Ronseal have done some research with Professor Geoff Beattie looking at data rom the last 25 years into how exposure to gardens and other outdoor spaces can impact on the wellbeing of the general public and affect mood and behaviour.

The conclusions are clear – that a lack of green spaces is bad for people!

The triggers according to the report.

1. Over exposure to concrete or overly built up environments.
2. Over exposure to noisy, busy and over-stimulating environments.
3. Poor natural light balance – whether too bright or too dingy.
4. Poorly maintained spaces – messy areas full of rubbish, clutter or dead plants and flowers.
5. A lack of fresh air.
6. Remaining within a building for too long, without any natural view available.
7. Refusing to connect with or appreciate any outdoor space with a ‘head down, keep moving’ attitude.
8. Competition for green space – for example fighting crowds in a busy city centre park on a sunny lunchtim

It’s been reported recently that the UK spends £750M picking up litter – and judging by most people’s responses when told this, they don’t feel it’s being spent near them!

My own views on this are simple – we all need a garden. Inner city areas which either tiny or no gardens are bad for people. Children need a safe outside space where they can play every day – under the watchful eye of a parent from the kitchen window, or french windows. Families in flats are, again in my opinon, deprived of an essential part of growing up. A safe garden is great for children to play in without constant supervision by mum when they’re young – and by safe obviously I mean child friendly with plenty of grass to play on, no water features to fall into, or poisionous plants. As a direct result perhaps, parents feel their children are vulnerable to the outside world and aren’t allowed to play outside because of a lack of safe private space to develop independence to then move on to playing outside the family garden. Other research has shown that children play closer to their home now than they have at any time over the last 50 years.

The report highlights top tips on how to solve this problem:

1. Time – ensure you spend time outside every day in a green space. If you don’t have a garden this will mean discovering your local parks and green spaces.

2. Make the most of the space you have – even a window box can help, or perhaps a bird feeder situated outside your window.

3. Sit quietly outside and relax! Making the most of your garden means relaxing in it too – and a nice set of garden furniture can really make the difference. Ronseal have a range of wood preservatives and finishes that can help your furniture last longer. They also have a competition on their website.
Furniture that’s always outside so it’s easier to take a short break is less effort than having to unlock the shed and drag out a chair! Ronseal do lots of wood care products to allow you to keep wooden furniture outside all year round.

4. Look after your garden! Even if you just mow the lawn and don’t have tons of plants your garden needs to look tidy. A messy lawn will make you feel depresed just looking at it! The exercise is also good for you. Experts recommend 30 minutes exercise a day – so why not turn your garden into your own gym! All that mowing, pruning and weeding counts towards your daily exercise routine! The chill out and relax and enjoy the view!

5. Enjoy the sounds of nature – get a bird feeder so you can enjoy listening to the birds chip and chirp all day. Or a water fountain provides a restful relaxing sound

I’m glad Ronseal have done this report – I’ve always believed that gardens are essential for a healthier and happier society!

This is using the Potato growing kit from Unwins –Unwins Potato Growing Bags Variety Pack Voucher code: GrowBags1111 Condition you must use the above link for this code to work Expiry: 31.09.2010

This code has been stopped temporarily but we will let you know as soon as it’s live again!

They will stop dispatching soon but you can preorder for next year!

Your potato growing kit arrives with three potato growing bags, a packet of fertiliser and your seed potatoes. You’ll need to get some compost though and additional fertiliser. Unwins sell and recommend a seaweed feed for use during the growing season.
Unwins have several varieties of potatoes available.
You’ll find the instructions included too – and they’re really easy to follow.

Put about 6″ of compost in the bottom of the potato bags. You might need a hand doing this as bags of compost are heavy. Wear gloves too! Break up any large clumps of compost and level it down.

This bottom layer is where the potatoes will start to grow. That’s why the next step is important. Once you’ve part filled all three potato bags you need to open the potato fertiliser and divide it up between them equally. If you over do it in one bag then move it around. You want all three bags to have roughly the same amount in. Mix it in – again wearing gloves.
Once this is done you can then put your potatoes in. You get 15 tubers in a kit. You should have had them on a frost free windowsill until they’ve sprouted. These shoots are the plant trying to grow! You’ll know what to look for if you’ve ever had potatoes in your cupboard at home for more than a few days.
Place them so the shoots are growing upwards. Then cover them with more compost. They need to be about 4″ deep. As they grow you’ll need to add more compost until the bag is nearly full.

Once they’re covered put the bags in their final place – as sunny a spot as possible, but near the place you’ll be getting the water from – so you don’t have a huge long trek from the tap!

Water them and keep them watered regularly. As they grow they need plenty of water, especially as they start to develop tubers.
You do need to keep topping the compost up until it’s about an inch or so near the top of the bag – leave this room to make it easier to water them.
The bags have two handles on but as they get topped up they’ll get heavier. Always get help moving them if you can’t manage it easily.

You can buy different types of potato to grow in your bags – and the bags are reusable so next year you only need to buy the tubers and potato fertiliser.
Compost can be from a sack of multi-purpose compost or even a grow bag. Growbags are often cheaper – but you’ll need about 2 per potato bag.
If you have a greenhouse then you can start off the earlies in there and have much earlier early potatoes – a true delight and one of the joys of growing your own is that you can harvest and eat them within 20 minutes!

You can of course use other containers for growing potatoes in – but these bags aren’t expensive, fold away flat at the end of the season and will last for many years. They also have handles which makes moving them easy. They are the right size for growing 5 tubers in and can also be used after you’ve harvested your potatoes for other plants. If you have a small garden then they are ideal as in winter they can be dried and put away for next spring, unlike tubs which are bulky.

Dandelions are hated weeds. They grow like mad in the lawn, they limbo under the lawn mower blade and are very good at staying once they’re in!
They’re identified by the bright yellow flowers which are shortly followed by the white balls of seeds which blow away easily to form new plants.
You can actually eat dandelion leaves – they’re slightly bitter though, but fine to eat. You can blanche them too by hiding the sunlight and this makes the taste milder.
They are best dug out using a long handled tool – or even a kitchen knife. You will spend a long time getting them out. Some people like to weedkill them.
Remove the flowers to prevent seeds forming in the compost heap and put the roots in the main bin as they will grow if put anywhere in the compost.
The leaves are zig zag edges. Almost every child in the country has been told that if you pick them you wet the bed. It’s not true – and I’m not sure why children were discouraged from picking them. They do have a sap that leaks from the stem and leaves if you break it though.

Daisy is one of the commonest weeds found in your lawn. They’re quite pretty though and you can make daisy chains with them. They don’t spread wildy so if you’re not bothered by an odd patch of tiny white and yellow flowers, then leave them!
The leaves are small oval shaped and they cluster together. You can easily dig them out if you want – they don’t have deep roots – and fill the hole with soil/grass seed mixture.

Some people love them in the lawn – so don’t be afraid to admit it if you are!

You can grow tomatoes from seed like I’m doing – or you can buy the plants ready grown and ready to go into the greenhouse. It is less effort buying the plants but seeds are fairly cheap and as long as they don’t die from frost they should be ok.
A problem with growing from seed – well for me anyway, is being pessemistic about how many seeds will come through. Virtually all the tomato seeds I’ve planted this year have come up – so now I’ve got 20 plants in my greenhouse. This is nice in a way as I’ll have plenty of tomatoes to use, but also means I’ll need some extra tomato food!

I can recommend unwins for buying plants from. They’ve got a great choice of greenhouse plants from different types of tomatoes, peppers, chilis and Aubergine plants.
Buy greenhouse plants online at Unwins

The tomato seedling in the picture is of a plum tomato called San Marzano. The true shape of the tomato leaf is now showing – contrasting with the smooth leaf shape of the first two seed leaves.
It’s always worth bearing in mind you can buy plants in case you have a disaster in the greenhouse!

Easy to grow – just put them in. They need little attention other than some feeding and watering when it’s hot.

These are the seeds that most primary school children will have grown on blotting paper rolled up in jars! It’s something I did when I was at primary school – bought them home and planted them out and picked my first home grown broad beans aged about 8 or 9. I had them with bacon – something that I still think goes really well.

They’re relaxing to pod too – with their fat furry lined cases!

In the picture these are about 2 weeks old. They should be being planted out soon. They can also be sown directly into the ground.

It’s nights like these your plants will appreciate a fleece cover if they’re delicate! Or a greenhouse heater!
It’s probably going to be frosty tonight across the UK so I hope your plants are all ok. I’ve got nothing outside that’s particularly fragile but I have got a lot of tomato plants in the greenhouse.

Have been investigating the price of paraffin and comparing it to electric heating. It seems mad almost to heat such an uninsulated space – and I suppose many people do actually use bubble wrap in their greenhouses – but at the cost of light.

Today’s picture is of carrot seedlings just coming through! Just goes to show that they look just like lots of other plants seedlings even though they grow up to have completely different leaves! We’re growing two types of carrots – some Early Nantes and some Chantenay carrots.

It’s intermittantly lovely out there. The sun keeps hiding behind a cloud which makes the temperature dip. We monitor the greenhouse temperature with a sensor so we can see just how much the sunshine heats up the greenhouse!

Outside the chives are looking excellent. I should really be using more of them – they’re starting to flower! They’re a pretty flower which is why I don’t mind – and if you leave them the flowers create seeds for passing on to other people.
Buy Chive seeds at unwins – there’s several to buy including Chives Fine Leaved Seeds which are the normal ones as well as Garlic Chives Seeds.

My tomato plants are starting to grow! As you’d expect of course – but the number of them we have it’s going to be a squeeze in the greenhouse.

I’ve got some moneymaker, marmande , some Garden Pearl and some San Marzano ones which are plum tomatoes.
The marmande are big beef tomatoes and the garden pearls are cherry tomatoes. I decided to grow different types as it’ll be interesting to taste them all and see what differences there are.
You can buy tomato plants using the links above from Unwins.
I’ve also got some basil growing – so I can make a tomato and basil salad!

The peas are coming on nicely – they’re outside but in pots. And fingers crossed the slugs haven’t got them yet! I’ve got my nemotode slug killer which I’m going to read the instructions on thoroughly tonight!

I’ve got three types of onions! Red, white and spring!
The onions grow from sets – apart from the spring onions which grow from seed. They look quite similar – although the spring onions are tiny and delicate!
The idea is that the main onions get started in a pot and then get put in the ground. The bloke on the allotment did this and got some amazing onions at the end of the season! Also the garden isn’t quite ready for planting in yet!
The ones on the left are spring onions!

If you grow chives then when you thin them out pass some on to a friend who’s got a garden. They look so pretty even in a front garden and you never know when you want some to eat!
The lawn needs cutting again but it can wait another day or two yet!

Today I was pleased to find the tomatoes I’d potted on were fine. They’d looked really wilted yesterday and for a while I thought I’d killed them… but not yet!
I’ve even labelled them which was impressive for me. Only by numbers though – but I do have a list of the tomatoes I’m growing somewhere… and as soon as I find it I’ll share!

The rocket is coming on nicely too – starting to look really healthy. It’s quite peppery to eat but nice! It’s one of those pick and pick again crops that are handy to have. It’s quite dear if you buy it from the supermarket – so you can easily match one packet of seed up against the price of a bag of the stuff and then you’ll get tons more than that. It should be planted outside but I’ve not got anywhere for it yet.The garden transformation is taking longer than expected. We’ve found yet more rocks from the old path and have a huge pile! I’ve put them on ebay!

I’ve got some beans in little plant pots and I can now tell they’re too different types!
I love beans and they’re so nice fresh – much better than getting them from the supermarket too!
They’re fairly easy to grow – the biggest problem we had last year on the allotment was the slugs. I’ve got some nemosluf killer on it’s way this year though so there won’t be a slug problem in the garden!

Slugs are a major pest to the vegetable garden. It seems like they’ll travel for miles to get to your deliciously young plants that you’ve just put in. It can be devasting to see plants scoffed overnight.

There’s a few things you can do to get rid of slugs in the garden.

You can use beer traps. This involves putting beer in a container and the slugs are attracted to the smell of the beer and get in for a drink. Once in they drown. A bit gross and not for the squeamish – you have to keep it clear of dead ones else they become a raft for the living… Told you it was gross… It’s effective and you can use very cheap beer. It’s also a good excuse for keeping a few tins in the shed incase of emergencies.

You can use slug pellets. These are a bit pricey and need regularly reapplying as they disolve in the rain and damp.

Another very gross one – You can go and kill them at night – either by chopping them up or applying salt. You can also mow the lawns in the late evenings – as slugs are active in the night-time then you can kill quite a few at night by just cutting the grass. The neighbours will think you’re mad and you might end up having an accident so we don’t recommend this one.

The most sensible way is to buy Nemaslug Nematodes: Slug Killer. It’s available in two sizes:
Regular Pack treats up to 40m²
Large pack treats up to 100 metres square

This simply needs watering in to your garden. Easy. Simple and the nemotodes do the hard work for you! It’ll last 6 weeks too!

Got to be worth getting just so you can see how much your garden can produce when you’re not feeding a hoard of slugs!