USE YOUR PATCH OF EARTH
Photo by Sue Harrison
Grow life in your soil
Create a habitat
Grow your own fruit, veg, and bird food!!
Don't have your own patch? Volunteer!
OUR PLANET-LIFE IS IN TROUBLE
From elephants to ants, panthers to sparrows, we have seen drastic reductions in the amount of wildlife on our planet. This is a crisis for them and us. The 2019 Nature Report revealed that overall, populations of the UK’s most valuable wildlife have plummeted by 60% since 1970 , and 69% worldwide.
DID YOU KNOW THAT IF WE WERE TO WEIGH EVERY MAMMAL ON THE PLANET WE WOULD FIND THAT ONLY 4% OF THAT BIOMASS WAS WILDLIFE?
YOU MAY ASK WHAT ACCOUNTS FOR THE REMAINING 86% OF MAMMAL BIOMASS. WELL, 36% IS HUMAN BEINGS AND 60% ARE DOMESTIC ANIMALS. NATURE IS BEING CROWDED OUT UNTIL IT CAN NO LONGER SURVIVE. WE NEED TO MAKE ROOM.
YOUR PATCH OF EARTH IS ANY OUTDOOR SPACE NEARBY. THIS MAY BE A GARDEN, A GREEN STRIP IN THE STREET, A ROUNDABOUT, A PARK OR A COMMUNITY GARDEN. EVEN A WINDOWBOX CAN HELP.
USING YOUR PATCH OF EARTH MEANS TO STOP KILLING THINGS AND START CARING FOR THINGS, ABOVE GROUND AND UNDERGROUND.
IF WE WERE ALL TO MAKE OUR OWN LITTLE PATCHES MORE WILDLIFE FRIENDLY THERE WOULD BE A SIGNIFICANT BENEFIT FOR LOCAL POPULATIONS. IT WOULD MAKE OUR TOWNS NICER PLACES TO BE TOO.
USING YOUR PATCH OF EARTH MEANS TO STOP KILLING THINGS AND START CARING FOR THINGS, ABOVE GROUND AND UNDERGROUND.
GROW LIFE IN YOUR SOIL
Photo by Richard Lewis
Biodiversity starts with the soil life. That can be nurtured simply with a mulch of well-rotted organic matter once a year, and by gardening in a way that causes minimal soil disturbance. Also, the more diverse your plants, the more diverse your bugs, and the more food there will be for your birds and mammals. Very quickly the ecosystem as a whole will begin to thrive. Create a healthy no dig garden where the soil life is well fed, undisturbed and fungal networks thrive, which also locks in carbon too. Make your own compost and never use peat. Peat extracted for horticulture in 2020 alone could release up to 880,000 tonnes of CO2 – equivalent in emissions to driving to the moon and back 4,600 times!
CREATE A HABITAT
Photo by Cherry Taylor
Create as many different habitats as you have space for - ponds, boggy areas, log & brush piles, bug hotels, long grass, short grass, shrubs, trees, nettle patches, dead hedge etc.
If you have room, put up various bird boxes, for our small birds, swallows, martins and even owls.
Resist the urge to tidy the garden over winter... those insects, mammals and birds need shelter – if you must clear some areas of dead stems, make a dead hedge with them or stack them in a distant corner.
Don't use chemicals or plastic lawns which suffocate everything underneath them and leach microscopic plastic particles into the soil and water.
GROW YOUR OWN FRUIT, VEG AND BIRD FOOD!
Photo by Kasia Ociepa
Grow your own food, to reduce food miles and packaging. Start with potatoes, strawberries and tomatoes. Easy, healthy and delicious.
Grow some plants specifically for the pests which will then attract more predators (e.g. nasturtiums / perennial kale are a great food for caterpillars, which are a great food for hedgehogs and birds)
Grow your own bird food with plants that offer seeds / food in autumn and winter, like sunflowers, fennel, evening primrose, crab apple trees, Hawthorne, buddleia, knautia, verbena bonariensis, rudbeckia, verbascum, etc
FACTS AND FIGURES
Simple Steps logo by Rebecca Jackson
Did you know, the area of our gardens is greater than all the UK's national parks added together? Helping nature in your garden or local green spaces can contribute towards reducing your own carbon footprint, and at the same time help the planet and its ever decreasing wildlife. The three main causes of their decline are loss of places for them to live, loss of food (such as insects) and the use of chemicals such as herbicides and pesticides, even ones that claim to be “safe”. Nearly half of Britain’s biodiversity has gone since industrial revolution
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VOLUNTEEER
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There are lots of community spaces and community groups in and around Abergavenny & Crickhowell. Please contact Freinds of Bailey Park, Abergavenny Community Orchard or Abergavenny Community Centre for more information.
