It’s Plastic-Free July! Look around your garden or growing space. How much plastic do you see?  

It can feel hard to avoid – after all, plants come in plastic pots, plastic seed trays are cheap and easily available, and how else can a bag of peat-free compost be loaded into your car? 

But there are things we can do to reduce, reuse and recycle. And you don’t have to do everything. Plastic-Free July asks us all to consider cutting out just one type of plastic – make just one small change. Find out more about that here.  

Gardening without plastic 

Garden Organic have great information here, with seven ways you can reduce your use of plastic in your garden. 

At the Wildlife Trusts, there’s a handy page here full of information about using less plastic generally. 

If you’re lucky enough to have space to grow trees, you might have thought about those plastic tree guards to protect saplings and young trees. Actually, think again – find out more about alternatives here. 

Ben Vanheems from GrowVeg has a brilliant short video here, packed with advice about alternatives to plastic in the vegetable garden – from buying, sowing, growing and harvesting right through to how you might store different vegetables.  

Living without plastic 

The WI has been running a campaign for a few years now, and it’s called End Plastic Soup. You can find more about that here and why not download their action pack here.

For inspiration, check out this blog, Plastic Clear for a Year. Bex Lynam, North Sea Marine Advocacy Officer, based at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, explains how she rose to the challenge of going plastic-free for a full year.