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One of Britain’s leading garden retailers has taken steps to reassure customers that its seed potatoes are safe to handle.
Shoppers at Homebase were confronted by signs warning that seed spuds have been treated with chemicals.
Signs urged gardeners to wear gloves while planting, due to tubers having been treated with fungicide.
A Homebase spokesman said: “The poor weather this year has had…
Seed firm Unwins has teamed up with charity Garden Organic to bring out a range of organic seeds for kitchen gardeners.
The line-up of 24 varieties, including herbs, peas, salad leaves and beans, is aimed at Britain’s growing band of gardeners who are keen to cultivate edible crops in a sustainable manner.
Called Unwins Organic, sales of seeds will help to fund…
Green groups have lashed out after an influential organic gardener demanded the right to use peat.
Writing in AG, Bob Flowerdew, the BBC Radio 4 Gardeners’ Question Time panellist, made the ultimate organic taboo: he confessed to using a small amount of peat in loam-based sowing compost.
Bob argued that peat was a renewable resource and suggested: “Why not let us have…
Anti-peat warriors are licking their wounds after suffering a devastating setback.
Campaigns to bring a peat phase-out forward from 2020 to 2016, and calls for a tax on peat-based compost, have been brushed aside by the Government.
It has even been confirmed that targets to wean gardeners off peat over the next decade will be voluntary.
A similar ‘voluntary’ deadline set by the…
Green garden products could soon carry an official organic label.
The move is aimed at cutting confusion over eco-friendly claims, branded ‘greenwash’ by environmentalists.
Charity Garden Organic has issued a set of traffic light-style organic guidelines. Red lights show what is not acceptable while a green light indicates best practice.
The guidelines say peat is “never acceptable in an organic garden” and that…
Conservationists say they are “stunned” after TV gardener Alan Titchmarsh admitted to using weedkiller and peat.
The former Gardeners’ World presenter, who claims to have resisted chemical pesticides for 10 years, confessed he’d “occasionally” used Roundup weedkiller as “his back is not as well oiled as it was for double digging”.
To the dismay of green groups, Alan, who is regarded as…
Peat-based composts are set to make a big comeback, in a move branded “irresponsible” and “shocking” by campaigners.
Suppliers are gearing up to launch a host of peat-based brands after Government targets for the UK to be 90 per cent peat-free by 2010 fell by the wayside.
Westland will introduce a multi-purpose compost called Jack’s Magic. It contains 90 per cent peat.…
