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If you want to do some gardening while at uni, you don't need to have much garden space to do it in. Plant pots, window boxes and small corners of a patio are all that's needed to grow wonderful flowers and vegetables.
It is well worth joining Garden Organic's Heritage Seed Library. For a small membership fee, you gain access to a wealth of gardening information, as well as seeds delivered to you each year. The seeds you get are native varieties that would otherwise face extinction, since commercially available seed tends only to be one or two varieties of each species. Many of their seed varieties have never been available via catalogues, so this is a great opportunity! Members of the Heritage Seed Library tend to swap seed throughout the year, so you have potential access to hundreds of varieties.
Garden Organic
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Get Started
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First of all, you'll want to work out where you're going to grow your plants, and what conditions they'll be growing in. Is it sunny/shaded, sheltered or exposed? Once you know what the conditions and size of the area are like, you can choose your plants accordingly. Do you want pretty flowers, or functional vegetables? Obviously, vegetables can be beautiful too!
Next you'll need to stock up on pots, soil and equipment. If your university has groundskeepers, it's worth finding them and asking if they have any spare pots, topsoil etc. that you could take off their hands for them. Also, it's well worth asking the same of your local garden centres. Alternatively, you can just buy them new.
You need to decide if you want to grow from seed, or established plants. Once you have everything ready, make sure you've read up on the plants' requirements, and away you go!
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Pesky Pests
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If you want an organic garden, weedkiller and slug pellets are not an option. For slugs and snails, there are many green alternatives to pellets - regularly scattering barbecue ash and crushed eggshells on your soil is not only a good mulch, but it deters slugs and snails. You can also buy copper tape to put around your pots, which the slimy critters can't stand to touch.
Wild garlic is a brilliant plant, as you can eat the leaves, stalks, flowers and bulbs (it tastes like a cross between chives and mild garlic and is great in salads) but it is said to deter cats and aphids as well.
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