, both as preventative barriers and treatments.

Ants
Aphids
Carrot Root Fly
Caterpillars
Chafer Grubs
Fungus Fly
Leaf Beetles
Leatherjackets
Mealy Bugs
Raspberry Beetle
Scale Insects
Slugs and Snails
Spider Mite
Vine Weevil
Whitefly

Free pest control posters

Tuesday, April 24th, 2012

Pest control posters – free to download.

Fruit, vegetable and greenhouse pests.