Recommended Gardening Products

Available in 15, 30 and 60 cell, these module trays of my own design are made of strong and durable recycled polypropylene.

The trays have wide holes at the bottom which enable plants to be pushed up easily and also improve drainage. The tapered cells require less compost and result in no waterlogging around the roots. The polypropylene creates smooth and solid cells that help plant rootballs slide upwards with little or no damage to the plant roots, and none to the tray.

Available to purcahse in the UK from Containerwise and The Refill Room.

International stockists: Ireland / The Netherlands / Denmark / Denmark (another) / Norway / North America / Australia and New Zealand (Tasmania)

More information in these YouTube videos:

• My 60 cell and long life module tray
• Charles Dowding module trays of 15 and 30 cells

A long-handled ash dibber of my own design which is made in the UK by an expert woodturning company. As you would expect for a product of this quality, the dibber is superbly sanded and finished with the best product available, Danish Oil.

The latest model features grooves notched into the timber at precise intervals to help with spacings between plants.

To purchase, and for more info, visit the Garden Imports website.

International stockist: North America

For that no dig reminder and to keep you warm in the garden, we have a clothing range of my own design!

The T-shirts, sweaters and hoodies are all made from organic cotton.

Please visit the Teemil site.

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I recommend the beautifully made copper tools sold by Implementations, who are based at a biodynamic farm in Berkshire.

My favourites of these tools are the Castor trowel, Hydra hoe, and … Orion spade. A spade? So good when planting trees and shrubs, plus when removing stemroots of brambles.

The tools are 95% copper, and 5% tin which gives a lot of extra strength. Strictly speaking that is bronze, but colloquially, the word copper is commonly used.

Because they do not to rust, the blades stay smooth and shiny, sliding easily through compost and soil with minimal disturbance. Also the capillary structure of soil is not damaged – this is based on the work of Victor Schuberger who first advised using copper. That was in the early 1930s when he was called in by the king of Bulgaria to advise on why their wheat harvests were declining. Schauberger noticed the worst problems were where they had switched from using wooden mouldboard ploughs to iron. When they reverted to wood, or used copper in some form, the harvests went back up. See this book, Living Water.

Reddifast Steel make the 4mm high tensile, galvanised, straightened wire – buy from Sharanya Eco Garden.

A less expensive alternative is 5mm wire, softer and not high tensile. This site sells it in long rolls. You will notice that the hoops bend more, but can still support the weight of fleece and mesh. Thanks to Frederic Berkmiller for this information.

International supplier: The Netherlands

I recommend the website Gardening Naturally for fleece, mesh and bird netting.  My affiliate link is here.

In summer, I recommend to cover new brassica plantings with fine Veggiemesh.

In early spring, it’s worth covering new plantings with fleece. There’s a lot of poor quality stuff available, but this fleece is thicker (30gsm), stronger and will last you for several years of use. Also you never need to wash it.

Sometimes the thicker fleece is a little too heavy to sit on top of plants. Also it’s frustratingly opaque so you can’t see what is happening underneath and, therefore, I like to use also the 25 g/m², available from Quickcrop. Quickcrop also sell 35 gsm fleece.

See also the plastic-free fleece from my Crocus range.

The hedge trimmer I use is a Stihl HLA 85.

And a Bosch AXT 25 TC electric shredder, which chops and crushes up to 45mm diameter.

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This is a device in two halves, each with a magnet. Magnetic attraction between the two halves holds the device onto standard half inch / 12mm hoses or pipes. It works for diameters up to 20mm.

I have noticed improvement in growth from using it when watering. For example the polytunnel salads were extra productive from December 2022 through April 2023, after some unusually cold weather.

I find it also softens the water here. For example the kettle now has little new scale of calcium carbonate.

Veda Austin on Instagram does microscope analysis of water quality and wrote to me that her plantsurge device made a noticeable structural improvement to tap water. She wrote "I even use it on my shower hose because it's so simple to apply".

She visited Homeacres October 2023 and helped me to do an ice crystal analysis if the tap water here. It has beautiful imagery! A heart shaped leaf under a gable roof, with many ladder structures nicely organised.

For a 10% discount, enter the code nodig at checkout on the Plantsurge website.

If in North America, this is the Plantsurge site.

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A friend of mine bought me an Analemma 'wand' (my term!) as a gift. It has been developed by a group of scientists in Europe over the last two decades and with extensive trialling, with people and on plants.

By stirring the with the Analemma device, which holds "coherent" water, you can transform tap water, even beer and wine, into liquids with wonderful flavour. Just to be clear, the water stays as water and does not become wine! The most common feedback I have is that it's so smooth!

The water molecules become aligned and the feel of the water when you drink it is soft, also a little viscous. This aligns with the work of Gerald Pollack, in his book, The Fourth Phase of Water. That phase is defined as existing where the H2O molecules have flattened down into a hexagonal framework, such as one sees in a honeycomb. Another term for it is liquid crystalline, or semicrystalline water. Other people call it structured. There is no one agreed term.

The only UK distributor of Analemma is Atta Life and they point to all the research carried out by the Analemma team. It's fascinating to read of the health benefits not only for us, but for plants too.

I have now fitted a garden hose Analemma and I will be doing a trial to see the difference in health and growth of my plants. If you would like to look into this further please use this link.